Scouting The 2024 QB Class

With the Super Bowl in the books, the whole NFL is now in offseason mode with eyes ahead to free agency and of course the NFL Draft. We’re still weeks and weeks away from the biggest offseason event in sports, but it’s safe to say the quarterback position will dominate much of the discussion. From this vantage point looking ahead to the end of April, I feel confident saying 2024 will be the fourth draft in history where the first three players off the board will all be quarterbacks. 

• 2021: Trevor Lawrence (Jaguars), Zach Wilson (Jets), Trey Lance (49ers)
• 1999: Tim Couch (Browns), Donovan McNabb (Eagles), Akili Smith (Bengals)
• 1971: Jim Plunkett (Patriots), Archie Manning (Saints), Dan Pastorini (Houston Oilers)

Looking ahead to 2024, one quarterback has had the generational tag bestowed upon him by NFL evaluators since his first year of college — though the tape presents a slightly more complicated picture. Another broke out in his fifth year of college football, while the last would be a slam-dunk No. 1 pick in most drafts if the competition wasn’t so stiff this year. 

None of these three players are can’t-miss prospects. But all three have high-level traits that the NFL is always looking for. Most importantly, all three teams picking at the top of the draft have a major need at quarterback and there are nearly half a dozen other teams who would give up a huge haul of picks to trade up into the top three if one of these teams decided to pass. 

Beyond that, there is a fascinating second tier of prospects who could land anywhere from the top 15 to the top 100 picks. They might not have the obvious upside of the first tier but each player has elements to their game that are legitimate strengths. 

History tells us at least one player in the second tier will have a better career than one or two of the three drafted ahead of them. The draft is an inexact science, which is part of what makes it so fascinating. 

1 – USC QB Caleb Williams

Height: 6-1

Weight: 220

Games watched: 2022 Washington State, 2023 Notre Dame, 2023 Utah, 2023 Washington

Strengths

• High-level arm talent, bordering on elite. Quick release, ball comes out hot with just a flick, and Williams can throw with both pace and distance either from the pocket or off-platform on the move. 
• Accuracy and aggressive mentality to attempt and complete “eff you” throws into tight windows, like this doozy in 2022 against Washington State. Special ability to layer the ball above underneath defenders but still put enough spin on it to beat defenders closing in from over the top. 
• Demonstrated ability to quickly identify windows in coverage from both his pre and post-snap reads and trigger on decisive throws — but not always. More on this later. 
• Outstanding elusiveness. Williams has a combination of wiggle, core strength and pocket feel that make it a chore for pass rushers to get him on the ground. When he breaks into the open field, he has enough speed to gash defenses for chunk gains. Not a foundational piece of the run game like some other quarterbacks, but capable enough in this area to add a wrinkle for the offense of whichever team drafts him. 
• Strong pocket presence. While Williams scrambles a lot, he does not often bail on clean pockets and most of the time he has a good sense of where the bodies are around him. He also doesn’t just escape out the back door, he will climb the pocket and attack the line of scrimmage to put pressure on defenses. Notable improvement from his second year to his third in scrambling to throw instead of scrambling to run. 
• I have other qualms with the USC offense, but something they did a good job of along with Williams was weaponizing the cadence to get free plays from defensive offside calls, and Williams was always ready to go for the kill shot. 
• Williams also has a killer full-motion pump fake, which USC arguably didn’t utilize enough. 
• For the better part of three years, Williams was the starter for high-profile teams. One of the most productive college quarterbacks ever and won the Heisman Trophy in 2022. Accustomed to the bright lights from an early point in his career. 

Weaknesses

• Williams’ biggest weakness is also part of his biggest strength as a prospect. He is always looking for the kill shot downfield, sometimes to the detriment of the offense. Williams regularly passes up open receivers and reads to wait for the chance something better comes along downfield, like someone perpetually swiping left on the dating apps because they can’t stop thinking, “What if the next potential partner is better?” 
• Having said that, Williams made demonstrable improvements in his decision-making from 2022 to 2023. He was better able to balance moving the offense with hunting for the big play, with the glaring exception of the loss to Notre Dame when the game got away early for USC and Williams started pressing to make up. He tossed three of his five interceptions last year against the Irish. In two-minute drills when there’s more emphasis on taking what the defense gives, Williams shows much better game management skills. Still, it’s an area he must continue to improve to have NFL success. 
• Maybe a bit of a personal hot take here: while USC HC Lincoln Riley’s offense is held in high esteem at the college level, I was regularly frustrated watching the scheme. The majority of the plays were different flavors of screens or other one-read plays designed to scheme one receiver wide open with little recourse if the defense wasn’t fooled. The dropback passing game felt stale. Williams’ receivers were often blanketed and he didn’t have any other answers built into the play besides running the scramble drill. It’s not that he can’t run an NFL offense but if he lands in Chicago with OC Shane Waldron, there will be a bit of a transition. If he lands in Washington and reunites with Kliff Kingsbury who was the QB coach at USC this past year, he’ll probably have more familiar concepts, but some of the same pitfalls. 
• Williams also bears some responsibility for the hiccups in USC’s passing attack. Often he failed to throw with anticipation to receivers who would have been open, which goes back to his mentality of big-play hunting. It’s not that he can’t do it — there are plenty of examples of throws with excellent anticipation on his tape — it’s that he misses his window while waiting for something better to develop downfield. There were also too many reps where it looks like he didn’t enter with a clear plan of how he would attack the coverage with the play he was given. Overall, his pure dropback game feels a little underdeveloped at this stage. 
• When throwing over the middle on crossing routes, Williams’ accuracy would sometimes fail to generate opportunities for optimal yards after the catch, arriving behind his intended receiver or slowing them down. I wouldn’t say his accuracy is a major weakness but this happened often enough to note. 
• Williams needs to refine his dropback footwork. There are times where the tempo of his drop needs to be faster to allow him to get the ball out on time. Other times, he needs to recognize when to speed up or curtail his drop to access a throwing window. 

Comparison/Grade

I haven’t kept up with Madden enough to know if this is still in the game, but for a while in the create-a-player feature there was the option to pick different styles that would control how your player was animated. If it was a quarterback, for instance, you could give your dual-threat lefty Philip Rivers’ shotput-style release or the agitated clunky footwork of Peyton Manning. 

Watching Williams felt like someone took Josh Allen and toggled the Aaron Rodgers style button. He has the effortless flick and play-making elusiveness of Rodgers but not his precision — not yet. Williams is a better runner than Rodgers but plays with the frenetic, pedal-to-the-metal style of Allen. Both quarterbacks will put on the superhero cape and put their teams on their backs, sometimes with the cost of collateral damage. 

Williams has rare physical talent and he absolutely should be the No. 1 pick. He has the potential to be one of the true game-changers at the position, someone who can create greatness when everything breaks down around him. He’s drawn comparisons to Patrick Mahomes and the peaks of his game can be in that same neighborhood. 

But any comparison to Mahomes sets Williams up to fail, creating an absurdly unrealistic bar to live up to and missing what makes Mahomes the future GOAT. Mahomes runs his offense with ruthless efficiency and only breaks out the cape when he has to. He doesn’t live on the magic plays alone. Right now, Williams’ game is too reliant on his admittedly exceptional talent and he’ll need to learn to make life easier for himself in the NFL. 

2 – LSU QB Jayden Daniels

Height: 6-3

Weight: 205

Games watched: 2022 Alabama, 2023 Florida State, 2023 Alabama, 2023 Florida

Strengths

• High-level agility and running skills headline Daniels’ game at the moment. He’s not Lamar Jackson, but he’s a dynamic and dangerous rusher who made SEC athletes at Alabama and other schools look silly at times. He’s slippery in the pocket and a true breakaway threat with his speed. Daniels could be a true dual-threat option for whichever team drafts him. 
• Experienced and talented thrower of the football. Daniels has the arm strength to challenge defenses vertically and outside the numbers, and he did so in abundance in 2023 en route to a Heisman Trophy. Daniels lapped the field in explosive plays last season. 
• Generally an accurate thrower. Every quarterback misses the occasional pass, but Daniels’ ball placement stands out, especially on intermediate and deep throws. There were several moments with exceptional ball placement to steer receivers away from defenders or into opportunities for more yards after the catch or even just a completed pass. 
• Shows a generally good grasp of how to attack coverages and how defenses are attacking him. Daniels will cycle through progressions at times and find his checkdown when necessary. I suspect Daniels’ experience sets him apart from other prospects here, as he’s a five-year starter who seized the job as a true freshman at Arizona State and never let it go. 

Weaknesses

• Slight build. Daniels has good height but he’s a lanky player. While his college injury history is pretty clean aside from a concussion this past season, Daniels has the same reckless running style as Josh Allen. He’ll have to make some adjustments to stay healthy in the NFL. 
• Regularly turns down throws over the middle of the field that might be tight for the college game but are considered open in the NFL. Part of the root problem is not attacking with anticipation when the coverage dictates he should. He leaves meat on the bone. 
• Another related issue, Daniels can fall in love with his ability to make a play with his legs at the expense of a throw downfield that would be a bigger and easier gain. Not uncommon with young, talented dual-threat quarterbacks but still something to note. 
• There are times when Daniels would benefit from more controlled movement in the pocket to better set up windows to throw down the field. Can move too dramatically and leave himself out of position. In 2022, he had a tendency to escape out and to the right as opposed to climbing the pocket but improved in this area last season. 
• Daniels’ accuracy has more lapses when he’s on the move versus when he’s stationary in the pocket. 

Comparison/Grade

More often than not these days, it feels like once a year there’s a college quarterback who comes from relative obscurity and puts together a breakout season that asserts them as a bonafide top prospect. This year, Daniels was that guy, making the leap from a solid college player to someone who is absolutely in the conversation for a top-three pick. Daniels shredded teams through both the air and on the ground. Because of his build and play style, the comparisons to a certain Ravens quarterback make sense. But Daniels isn’t the elite athlete Jackson was as a prospect, and while he has more raw arm talent, he’s not as refined a pocket passer as Jackson was either. 

Daniels falls somewhere between Jackson and veteran QB Tyrod Taylor, and I mean that as a compliment. Taylor has been a solid quarterback for a long time and might have been a little ahead of his time unfortunately. He was an outstanding athlete as a prospect, and as an NFL player, he’s done a good job of taking care of the football and throwing a pretty deep ball. Like Daniels, he can also tend to be a see it before he throws it guy. Daniels has more upside but stylistically there are a lot of parallels. 

3 – North Carolina QB Drake Maye

Height: 6-4

Weight: 230

Games watched: Notre Dame 2022, Clemson 2022, Clemson 2023, South Carolina 2023

Strengths

• Prototypical size for the position. While Maye is a little lanky, he declared after his redshirt sophomore season and is just 21, so there’s room for him to grow. 
• Showcases a live arm to bomb it deep down the field or rifle it into tight windows over the middle of the field. Maye loves to throw deep if he catches the safeties a little too low and has no hesitation attacking the middle of the field. He has enough arm strength to cash the checks he’s writing on those throws. 
• Comfortable in tight spaces in the pocket. Maye regularly hangs in while the rush closes in around him. I’ve seen him deliver quality throws down the field with a blocker in his lap. 
• When Maye is forced to break the pocket, he has a creative playmaking streak to MacGyver his way into completions. He’s thrown a touchdown left-handed and will change his arm angles to get the ball out. 
• Maye isn’t as ostentatious a runner as Williams or Daniels but that shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of aptitude. He chews up yards with long strides and has good contact balance. He’ll gash defenses if given a lane and can be a credible threat on designed QB run plays. 

Weaknesses

• Maye will miss layups or sail throws because his footwork gets sloppy. This shows up most often on short throws when he doesn’t set his feet. 
• There’s also room for Maye to play with better anticipation in the quick passing game. Right now his arm strength lets him get away with being a little late on some passes. 
• Sometimes when Maye is really trying to gun it, he’ll do a double hitch into his throws. It’s interesting because I don’t think he needs to do it — his arm strength looks just fine on other plays — but it’s worth noting because of his billing as a strong-armed prospect. Might be a little more complicated than that. 
• Like a lot of younger quarterbacks, Maye will press too hard trying to make a play and end up making things worse, either by taking the sack, fumbling or forcing a ball into coverage. However, there are also plays where he just doesn’t see the field well and turns down throws he shouldn’t. Hard to say at this point if that’s just inexperience or a more concerning aspect of his game. 

Comparison/Grade

Entering this past season, I thought there was a legitimate chance that Maye could overtake Williams as the consensus top quarterback prospect in this class, particularly if the team that landed the No. 1 pick valued Maye’s larger body of work playing within the structure of an offense. Instead, Maye had some growing pains as North Carolina’s supporting cast took a big step back. The early drumbeat seems to have Maye firmly behind Williams and vying with Daniels to be the second quarterback off the board. 

Regardless, Maye is dripping with traits the NFL puts a high value on, and although he operated in a spread offense, there are a ton of clips of him making Sunday throws. Unless he’s picked apart in the next several weeks, Maye should come off the board in the top three picks. There are easy parallels to draw between Maye and another recent top prospect: Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence. While that’s not as much of a compliment now as it may have been last summer, I believe it’s still a largely positive indicator. 

Both Maye and Lawrence are tall, lanky quarterbacks with high-level arm talent and underrated rushing prowess. They’re aggressive pocket passers who have the know-how and mentality to stress defenses down the field and will go lower their shoulder on a tackler when they have to. Both will also get too invested in making the big play and will make a lot of mistakes. Lawrence is still growing out of that phase three years into the league, and the contradiction between that and the expectations he arrived in the league with as the No. 1 overall pick will generate an interesting discussion around him this offseason. 

Maye too will be hailed as a franchise savior when he lands in the NFL. But the key for his career will be landing with a team that understands he’s not a finished product. He has all of the tools to grow into a top-shelf NFL quarterback but some patience will be required. 

4 – Oregon QB Bo Nix

Height: 6-2

Weight: 218

Games watched: 2021 Georgia, 2022 Georgia, 2022 Utah, 2023 Utah

Strengths

• Nix holds the NCAA record for career starts with 60 and is sixth all-time with 1963 career pass attempts. Started as a true freshman at Auburn and for three years total, then put in two high-quality years at Oregon. In recent years, we’ve seen that kind of experience prove beneficial for rookies transitioning to the NFL. 
• Excellent pre-snap recognition. Nix consistently identifies the weak points in opposing coverages and will pile up easy yards if the defense lets him. He also does a good job at identifying opportunities down the field and can adjust if the defense changes the picture on him after the snap. Nix is effective at looking off underneath defenders or deep safeties and delivering passes with anticipation. I would say he’s better at it right now than Williams or Daniels. 
• Nix’s physical tools are strong but don’t leap out on tape as much as other prospects in this class. He’s not as fast as Daniels or McCarthy, he’s not as elusive as Williams, he’s not as big as Maye and his arm doesn’t jump off the screen like Penix’s. But Nix is above average both in terms of arm strength and mobility. He can launch the ball 50 yards, deliver passes with sufficient zip outside the numbers and beat pursuit angles on the run. 
• Nix is athletic enough to be a threat when the play breaks down. He’s creative and has a knack for buying time and finding open receivers. He throws well on the move, and what’s especially notable is his ability as a righthander to get off quality passes when moving to his left. 
• While not an elite athlete, Nix is a real threat in the QB run game and not someone defenses can ignore. He has 1,613 career rushing yards and 38 touchdowns on the ground. 
• Nix flashes moments of strong accuracy and ball placement in the intermediate and deep ranges. When throwing short and over the middle, he consistently delivers the ball in stride to generate potential yards after the catch. 

Weaknesses

• I wouldn’t say there is any one area of Nix’s game that is elite. For instance, while Nix has moments of impressive accuracy, there is still enough inconsistency with his ball placement to be notable. It’s an area of his game he’s improved but he still has room for more. 
• Nix’s pre-snap ability is the closest thing he has to an elite trait right now and it sets him apart from most of the quarterbacks in this class. However, he can still get fooled by defenses or lock onto throws that should not be thrown. He has his fair share of “wtf” turnovers compared to other prospects in this class. 
• Early in his career, Nix developed a reputation as a reckless quarterback who would get too invested in the outcome of a play and make dumb mental errors. For example, at Auburn a player I’ve dubbed “Backwards Bo” would appear, reacting to pressure by running way too far backward and risking a catastrophic outcome, even if the play eventually ended in a throwaway.
• “Backwards Bo” didn’t show up nearly as much at Oregon but it’s worth noting because quarterbacks can sometimes revert to bad habits when pressured, and Nix will see a lot more pressure in the NFL. 

Comparison/Grade

There is a crowded second tier of quarterbacks in this class which will be fascinating to monitor leading up to the draft. The three teams picking at the top of the order are far from the only ones who need help at quarterback, and that leaves the rest to sort through a series of options that are far murkier. At least one of these next three players could convince a team to take the plunge on them in the first round. 

For my money, the best bet is Nix. From what I’ve seen, he’s a bit of a polarizing prospect because of the reputation he picked up from his first three years at Auburn and a lack of trust in the video game numbers he put up at Oregon from fans and social media analysts. But there’s been a drumbeat from other evaluators with ties to the NFL — Dane Brugler at the Athletic and Daniel Jeremiah and Lance Zierlein at NFL Media to name a few — who see a lot to like with Nix’s game. 

I think that’s the best way to sum it up. If you were writing up a checklist of successful quarterback play, Nix would check a ton of boxes. He meets the threshold in a bunch of important areas like physical talent, accuracy, conceptual knowledge, experience and playmaking ability. While he lacks that one key attribute that could unlock an elite outcome, guys who are solid at that many things tend to have solid NFL careers. 

The comparison I kept coming back to with Nix was former Bears QB Mitchell Trubisky. But while Trubisky’s game was less than the sum of its parts, Nix’s career has a chance to be more. 

5 – Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy

Height: 6-3

Weight: 197

Games watched: 2022 TCU, 2023 Penn State, 2023 Ohio State, 2023 Iowa, 2023 Alabama

Strengths

• No issues with arm strength. McCarthy can drive the ball into tight windows and attack deep down the field. 
• At its peak, McCarthy’s accuracy is exceptional. There are at least a couple of throws a game that make you wonder how he fit the ball into such a tiny window. He also has an above-average feel for throwing with anticipation most of the time and will hang in the pocket in the face of the rush to deliver the football. 
• It will be interesting to see if McCarthy runs the 40-yard dash at the Combine. Quarterbacks often skip the drill but if the tape is any indication, McCarthy might be capable of a time that would turn some heads. He looks legit fast and he’s a fluid athlete. The one-handed catch before a throw on a trick play against Alabama in the semifinal doesn’t have a lot of bearing on his NFL evaluation, but it was still a dope play. His lack of bulk means teams will want to employ him cautiously as a runner but he could have a lot of success in the same way Russell Wilson did with the Seahawks. 
• Michigan didn’t put as much on McCarthy as some other programs did with their starting quarterback but they did lean on him in a lot of high-leverage games and situations and he came through. He had a 27-1 record as a starter, including a national title this past season, and was one of the most efficient passers in the country on third down. 
• McCarthy just turned 21 in January, so in theory, he still has loads of potential. 

Weaknesses

• While the peaks of McCarthy’s accuracy rival anyone else in this class, the down-to-down consistency is lacking. McCarthy is regularly plagued by poor ball placement if not outright missed throws. His base will get too wide at times and he’ll sail passes. Whenever he tries to put a little extra mustard on passes, it sometimes comes at the cost of losing control. That said, this is an area of his game that improved from his sophomore to junior seasons. 
• McCarthy will sometimes pre-determine his throws and fail to adjust once the picture changes, leading to some throws that look brain-dead on tape. He’ll also get too invested in making a play at times and put the ball in jeopardy, though this is common with young quarterbacks. 
• Moments of questionable pocket movement, either not feeling the open space to settle or not taking an open running lane. 
• Lapses in seeing the field and triggering on open throws, potentially tied to needing more experience? 
• The team that drafts McCarthy will have to have the talk with him about making sure he protects himself. He’s a tough, gutsy player, but he’s not big enough to take some of the shots he does at the NFL level. 
• It’s not McCarthy’s fault, but Michigan didn’t have to rely on him to shoulder a heavy load on offense. He has just 713 career pass attempts with two seasons as the starter. For reference, Maye has 952 attempts, Nix has 879 in the past two years and Penix has 1,109. 

Comparison/Grade

McCarthy will be type-cast as a game manager by some people due to the way Michigan seemed to go out of its way not to rely on him in their big games in 2023. But McCarthy consistently came up big for the Wolverines when called upon, and has a big-play hunting streak that can actually get the best of him sometimes. He’s not the most physically impressive quarterback stepping off the bus but on the field, he can sling it and has speed to nerf pursuit angles. He could go anywhere from the top 15 picks to the top of the second round and I wouldn’t be surprised at this point. 

I honestly had a tough time coming up with a good comparison for McCarthy. Physically there are some similarities to Jets QB Zach Wilson but McCarthy has a much better feel for managing the game as opposed to Wilson’s frenetic style. At times, McCarthy can remind you of the ultimate NFL game manager, longtime NFL veteran QB Alex Smith, including his mobility which was always an underrated part of Smith’s game. But McCarthy is far more of a gunslinger than Smith.

In the end, McCarthy falls somewhere along the spectrum between Wilson and Smith. Where he lands could ultimately decide which pole he ends up closer to, as it’s clear McCarthy’s not yet a finished product. 

6 – Washington QB Michael Penix

Height: 6-2

Weight: 212

Games watched: 2020 Michigan, 2022 Oregon, 2023 Michigan

Strengths

• Penix has the strongest arm in this draft class and it might not even be close. The ball rockets off his hand. He has a unique, 3/4 delivery which allows him to whip the ball, either on a line drive or deep down the field. Penix can do this off-platform and from different arm angles without losing velocity or too much range. 
• Penix has a strong conceptual grasp of being a downfield pocket passer. He’ll look off safeties to create openings for his receivers and incorporate a variety of pump and shoulder fakes. He’s an effective hard count passer. 
• Like an elite NBA shooter, Penix can get white hot as a thrower. When he’s in the zone, it feels like there’s no throw he can’t make. He’ll fit passes into tiny windows down the field and dice up a defense. 
• Penix does not take sacks. Like at all. He has a career pressure-to-sack percentage of just over six percent. That’s the lowest of any qualifying QB prospect in the last decade. Even in the national title loss to Michigan where Penix was pressured relentlessly and didn’t play well overall, he still was sacked just once. Penix is strong and elusive in the pocket, and while he’s not a major running threat in the way the rest of this class is, he can create with his legs when things break down. 

Weaknesses

• Extensive injury history. Penix tore his ACL in 2018 and 2020 and dislocated his left shoulder SC joint in 2019 and the right one in 2021. Some teams will have undraftable medical grades on him. However, he stayed healthy for the past two seasons at Indiana. 
• Penix’s passes have a tendency to sail on him a little with how much power he puts into throws. Sometimes it can make completions harder than they have to be with receivers having to lasso a rocket going over their head. When Penix misses, he usually misses long. 
• When Penix feels the rush, even a little, it causes him to dramatically speed up his process, leading to missed throws and bad decisions. While he’s adept at moving in the pocket and will climb away from pressure, he isn’t under control and he’ll sail passes over the heads of his pass catchers. 
• Unfortunately, while Penix can get hot he can also run cold and fall into a rut. It can take multiple drives to snap back into a rhythm. 
• Penix has room to tighten up his dropback footwork to allow him to release the ball quicker on certain passing concepts. His anticipation is also inconsistent because his arm strength affords him the luxury to be a little late sometimes and still fit the ball in. 

Comparison/Grade

Penix enters draft season as one of the biggest wildcards of the whole process. From a talent perspective, he’s probably a second-round prospect at least who could end up in the first round with the right fit. But his extensive injury history has to be accounted for, and there’s a lot of volatility to his draft stock. Slipping to the third round or possibly later would not be altogether unexpected. 

I see a lot of Seahawks QB Geno Smith in Penix’s game. Both are big-armed pocket passers who thrive when attacking downfield. Smith had one of the best pressure-to-sack percentages in the NFL this past season too, but he’s also played his best when kept clean. Neither player leans on his legs a lot but it’s a tool in the bag that can make an appearance on occasion. 

Like Smith, Penix could need some time to adjust to the NFL, and going later rather than earlier could help him land in a better situation to develop. He has mechanical aspects of his game to refine and needs to react better to pressure. One of those is a much easier fix than the other.