Domani Jackson - CB Bama - still hasn’t played up to his full potential but I thought he was pretty good at Bama last year considering that he essentially missed three years. Would be curious as to what @HSVLion’s impressions of him were/are. You just don’t find corners that are over six feet, built like a lightweight bodybuilder, not overly stiff and with 10.25 100m times in HS. I just struggle to quit on a specimen of that caliber. Hopefully the injuries are fully behind him.
I probably lean Nuss as well as far as NFL readiness, Klubnik and Mendoza are slightly more projections for sure. But they’re less than say, Sellers and the rest of the traitsy guys. Best combos of traits and actual play/improvement. Like Nico’s all world traits-wise but I wouldn’t touch that guy.
Nuss has probably shown the most NFL stuff on tape, but has more ceiling than someone like Carson Beck.
So basically I’m weighing a combo of actual play + NFL skills. Some guys have shown more in the former category, some in the latter, but the guys who have shown something in both rank the highest for me.
That said evaluating QBs is hard af and I might as well flip a coin, honestly. Easily my worst position group success wise. I bet my hits and misses are essentially 50/50.
I probably would too, but he’ll have to be head and shoulders above the other guys imo due to his mediocre size and juice. Certainly possible - especially given the LSU 2nd-year QB leap that’s been happening of late - but already there are a lot of naysayers because he isn’t a true specimen. This only a couple of years after Bryce Young went #1.
I really, really like this class. A lot of that is admittedly based on the potential and it could fall apart like last year’s did, but that was more of an outlier imo where the “high floor” guys like Beck, Shedeur and Ewers took a big tumble. That doesn’t usually happen.
But between Nuss, Mendoza, Klubnik, Sellers, Mateer, Leavitt, Allar (who I admit I could be completely wrong about) and even deep cut guys like Mensah, Chiles, Hostein, Avery Johnson, Gronowski, Moore, Weigman, Beck, Moss, Salter, Sawyer Robertson, and yes, Nico, I think there’s the chance of some really astounding QB play this year.
Outside of a couple position groups (Edge, WILL in particular) to me the defining characteristic of this draft is a wide range of outcomes. More than usual I mean. That’s my perception with most position groups.
Hope for the best, expect the worst. CB was kinda like that last year, especially once guys started returning to school. Same thing at QB and iOL. I mean I don’t think we were expecting much at iOL, but more than we got.
But TE kinda snuck up on us. Became a much better class than we thought at this point a year ago.
The funny thing about the 2027 QB class is the three elite 2024 HS guys fully develop and Arch is in the draft then Manning will be the one guy without an elite calling card skill/trait (from what I’ve seen/heard. Lagway has the Howitzer and the athleticism. Raiola has the crazy arm talent with the full bag of releases, tempo variance and so on and Sayin is supposed to have rare accuracy. Arch seems like a bunch of average with some pluses. I’m not including he intangible and pedigree stuff though and obviously he’s 10/10 in that regard.
Maybe he brings some juice to the table? His dad was the only high-level athlete in that family, and I’ve seen him take off and run sometimes and it looks pretty good. Maybe it’s enough to keep him from the Beck/Stroud/Goff type of pocket-passer only prospect?
He’s an elite white boy athlete but I think it’s more plus in the grand scheme of things. Personally I find a fair amount of overlap between he and Klubnick as far as skill sets/traits go.
Yeah, he might be, but to me that’s more than “plus.” That’s functionally dangerous. Jones should have an 80 yard TD to his name (if he hadn’t comically fallen over), and he was originally pulling away from guys to do it. Klubnik has some runs like that on his tape too. If you can do something like that I think it puts you in a different tier.
“Plus” to me is like Purdy, Jordan Love, Baker, Ward, Darnold, most of Russ’s career, Romo back in the day, even Burrow. Guys who can move around in the pocket and pop a 10-20 yarder when the defense isn’t paying attention. Especially on 3rd or 4th down.
We’re probably just defining it differently, but I’m just wondering if Arch’s juice can separate him from guys like Beck, Stroud, Goff, Tua, Stafford, Penix and the other guys who don’t really have that in their games (or rarely use it).