The insanity of Jordan Love and the success of the toolsy quarterback

And beware one of the consensus top quarterbacks in the 2024 NFL Draft.

One of the great lessons of the last few years of quarterback drafting is the importance of knowing if your young quarterback is a finished product or a toolsy prospect in need of development. This is new, because for a very long time, toolsy prospects almost never worked out. It was kind of just Brett Favre for a bit there.

For the longest time, the best predictors of NFL success for a quarterback were two simple statistics: completion percentage and games started in college. As a general rule, good NFL quarterbacks were accurate college quarterbacks who showed that accuracy for multiple seasons, and exceptions were few and far between. Even Aaron Rodgers, who completely rebuilt his throwing motion while sitting on the bench for the Packers, was the 8^th most accurate quarterback in college football in his final season at Cal.

Accuracy remains a good way to pick out your next NFL quarterback. Since 2017 there have been 79 quarterbacks drafted by NFL teams. If you take a look at everyone’s top season by completion percentage, the top 20 includes Joe Burrow, CJ Stroud, Brock Purdy, Tua Tagovailoa, Baker Mayfield, Jalen Hurts, Kyler Murray, and Trevor Lawrence.

That’s a good list. While there are, of course, some truly bad quarterbacks in the group as well (Mac Jones, Zach Wilson, Dwayne Haskins), if you chose from that group, you’d have a good chance at hitting on a success. But this isn’t about those quarterbacks, because those quarterbacks are boring. Anyone can pick out the accurate quarterbacks. This is about the bottom 5:

5. Lamar Jackson (1^st round) – 59.1%
4. Tanner Lee (6^th round) – 57.5%
3. Josh Allen (1^st round) – 56.3%
2. Ben DiNucci (7^th round) – 55.7%
1. Anthony Richardson (1st round) – 53.8%

That’s a good list, too! While Anthony Richardson is too young and too raw to declare as a success, his initial play looked encouraging before he was hurt, while Jackson and Allen are among the NFL’s elite. When Josh Allen took a step forward in his third year, he quickly became the poster child for toolsy quarterbacks, with many analysts bemoaning the likelihood that all future toolsy quarterbacks (including Richardson) would be compared to Allen, even if success was unlikely. Given the success of Jackson, Allen, and the early returns on Richardson, it’s clear we should no longer dismiss the idea of developing the raw, toolsy prospect.

Between Murray, who ranks 20^th on this list, and Jackson, who ranks 75^th, there are a ton of bad NFL quarterbacks including Mitchell Trubisky, Kenny Pickett, Sam Darnold, Trey Lance, Trace McSorley, Kellen Mond, DeShone Kizer, Josh Rosen…you get the idea. The top 20 has 7ish good quarterbacks depending on how you feel about Baker Mayfield. The bottom has 2ish depending on how you feel about Richardson. The middle 55 spots are a wasteland, having only 3ish decent NFL quarterbacks. This “ish” is Daniel Jones, who I believe to be quite bad, but got paid like he wasn’t. The other three are Justin Herbert (38^th) Patrick Mahomes (45^th) and Jordan Love (56^th).

Herbert was reasonably accurate for his class and not a complete project, but the toolsy moniker fits as Herbert’s size and arm talent, and he resembles Josh Allen in many important ways. Herbert did start right away, winning rookie of the year honors, but there is probably still some projection left in his game. With Mahomes I think it’s important to remember that he did sit behind Alex Smith for most of his first year, and in doing so, he took a similar, if abbreviated road to Jordan Love. And I think that is where the hey lesson lies.

And Then We Have Jordan Love

Love wasn’t as scattershot as Jackson and Allen, but his top completion percentage of 64% certainly wasn’t good; then in his final season, he crashed to 61.6%, within spitting distance of Lamar Jackson’s 59.1. His inaccuracy combined with his NCAA-leading 17 interceptions in his final season cemented him as a toolsy developmental prospect, and not someone you wanted starting right away. That’s important to explaining why Love has worked and is an anomaly to this list, and it’s important to explaining why so many in the middle failed.

I should state upfront that I don’t believe a developmental quarterback has to sit for a year or two to develop. Josh Allen played right away, and he improved drastically in his third season without sitting. Herbert (who is on the higher end of mis-accuracy spectrum anyway) played right away and was perfectly fine. But I do think that regardless of sitting or playing, you need to coach the developmental guys differently. You need to work on basics far more, on timing far more, and on mechanics far more. You cannot sacrifice developmental drills for game-planning, and so I think more than anything, if you do play a guy right away, you can’t really expect success right away, and you must be comfortable with that.

But you do need to know that you HAVE a developmental quarterback. That’s obvious with Allen, Jackson, and Richardson, all of who were supremely inaccurate in college. That’s true of Love, who was inaccurate and turnover-prone. And even the great Patrick Mahomes probably did benefit from a year of development under one of the greatest quarterback developers ever. The risk with the middle of this list is, more than anything, that many teams seem to think they have a finished product.

Of the first-rounders in the middle tier, Kenny Pickett s at for three games before becoming the starter in Pittsburgh. Mitch Trubisky became the starter in game five. Sam Darnold started for the Jets immediately. Bryce Young started immediately for Carolina. Daniel Jones became the Giants’ full time starter in week three. It only took Josh Rosen two games to become the starter for the Cardinals. And finally, Deshaun Watson started immediately for the Texans, and was pretty good, but he was placed on IR with an injury after week 7, missing half his rookie season, and when he came back, he was much better.

I think the big lesson for NFL teams should be to assume that a fair amount of developments is necessary for all but the most accurate college quarterbacks, not just the very least accurate. I think many teams now understand this, which is good, but I would offer a word of caution on one particular prospect this season.

Of the big six quarterbacks in this draft, five of them had upper level accuracy numbers. Caleb Williams;’ career best 68.6% would put him just a hair below Kyler Murray, right at my somewhat arbitrary cutoff. Bo Nix’s 77.4% would tie him at the top with Mac Jones. Jayden Daniels’ 72.2% would put him fourth behind Burrow, Jones, Zach Wilson, and Jake Haener. JJ McCarthy’s 72.3% would put him in the exact same tier.

Ten we have our last two. Michael Penix is probably too old to be a developmental quarterback, but his career high 65.4% (and film of him throwing short-to-intermediate passes) indicate he should be. That completion percentage would tie him at 46^th with Tanner McKee and Alex McGough. Penix is generally regarded as the sixth in this group of six, and this is a big reason why.

But finally, beware of Drake Maye. All of the above quarterbacks have pluses and minuses, and completion percentage is hardly the end of the world, or a definitive indicator of success, especially if you put up elite numbers in the Covid season. That said, the fact of the matter is that Maye struggled with accuracy his entire career. He was especially poor this season, completing 63.3% of his passes, which would tie him with Kellen Mond at 48^th on “final season completion percentage.” Maye has good excuses this season as North Carolina lacked talent, especially at the receiver position, but back in 2022, those excuses disappear, and Maye was still disappointing.

This season, the average Maye receiver had a PFF grade of 66, almost exactly average and far worse than any of his fellow top six in this year’s draft, but in 2022 the average Maye pass went to a receiver with an average PFF grade of 71.82, the 8^th highest in all of football. PFF numbers can occasionally be problematic, but in this case they represent Josh Downs, who was drafted in the third round by the Colts, and deep threat Antoine Green, taken in the 7^th by the Lions.

Maye’s 2022 completion percentage of 66.2% is higher than Penix’s best season, but it’s still underwhelming, landing him at 41^st on the list, tied with Davis Mills and Desmond Ritter. I want to focus on Maye specifically because I think there is a good chance that a team drafting him sees a finished product, and that could be a problem. I like Maye, and if he lands in the right spot, I think he could be a great NFL quarterback. Outside of Joe Milton he has the best raw tools in this class, and he was an outstanding playmaker in college. Maye is also relatively young, and it’s simply easier to draw tangible improvement out of younger players. The modern NFL can clean up some of the little problems with Maye if they’re given the chance.

But Maye also has a few qualities that scream “prototypical starter” to less sophisticated organizations. He’s a big kid with a big arm, and guys like that are sometimes pressed into starting, and not developing, earlier than you would like. I think Maye on the Bears would be a disaster, and who knows if the Commanders or Patriots know what they’re doing? For this reason, I’m lower on Maye than most. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t go top three, and if he does, I hope Washington or New England has drastically altered their quarterback development, or that some clever team trades up.