I’m going to give you two lists of quarterbacks, Seattle Seahawks fans. All were selected in the first round of recent drafts. Your job is to tell me which list is better.
List 1: Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Baker Mayfield, Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix
List 2: Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, C. J. Stroud, Tua Tagovailoa, Kyler Murray (if you prefer, substitute Jordan Love for anyone on this list.)
Which set are you taking? Your answer may depend on whether you are sold on Daniels and Nix after just one year. If you need to see more from them, maybe you’re going with List 2. If you think their rookie seasons were not anomalies, perhaps you go with List 1. Either way, I think the two lists are relatively close.
Seahawks cannot overlook this simple statistic when looking at college quarterbacks
Now let’s do it again with two different sets of QBs. List 1 will only have four names, while List 2 will have many more.
List 1: Kenny Pickett, Trevor Lawrence, Michael Penix, Jr., J.J. McCarthy
List 2: Josh Rosen, Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Bryce Young, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Sam Darnold, Dwayne Haskins, Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson (and Jordan Love, unless you chose him on the previous List 2.)
OK – say you’re the general manager who chose each of those two lists for your team. List 1 – not so good. Pickett is probably a decent NFL backup, and Lawrence has been a major disappointment. It’s too early to conclude the other two, though Penix looked pretty good at the end of last season.
The second list is full of QBs who get GMs fired. Darnold blossomed eventually – and we all hope that was not an aberration. Maye and Williams may turn out well. Too early to say. Love has proven to be very good. The others range from mediocre to dumpster fires.
Now – here’s what lands you one List 1 or List 2. Total games played in college. List 1 has QBs who played 40 or more games. List 2 has the QBs who played under 40. The first set is the five most successful; the second set is all the rest. It covers all first-round QBs dating back to 2018.
Can we draw any conclusions from this little exercise? Using any one statistic to define or predict success is a ham-fisted approach to evaluation. But I’d at least go this far: it is a better bet to go with quarterbacks who have a lot of experience at the college level.
If I add in pass attempts, I can easily tweak these numbers more in favor of that conclusion. For instance, if I add a second threshold of 900 pass attempts in college, Burrow and Love (who barely missed the 40-game cutoff) can move into the more experienced category.
If there is indeed a correlation between college experience, as defined by games played and pass attempts, the explanation seems pretty straightforward. Regarding mental processing, quarterback is the most challenging position in any major sport.
The number of decisions that must be made in milliseconds is stunning. Some players may have a natural ability to perform these tasks at a higher level than others, but repetition is the only tried and true improvement method.
The NFL is not the place to learn on the job. You need to enter the league with these skills well-developed. There is a vicious circle at play. If you have the necessary baseline skill, you can play and develop. If you do not, you will not play, and it is doubtful that you will develop through practice alone.
The Seahawks' new quarterback, Sam Darnold, is a rarity – a quarterback who, despite performing very poorly, was still allowed to start 55 games over his first five NFL seasons. When he got the chance to play in a good situation last year, he showed that he had indeed improved.
Darnold played in just 27 college games before arriving in the NFL as a highly-touted prospect in 2018. That is the same year that Josh Allen, who had just 27 college games and an absurdly low 649 total pass attempts, entered the league. Allen is the reigning MVP.
So I am not saying you can’t roll the dice and win with a limited-experience QB. I’m just saying it is a bad bet. If you’re the type who bets on the longshot and pushes all your chips into the pot while holding a pair of fours, go for it. Just don’t expect to last as an NFL GM.
So far, I have only been looking at recent first-rounders. My argument gets much stronger if we expand out. San Francisco chose Trey Lance, 19 college games and 318 pass attempts, in the first round of the 2021 draft. Those are staggeringly low numbers, and, not surprisingly, he flamed out big time.
They followed that pick with Brock Purdy in the seventh round of 2022. Purdy played in 48 college games and threw the ball over 1,400 times. Are we really shocked that the man who threw the ball a thousand times more in college was the better pro?
Need additional evidence? Daniels and Nix played in over 50 college games and threw over 1,000 passes. There are only two other players you can say that about who have been drafted in the first three rounds since 2010. One is Jalen Hurts, the reigning Super Bowl champion. If you’re a Seahawks fan, you ought to know the second. He also won a Super Bowl.
Russell Wilson is just one of two quarterbacks drafted by John Schneider during his time as GM. Both played at least 45 college games and threw at least 1,300 passes. As professionals, both won league championships. One was even his league’s MVP. That would be Alex McGough, chosen in the seventh round of the 2018 draft. He won back-to-back USFL championships with the Birmingham Stallions and was league MVP in 2023.
In his minuscule sample size, Schneider has indicated that he prefers a draftee who has already cut at least a few teeth. That may be one of the reasons he has conducted a formal interview with Louisville’s Tyler Shough. Shough’s 42 games and 951 pass attempts are a little misleading.
He has played seven college seasons but has only appeared in more than seven games once. He certainly has experience, but it is not the same experience that Daniels or Nix carried into the league last year.
Jalen Milroe, the other QB with whom Seattle has reportedly met, fits the profile of a potential bust. He has played in a respectable 38 games, but his pass attempts – 663 – are very low. His experience numbers are very similar to those of Justin Fields and Mac Jones. It’s possible Milroe will develop at the next level, but it is not statistically likely.
If Schneider falls in love with Milroe’s potential, so be it. Perhaps he will draft him in one of the middle rounds. But if you question whether Milroe will get the opportunity to develop at the professional level, then any GM would be better off going with a player like Dillon Gabriel.
The Oregon quarterback is too short and has a weak arm. He also played in 63 games in college – more than any QB in FBS history. He completed twice as many passes as Milroe attempted in college.
Dillon Gabriel may never be a star in the NFL. Jalen Milroe could be, though I would not bet on it. If you like gambling, go with Milroe. If you prefer a surer thing, look at the numbers. Games played. Pass attempts. That’s where you’re more likely to find a legitimate pro quarterback.