By the numbers: Should the Vikings prefer Will Levis or Hendon Hooker?
At pick No. 23, the Minnesota Vikings aren’t necessarily in prime position to get one of the top tier quarterback prospects since CJ Stroud and Bryce Young will likely go with the first two overall selections. Most current projections expect Anthony Richardson to be close behind. The Vikings might, however, be in the territory of taking a "project" quarterback who can sit and learn behind Kirk Cousins for a year with plans to take over in 2024.
Two prospects who have recently been mocked to the Vikings are Kentucky's Will Levis and Tennessee's Hendon Hooker. Both of them come with reasons to buy into them and plenty of questions. And those reasons and questions are very different.
Will Levis has gotten hype for a while now, but if you looked at only his statistics that would be majorly confusing. He can throw the ball far ("I've got a cannon," to quote Levis), but the league will need to believe in more than just his arm strength to take him in the first round. Arguing he should be a top pick in the draft solely because of one talent would like saying Zach Edey should be a top pick in the NBA draft cause he’s super tall.
NFL.com's Lance Zierlein compared Levis to Jay Cutler, writing:
"Levis is one of the most physically gifted quarterbacks in the draft, but there are warts in his game that might not be easily corrected."
Hooker is a really intriguing prospect. His stats are off the charts, but he’s coming off an ACL injury late in his final season, he’s already 25, and will still require development.
On Hooker, Zierlein wrote: "The most important question to be answered is whether he can thrive outside of the Tennessee offense. Hooker was frequently a half-field reader, which means he could lean on spacing, speed and/or route combinations to make life easier.
How can we figure out which player would be the best option for the Vikings if they wanted a QB with the 23rd overall pick? Let’s break down Hooker and Levis statistically:
Hendon Hooker
Compared to the four others of the newly named "Big Five" (Stroud, Young, Richardson, Levis), Hooker’s stats sure are up there. He leads them all in completion percentage by about 4%, and if we were to stack up his 69% completion rate amongst NFL QBs in 2022, that only trails Geno Smith. He’s very careful with the football, throwing only two interceptions last season. That wasn’t dumb luck considering Hooker’s impeccable turnover-worthy play rate.
He also isn’t afraid of throwing the ball downfield. He had an above-average air yards per attempt and yards per completion. Oh, and he’s a strong rusher. Hooker accounted for a large chunk of EPA per play with Tennessee with his legs. The only clear negative on this list is that he does take a huge amount of sacks.
However, sacks are nothing to sneeze at. PFF graded Hooker a putrid 43.7 (out of 100) while under pressure last year. Analytics expert Kevin Cole of the Unexpected Points newsletter found there is a connection between draft prospects’ performance under pressure and success in the NFL.
Factoring for Hooker’s age is difficult when breaking down his numbers. Back in 2018, FiveThirtyEight looked at the connection between draft age and success and found that age was especially important when it came to quarterbacks.
Still by most statistical measures, he's a prospect the Vikings should at least consider.
Will Levis
On the other end of the statistical spectrum, we have Will Levis, whose numbers aren’t even comparable to Hooker (or the other top QBs in the draft). He’s accounted for far less EPA (nearly zero in 2022!) and didn’t throw for anywhere near Hooker’s yardage total.
Something interesting about Levis’s playing style is that he had one of the lowest air yards per attempt, but still threw a high rate of interceptions. He’s not playing hero ball and chucking it downfield for it to be intercepted – he’s throwing interceptions on the shorter plays. Is that misreading plays? Inaccuracy on quick throws? Can it be corrected?
Levis is also not much of a rusher, and his rushing yards per attempt declined in 2022, possibly due to playing banged up. Overall, his 2022 performance was far below what he did in 2021, so he’s more of the risk-reward type of quarterback for the Vikings, but looking heavily on the riskier side.
The only thing similar about Levis and Hooker is that they both get sacked at a high rate — at least 10 more per season than the other three big name quarterback prospects. They’re both going to need to learn to throw the ball away in the NFL to avoid sacks since 36 sacks in a shorter college season will not cut it in the NFL.
With Levis’ far below average stats, let’s take on a new challenge: Can we find a similar quarterback prospect from the past 5 seasons with similarly below-average stats to Will Levis?
Looking through all the QBs drafted since 2017, the two quarterbacks with the most similar passing stats to Will Levis in their final two seasons look to be Jordan Love and James Morgan.
Love (Utah State) and Morgan (Florida International) had similar final seasons to Levis, accounting for nearly zero EPA after having a respectable EPA per play of about 0.25 in their previous season (though Levis’s second to last season came in at about half that: 0.124). They both also weren’t that careful with the football in their final season, as Love had a TD/Int ratio of 1.2 and Morgan’s was 2.8. Love did throw for over 3,400 yards while Morgan’s passing yards were on par with Levis’s, but Levis led them both in completion percentage by about 5%.
Both Love and Morgan’s below average stats got them drafted in the 1st and 4th rounds respectively by the Packers and Jets, and both were similarly lauded for their big arms.
We don’t have a clear-cut picture of how Love has performed in the NFL since he been sitting behind Rodgers for three years (but will start this upcoming season) and Morgan never saw NFL action outside of the preseason (currently in the USFL).
It doesn’t really look all too promising for Levis given his player stat comparisons but the predictive nature of college statistics when it comes to prospects can be highly questionable, which takes us to the next part of our analysis…
Baker Mayfield and Zach Wilson had the top two PFF passing grades on this list, so maybe it can be taken with a grain of salt but for the past two drafts, the QBs taken in the first and second rounds had passing grades of over 90. We haven’t seen teams take a chance on lower graded QBs outside of Josh Allen, so that makes it interesting that Levis especially is being regarded as first round talent given his really low grade.
Again. Please. Do. Not. Think. Will. Levis. Will. Be. Josh. Allen. Just because Levis had the second worst PFF grade below Josh Allen, doesn’t mean he’ll have the incredible breakout performance and glow-up that Allen had after a couple seasons in the NFL.
Notice that while all the 90-plus QBs didn’t work out, Allen is the only QB who graded below 85 aside from Lamar Jackson (another special case because of his running ability and incredible improvement in the NFL) who became a franchise QB.
It’s also noticeable that Hooker’s grade doesn’t quite match up to his box score and advanced stats, which would seem to gel with the suggestion that his success was scheme driven.
CJ Stroud and Bryce Young have been the most consistently strong passers, but Stroud’s 2021 season was the best in terms of EPA, accumulating a gigantic 0.478 EPA per play. Hooker wasn’t far behind him in both 2021 and 2022. Even with all of Anthony Richardson’s inaccuracy, his EPA per play in 2022 was slightly higher than Levis’s, but much of that is due to his freak athleticism and rushing ability, so he’s the prospect that needs the most developing in the passing game. Maybe we’ll be shocked if he’s the one who slides into the Vikings’ range in the middle of the first round instead.
Overall, Hooker and Levis are decent quarterback prospects that come with major question marks. If the Vikings were making the pick purely on their numbers, it would be far more advantageous for the Vikings to take Hooker over Levis at pick 23. Of course, there will be many, many more factors under consideration than just stats when they submit their draft card in late April.
