Originally posted by DaBeegDeek:
I'm telling yall... I feel like this dude will bust in the NFL.
Yeah, I kind of feel the same. I think there 3 or 4 major question marks for him. He could well be a great NFL QB, but for a top 3 pick there's a not as much certainty to him as you'd like.
1. Injury history/ frame/ taking hits he shouldn't have to: He had an injury to his throwing shoulder in college, which is a bit of a concern. Obviously, he threw the ball really well in 2020, but still it's something to note. Even in interviews, he looks very narrow for a guy about to enter the NFL. Not sure how much he can beef up when he's that narrow. Wilson is a manlet, but he is super wide for his height. This guy mightn't be able to take a lot of NFL punishment, even after adding some weight. There's also his recklessness at times, where he doesn't protect himself enough on runs or tries to make a hero play and gets taken down.
2. 2019 tape: it's very rough for some games. I'd encourage people who want Wilson, to look at a bit of his tape for 2019, just to give a bit of balance. The 2020 tape is fantastic, but the level of opposition was very poor in a lot of the games. He had a lot of time to throw and it made him look God tier. In 2019, he was coming back after the shoulder problem and his accuracy was awful on many throws. The decision making was poor enough as well. For a top 10 pick, you'd like to see a couple of years of top level production to qualm any doubts of it being a flash in the pan. Burrow last year came flying up the draft boards and really excelled his first year, but still that doesn't necessarily allay this concern.
3. Level of competition: you could perhaps make similar arguments for Justin Fields at Ohio State, Mac Jones at Alabama and Trey Lance and North Dakota. I think two things that stand out are; how clean his pocket is on many of his passing snaps which I don't see happen nearly as often for Justin Fields and how poor the ball skills are for the DBs they're playing, especially on deep balls. It shows up a fair bit on tape where the DB has no idea where the ball is and the receiver catches it fine, but it's placed where a DB with decent awareness could definitely make a play on it. It worked out just fine at BYU, but those kinds of throw need to be better in the NFL.
4. Ball placement/ randomly very inaccurate passes: for the most part he was an accurate passer, but on tape there were a lot of drops. When you replay them, you see the ball being placed in awkward spots for the receiver a good portion of the time. When he DID get pressured, especially in the Coastal Carolina game and in film from 2019, he had a tendency to throw the ball wildly inaccurately, even to his check down or to a screen. Often the ball would go way over the head of the intended target.
I think the Niners are the ideal landing spot for him. I think he needs a good line to protect him, especially early and we can scheme things for him to make life easier for him. He really needs to have the hero ball/off script stuff minimized early on and maybe he can go back to it once he's comfortable in the offence. I'm not sure how much you'd want him scrambling either. If he's buying time to make a throw fair enough or if he takes a jog to the sideline for 8 yards, that's fine, but he should be looking to avoid punishment more than most at his size. He probably needs to sit and learn for a while and definitely add a fair bit of weight.
I think if the Jets take him and the line isn't good, I can see a very hairy rookie year for him, where the inaccuracy in the face of pressure could lead to some wtf throws and maybe he gets banged up. He's got a lot of talent and could become a star, but he's still a bit of a risk.
