2023 NFL Draft: League Coaches Share Opinions on ‘Enticing and Imperfect’ Class of QB Prospects

It’s not draft week without Albert Breer’s annual look at the top QB prospects, with help from the NFL coaches who have studied them extensively.

Author:
Albert Breer
Publish date:
Apr 25, 2023

Last year, in this space, we presented a bleak picture of the 2022 quarterback class. And even that assessment landed short of what wound up happening. I said at least a couple would get picked in the first round, because that is how it always goes. Then, it didn’t go that way at all—only Pitt’s Kenny Pickett went in the first 32 picks, and he wound up being the only quarterback taken in the first 70.

A year later, things aren’t that bad for teams that punted last year and waited for this year.

But the 2023 class isn’t exactly perfect. It has potential, to be sure. It also has potholes.

“I’d say it’s a risky group,” says a veteran NFC quarterbacks coach. “There’s not a clear-cut guy—there’s no Andrew Luck, no Joe Burrow, no Trevor Lawrence. I’m glad we don’t need one. … I’d said the least amount of risk is with [C.J.] Stroud, because he has size, arm talent and a lot of production in the Big Ten, but he’s not a real big creator. They all have flaws.”

That means, with each guy, and each team, it’s going to be on the scouts and coaches to decide whose flaws are either correctable or can be best worked around.

Welcome to our annual dive into the draft class’s quarterbacks. For months, I try to deliver to you, our readers, insight into what GMs, personnel chiefs and road scouts think of the class coming into the league—something we’ll start up as soon as the summer on guys like USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye for 2024.

This piece is different, in that it focuses exclusively on how the coaches see the group after a couple of months of studying, meeting and debating their merits and their issues. To that end, this year, we assembled a panel of eight experienced assistant coaches, made up of four offensive coordinators, two passing-game coordinators and two quarterbacks coaches to get into the nitty-gritty of how those who know the position best see the group. And all these calls happened over the past week, to ensure everyone weighing in had completed their evaluations.

The consensus is that this crew is at once enticing and imperfect. Here, more specifically, is how the league sees each of the top guys …

Bryce Young

School: Alabama
Size: 5'10", 204 pounds
Ceiling comp: Shorter, more improvisational Drew Brees

There’s little disagreement on what a taller, bigger Young would be. “Other than his size,” says one AFC OC, “he does everything the way you want a quarterback to do it—great accuracy, great vision, moves well in the pocket, and, as a testament to him, he’s not throwing to the guys Tua [Tagovailoa] and Mac [Jones] were.” An NFC passing-game coordinator adds, “The instincts stand out, first and foremost, his eyes, his feel for the game. His arm is good enough, not great, but the other thing he has is his anticipation. How well he can see the game makes up for the arm. … And he plays with his eyes up at all times. There are very few times he’s just looking to run. He remains a passer at all times.” Another NFC OC adds, “You see the point guard of the offense—poise, instincts, he’s twitchy, a real twitchy athlete, twitchy arm, accuracy, throws with anticipation, his pocket movement, he’s tough in pocket.” Which is where some “smaller, slighter Joe Burrow” comps are coming from, and how the Steph Curry comps came to be, too.

Young has also been a home run hitter in just about all his meetings. “The intangibles with him are off the charts,” says an AFC passing-game coordinator. “We [met with] him … he just has a great presence. He’s laid back, confident. He’s definitely comfortable being himself. Just seems like overall as likable a guy as you’ll find.” Young’s score of 98 on the S2 test, which beat high-scorers Burrow, Josh Allen and Justin Fields, is mirrored by his mastery of the pro-style Alabama scheme he ran, one that skewed away from the more RPO-heavy looks the Tide had run in recent years, to take advantage of his mind for the game.

With all that established, his size is his size. He was listed at 194 pounds at Bama, weighed 204 at the combine, didn’t work out there, then chose not to weigh in before he did work out at his pro day. Which only furthers concern over what his playing weight will be in the pros, and the lack of a precedent for someone his size. “I like everything about Bryce—great interview, great intelligence, feel, instincts, he’s an accurate passer—but I am concerned about his size,” says an NFC quarterbacks coach. “I don’t like his bone structure. It’s different than [Drew] Brees or [Russell] Wilson. I didn’t like Teddy Bridgewater’s bone structure, either. It’s still a big man’s game. Maybe he’ll play for 20 years, and I’ll be wrong. But the game’s changed.”

Another concern related to his size is that at Alabama, Young was deployed heavily out of the shotgun, and plenty of NFL folks figured that was done to keep his vision clean—so if you play under center, or with the quarterback’s back to the line of scrimmage a lot, there is projection here. And there were times, to some, where he played too much on his toes, or couldn’t flick the ball out of tight spaces because of his stature. “Where he struggles,” says the AFC passing-game coordinator, “is when the pocket gets pushed into him. He can get overwhelmed.”

An NFC quarterbacks coach said that happens, he thinks, because “his arm’s not strong. It’s strong enough. But there’s not a lot of leeway. He needs to be on time, and usually is, because he doesn’t have the arm strength to make up for it. He can’t throw it harder to get it there. … He makes up for some of it because he can move, throw from different platforms, throw it quick, move people with his eyes, and throw a guy open. He sees it, and the ball comes out of his hand faster than anyone else, as fast as I’ve seen. It’s like he has a fiber-optic cable in his body, and everyone else is on dial up. But that’s still something to manage.”

One other small drawback? His footwork needs fine-tuning, but that, most of these coaches believe, could be cleaned up over an offseason or two.

C.J. Stroud

School: Ohio State
Size: 6'3", 214 pounds
Ceiling comp: Shorter, quicker Matt Ryan

As coaches have studied the class, Stroud seems to have settled in as the quarterback who you have to project the least on. “Finally, the light bulb went on for me with him,” says an NFC quarterbacks coach. “I love him. He’s the safest pick of these top guys, and if I’m Carolina, I pick him [No. 1]. He does everything well. What’s missing comes down to running. He’s shown he can run; he just doesn’t, or hasn’t shown it consistently, like he did in the Georgia game, where he can create a play outside the play that was called. … It’s like with [Kirk] Cousins—what’s keeping him from being a blue-chip player is how much he does on his own. … But he’s the best passer of the class, he throws the appropriate ball almost every time, right amount of air, location, it’s on time, and it’s easy for him. He’s very natural.” An NFC passing-game coordinator adds, “He’s definitely the purest passer of the group, and one of the more pure passers to come out in a while. He’s accurate to all levels, understands how to pace the ball, and throws a really catchable ball underneath.” And an AFC pass-game coordinator piggybacks on that, saying, “He throws it really well. I’m not sure what his elite trait is. But I like him. I think he’s solid player and a really accurate passer.”

What makes Stroud’s evaluation a bit difficult for teams is how that Georgia game—through which Stroud shined, playing the toughest, most talented defense he faced as a collegian—looked different from all his other starts. It was like he was answering all the questions at once. “The athleticism is the only question, and against Georgia, he moves around, he eludes the rush,” says an NFC offensive coordinator. “And you see arm strength, the ability to throw the football, the decision-making was really good. He’s not a runner, but in a drop-back game, you saw he was good enough to avoid and not take sacks.” Another NFC quarterbacks coach adds, “You watch that Georgia game; it’s really good. … It’s possible the light just turned on for him. The game is changing with guys who can create, so it could be as simple as him watching guys like [Patrick] Mahomes, Allen, and saying, I can do that. There’s a fine line coaching that, too, but they seemed to get there against Georgia.”

Another NFC offensive coordinator mentioned a bit of a robotic delivery with Stroud that is common in quarterbacks who’ve come out of Ohio State, but agreed with a few others that Ryan Day and the Buckeyes staff seemed to be giving Stroud a little more responsibility at the line than they had with Dwayne Haskins and Justin Fields, which is a good sign that he’ll adapt easily to an NFL offense. “With Dwayne and Justin, the types of concepts they had, they were half-field reads, high-lows, easy stuff for colleges to do,” says our first NFC QBs coach. “In a lot of cases, it was read the corner and go. A good college offense. And with C.J., you saw more full-field reads, more back-to-the-defense play-action, NFL-style reads that are difficult. That got me off [the comparison]. The thing that is still there, is he had better players around him than everyone. His wideouts would be worse in Carolina than they were last year at Ohio State.”

Conversely, there have been some questions about maturity (in how he’s taken criticism from the outside) and willingness to stick his nose in there and run (another one he answered against Georgia). “Sometimes, he’d turn down runs,” says an AFC OC. “He doesn’t always make plays with his legs. He’s not a dynamic athlete by any stretch. He’s good enough. If he plays like he did in playoffs, you’re getting a really good quarterback—you’re betting a little on that being what you’ll get. Hopefully, he’s grown and matured through it. He’s a really good player, got all you need to ask for in a quarterback. He’s first overall-worthy.”

And some of that growth will have to go back to how he handles things getting jumbled and chaotic on him. “I saw some teams heat him up playing Cover Zero,” says an NFC passing-game coordinator. “And I’d love to get answers from him of what he was seeing, and where he was going on those looks. … I know he can process. But in those situations, does he click through it, one, two, three? I want to see it more. … You see a lot more [of him] throwing in rhythm on one-hitch timing.”

From a technical standpoint, too, there’s a little that can be worked over, to make him more efficient. “He gets a little wide in his base,” says our NFC OC. And there was some concern over an aptitude test score, but he did well enough in his meetings to allay some of those worries.

Anthony Richardson

School: Florida
Size: 6'4", 244 pounds
Ceiling comp: Raw Josh Allen

Richardson’s not perfect, of course. He has only 13 starts. He had around a quarter of the college pass attempts Patrick Mahomes had at Texas Tech. He’s been hurt. But the ceiling is awfully tantalizing. “I understand the issues,” says an AFC passing-game coordinator. “But, for me, if you’re picking first overall, it’s either Bryce or Richardson. Bryce has the elite mental game, intangibles, leadership, all that. Richardson is a f---ing freak. There’s not a lot of people that walk the earth like him. There are accuracy issues, but I think coaches will be able to help with that. Now, they weren’t very good around him, the scheme was simple, so you’ll have to do stuff to get him easier throws. But in the meantime, while he learns, he’ll make a lot of plays with his feet. … And he throws it better than Cam [Newton], Jalen [Hurts] or Lamar [Jackson] did in a workout.” An NFC passing-game coordinator adds, “Just as an athlete, he’s explosive in every single way. I was sort of expecting Lamar [Jackson] as a passer. Then you see some stuff they built into the warmup at his pro day, showing all the throws the guy has, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen from a power standpoint.”

That’s not it on the wows I got on him. “He is the freakiest athlete probably ever at the position,” says an NFC quarterbacks coach. “[Michael] Vick was fast, but this guy is built at 244. He’s calm in the pocket …” And that’s where things turned a little. “But the accuracy is so scary,” the coach continues. “The short accuracy is so scary. You’ve really got a project in him. And the accuracy, you can develop it, O.K., but a guy who’s accurate is usually accurate coming out of high school and college, and he isn’t. Even Josh Allen, you look at him coming out of Wyoming, he had solid mechanics coming out, and he just had to tweak it. You watch it with this guy, and there are times when he fits it into tight windows, and maybe you can tap into that. But he’s a project. And the hit on it could be huge, because you don’t just find guys like this.”

Some believe amending the accuracy issue will come down to mechanical fixes, as it did with Allen five years ago. “The easy comp for me is Josh Allen,” says the NFC passing-game coordinator. “It’s fair to look at things fundamentally that he’ll be working on, like widening his base, that might have led to the inaccuracies. You can tell 15-plus [yards], he’s comfortable—all those intermediate and deep throws. He’s top notch in terms of that. Seeing his pro day, and those are routes on air, he didn’t miss over 15 yards. But then the ball’s high, the ball’s low underneath, and that stems from a narrow base.” Others think it’s going to be more complicated than that. “It’s like, Pat Mahomes picked up a baseball at 5 years old and threw it better than anyone—there’s an innate part to this,” says an NFC OC. “And the touch thing can be hard for a big guy who’s long-levered. But maybe you can find a good arm slot for him where he’s more comfortable, and accurate, and not always opening up and ripping it.”

The other problem is simply that Florida wasn’t better last year, despite having this monster athlete at quarterback. Richardson is compared to Newton a lot, but Newton took a pretty average Auburn team to a national title and won the Heisman. “Shouldn’t the whole team look at him like he’s LeBron?” says another NFC OC of Richardson. “Just by having him playing, shouldn’t they be winning more? People mention Cam; Cam was a super-high-end recruit, ends up at a JC, wins the JC national title, wins at Auburn, willed his team to win the whole thing. So why isn’t this guy dominating?” An AFC OC adds, “It’s a different stratosphere of player. If Richardson is in his second year starting, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t. But I can’t compare him to Cam now. He may be a more natural passer than Cam, but he’s not nearly the runner Cam is—Cam was a hard-nosed runner.”

So, really, this is about how fast he’ll grow in some areas, and whether he’ll be able to grow enough in others. His interviews are a big part of determining that for teams, and he’s been solid in those rooms. While it’s clear just how far he has to go (he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, so to speak), he’s come off as bright and easygoing, which will help him, given how much of his growth will boil down, simply, to who he is. And from there, it’ll be the plan that’s put before him, with plenty of people thinking the best way to do it with him is to play him early, because he needs the reps, take your lumps while he learns, and, importantly, build the system around him. “They try to make him Peyton [Manning]; it’s gonna look terrible,” says an NFC quarterbacks coach. “He’ll be done quickly if you do that. But if it goes to a place where he goes the [Jalen] Hurts route? Then he’s gonna be special.”

Will Levis

School: Kentucky
Size: 6'4", 229 pounds
Ceiling comp: Carson Wentz

Levis has gotten knocked around a ton in the predraft process, and could be in for a little bit of a slide Thursday. “I see him as the fourth guy,” says an AFC OC. “Something’s not there with him. Something’s missing. Not to say he won’t be a good quarterback; I wanted to like him more than I did. He has the measurables, can throw it a mile. But he lacks touch and feel and ball placement. He can talk pro systems, because he’s been in them. … If you take him, and use his athleticism, do Josh Allen stuff with him, he may be built for that. But there’s a learning curve as to pace of play, processing as fast as you’d like. You watch it and wish it was better.”

As a result, the assessments you get back put Levis in with guys who, in the past, have had all the physical traits you’d want, without the instincts and feel for the game to tie them together. In a way, it’s like he’s the anti-Bryce. “I view it as the three, then Levis,” says an NFC passing-game coordinator. “I think it’s a little unfair to group him with the top three guys. He has a powerful arm, and it's a quick arm; there are a lot of revolutions on the ball. That part is pretty special. But I question the natural quarterback play.” An NFC OC says he got some “eerily familiar Blaine Gabbert vibes—he’s a big, strong, pretty dude, that makes you excited. But the game doesn’t make as much sense to him as the other guys.”

Another NFC OC, who also worried about Richardson’s rocked-up physique, adds, “There’s a block for me; he has scary s--- in his background. He couldn’t win the job at Penn State; he’s a meathead weight-room guy … and watch him throw, he’s muscular and powerful, not fluid. Everything looks violent. And he took bad sacks, so you wonder how much the athleticism does for him, and where his feel and instincts are.” In discussing that part of it, an NFC quarterbacks coach was led to another comp. “He reminds me of Mike McMahon, the kid from Rutgers who played in Detroit. Same kind of guy. Pretty athlete, throws bullets, but the accuracy is bad; mental makeup, he’s full of nervous energy. He’s a Drew Lock–type, good athlete, but doesn’t throw it well enough.”

Then, there were the interviews. One team heard him say he wouldn’t make excuses for his downturn in play in 2022, as compared to ’21, then had a list of them ready (coordinator change, injuries). Another said he wasn’t pleased when he got asked about eating a banana with the peel on social media. “He’s not a bad guy,” says a second NFC quarterbacks coach. “But he’s very robotic and overly serious; he needs to calm down. He was so angsty.” An AFC passing-game coordinator adds, “He tries to tell you what you want to hear; he gets caught up in it and he’s not being himself. He's trying to be perfect.”

Now, all this said, he’s beloved in Lexington, he played through a litany of injuries last year without many on the outside knowing it, and he crushed the S2 test, scoring a 93. Kentucky OC Liam Coen, who had Levis in 2021, left for ’22 and is now back, has told teams his personality is not nearly that intense in normal settings. And yes, there’s physical ability there. But … “the longer I looked at the tape, the less I liked it,” says the second NFC QBs coach. “He’s the only one of the top guys that I didn’t see take over a game, like he never said, We’re struggling, f--- this. C.J. did it against Georgia. [Hendon] Hooker did it against Bama. And the offense last year just looked hard, and he never had incredible stats. If you’re a dude, usually you find a way to get yards, and touchdowns work themselves out. But not here.”

Hendon Hooker

School: Tennessee
Size: 6'3", 217 pounds
Ceiling comp: Geno Smith

First, the obvious hang-ups: Hooker will turn 26 before the end of next season and is coming off a torn ACL sustained at the end of his last college season. That means it’s possible the team drafting him won’t get much from him until the season during which he turns 27. And with that established, Hooker has shown himself to be very much a grown man, even if it’s been on one leg, through the draft process. “He’s only helped himself through the interviews,” says one NFC quarterbacks coach. “His recall was great; he was sharp. That offense used to scare people, but you look for a skill set that’s applicable, and you see difficult throws; he threw from a muddy pocket almost every play. And he had exposure to a normal offense at Virginia Tech, so it’s not like he’ll be landing on the moon.” An AFC OC adds, “He’s definitely smart enough to pick it up; it’s just going to be the reps in doing it. Protections will be part of the learning curve, where things break down, why they broke down, where the answers are.”

That said, the offense at Tennessee, which is akin to the old Art Briles Baylor offense, did show two important things. With the hyperwide receiver splits, those guys are routinely stationed outside the numbers, and he often needed to showcase arm strength to get the ball where he needed it to go, and he consistently did that. And with the field spread that way, he had to stare down the barrel of the rush and deliver, which he also did consistently while keeping his eyes downfield. “The more I watched, No. 1, that offense is difficult to evaluate from,” says an NFC OC. “You’re two by two, superwide, running crossers from the outside. And a lot of those routes, they’re reading that, get it, and take it vertical or, if not, snap it down underneath. … But [you can see] he’s very calm, almost too calm. I’m not sure how you play quarterback, on five-step drop or seven-step timing, calm as he does. It’s one step, and he’s sitting there. I give him credit for being patient, calm and grounded. The thing I loved is you saw, through that, very few negative plays. There might be an incompletion, but not a pick, and not a lot of sacks.”

And while the traits aren’t elite, they’re pretty good. “He just keeps getting better,” says an NFC passing-game coordinator. “He plays with his feet in the ground, he’s got a loose whip of an arm, he can test you on all levels. A little robotic, and I’d love to see how much he’d be doing [mentally] within that scheme. But I don’t want to kill him too bad for that. … And the biggest takeaway for me is he’s such a good decision-maker with the ball. He’s not playing too careful. There are times where if he’s not sure, he’ll take off and get four or five. Other times, I love how he plays with his eyes up with the rush coming, and how he extends plays. I think you can win with him—enough arm, good decision-maker, enough athleticism.”

Even better, all of this comes across naturally in his interviews.

Hooker may not become an NFL star. But he sure shapes up as someone who’ll be in the league for a decade, even if that decade takes him to the edge of his late 30s. “I like him,” says an AFC passing-game coordinator. “Yeah, it’s a hard evaluation, because the offense is simple. But he’s tough, he stands in the pocket. It’s not a lot of conceptual reads in that offense. It’s mostly pick-and-stick throws—pick a receiver and throw to him off an option route. But there’s plenty to work with. If he was there on Day 2, I’d take him.”

As for the rest of the class? We’ve got a few notes on where the depth of it is.

• A couple of the guys brought up Houston’s Clayton Tune, who’s 24 and has an impressive library of 1,498 college attempts (making him a very high-rep guy, like Brock Purdy was). “He just plays the position well,” says an AFC OC. “Not a great arm, but this is a good college QB who has some translatable skills—he’s smart, tough, accurate, processes well. He just doesn’t have that one trait that wows you.” The projection here would be he could wind up being a valuable long-term backup for someone as a Day 3 pick.

• Fresno State’s Jake Haener profiled similarly, with his name raised by a few coaches as well. “He’s a smaller guy, but he can play the game,” says an NFC passing-game coordinator. “He can speed it up with his arm; he’s incredibly quick-minded, a good processor. I see a good quality quarterback as a No. 2 guy who’ll fit in right away. They do good things at Fresno that translate right over. It was a fun tape to watch. He has a Drew Brees type of style; the ball just spits out there.” The difference between Tune and Haener? Tune’s a bit of projection coming from Dana Holgorsen’s offense, whereas Haener is considered by some to be maxed out as a player.

• It caught my eye a couple of weeks back when the Colts crammed a trip to Utah to work out BYU’s Jaren Hall into their quarterback tour (they saw Young and Stroud in California, Richardson in Florida and Levis in Kentucky), and there is indeed some love for the 25-year-old heir to Zach Wilson’s old spot in Provo. “He’s got arm talent,” says an NFC OC. “He’s a smart, mature kid, another older kid. He throws it naturally. He needs some development with coverage recognition, reading defenses and anticipation. And he’s of smaller stature, sort of built like Russell Wilson. But he’s got a good feel for throwing guys open, throwing away from leverage. There’s something natural there. He’ll be a good No. 2.”

• Two other names that came up—Stanford’s Tanner McKee (a big, old-school, pocket type) and UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson (who never quite lived up to his billing as a recruit, but finished with a flourish as a sixth-year senior). The former would be a good fit for a team running a traditional offense where he’s playing under center. The latter was the type who was beloved in his college program, and would likely be a match for a lot of teams as a developmental backup.