Packers Positions of Need: Top 10 Quarterbacks
The Green Bay Packers have an aging and expensive two-time MVP at quarterback and a former undrafted free agent with more collegiate interceptions than touchdowns as his backup. That could make quarterback a position of need in this year’s NFL Draft. With that, here is our top 10 quarterbacks in this year’s NFL Draft.
Joe Burrow, LSU (6-4, 216): Burrow spent three years at Ohio State and attempted 39 passes. During a Heisman Trophy-winning season in which Burrow led LSU to a national championship, he threw 60 touchdown passes. In fact, the likely No. 1 overall pick is coming off perhaps the greatest season in college football history. Burrow completed 76.3 percent of his passes for 5,671 yards with 60 touchdowns and six interceptions. He led the nation in completion percentage, yards, passer rating (202.0), touchdown passes, total touchdowns (65) and yards per play (9.4). Burrow set national records for touchdown passes and passer rating.
Burrow spent three years at Ohio State but was stuck behind Dwayne Haskins on the depth chart, so he transferred. "I had my three years of being a college guy," Burrow said in an extensive feature on the school athletics site. "I graduated and moved down here, and I looked at it as my first job out of college. That means you have to be a pro. No nonsense. No parties. Nothing like a normal college guy. I looked at this like a regular job." Having earned a degree in consumer and family financial services, he was eligible to play immediately in 2018. He threw for 16 touchdowns with five interceptions to set the stage for 2019.
He is incredibly competitive. "The only trophy that he ever paid attention to was when he got second in a baseball tournament, and one of his best friends had thrown the second place trophy in the garbage can," his father told LSU’s athletics site. "So we're driving home and we're just horrified that that happened. Joe gets home, and we go up to his room and about an hour afterwards, and he had dismantled the second place trophy.” He is incredibly tough, too, as shown in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl and a practice-field fight. "When I was 8 years old, I didn't decide, 'Hey, I'm going to be a tough guy.' It doesn't work that way," Burrow told Bleacher Report. "My family was fine, but over half of our school was below poverty level. Growing up around people who don't have a lot, it kind of gives you perspective. It makes you want to go harder, be tougher.”
He won the Heisman by a record margin, then used his acceptable speech to bring attention to something other than football. "Coming from southeast Ohio, it’s a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There’s so many people there that don't have a lot, and I'm up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too."
Burrow’s athletic genes go back almost a century. As Sports Illustrated noted, “Dot Ford, his grandmother, once scored a state-record 82 points in a Mississippi high school basketball game back in the 1940s, and grandfather James Burrow starred as a point guard at Mississippi State. His uncle, Johnny, played safety for Ole Miss in the 1980s, and his father, Jimmy, was a defensive back for Tom Osborne’s Nebraska Cornhuskers. His two older brothers, Jamie and Dan, played for Nebraska, too. If that’s not enough, dad Jimmy followed his playing career by coaching ball for nearly 40 years. This spring, he retired as the longtime defensive coordinator at Ohio University in order to catch every game of his son’s senior season.”
In December, Athens (Ohio) High School renamed the football stadium to R Basil Rutter Field at Joe Burrow Stadium. In January, a Baton Rouge, La., developer sought to have a road renamed in Burrow’s honor. At Athens High School, he threw for 11,416 yards and 157 touchdowns but also was a big hit at cornerback. “He was probably our best tackler and pretty much would have been the best player at the position, even on a team that played for the state championship,” his high school coach told the Advocate.
Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama (6-1, 218): Tagovailoa threw for 3,966 yards with 43 touchdowns and six interceptions on 69.0 percent accuracy in 2018 and 2,840 yards with 33 touchdowns and three interceptions on 69.3 percent accuracy in 2019. Including some playing time in 2017, his three-year total was 7,442 yards and a superb 87 touchdowns vs. 11 interceptions.
His final game came on Nov. 16, when he suffered a dislocated and fractured hip against Mississippi State. The injury threatened his career but surgery was successful and he reportedly will be able to start football activities in a month. "It's a unique situation," he said upon declaring himself eligible for the draft. "With my hip, a lot of the guys and general managers and owners that I've gotten to talk to have said the same thing. They kind of look at this injury as a knee injury almost, even though it's not, in a way that, 'Are we going to take a chance on this guy or would he be able to possibly do a pro day before the draft?' The biggest thing they want to see is that we can move and be back to how we were playing prior to the injury." Amazingly, he called the injury a blessing. “I’m grateful that it happened, though," he said on ESPN’s “Golic and Wingo” radio show. "I think it’s a blessing in disguise for me. It helped test my patience. It’s helping me with my faith, as well. It grew us stronger as a family, as well.”
His father, Galu, rode his son hard – too hard, some would argue. In an interview with ESPN, Tagovailoa said: "If I don't perform well or I don't perform the way I'm supposed to, I'm gonna get it after.” Asked to clarify, he said, “Just know that the belt was involved and other things were involved as well. And it's almost the same with school. If I don't get this grade ... I'm gonna have to suffer the consequences.” He’s a natural right-hander but his father, a lefty, taught him to throw left-handed. "It just became fluent and he just grew into it," Galu Tagovailoa told AL.com. "That's the crazy part about it. I never thought I could make him adapt to that. As we constantly kept putting the ball on his left hand, eventually he grew into throwing the ball with his left." While his relationship with his father was rocky, his grandfather was beloved. When “Papa” died of pneumonia in 2014, Tagovailoa considered giving up the game.
His mentor was Marcus Mariota, also from the same Hawaiian high schools and with Polynesian roots. Mariota noticed the 8-year-old had some special ability. “Tua was out there throwing with the younger kids,” Mariota told AL.com, ‘and I think all of us high school kids were looking like ‘He’s pretty good. Who is that?’ It ended up being Tua and he actually came over and started throwing with us high schoolers and I think we all looked at each other and said he was going to be pretty good one day. I’m excited for him. I think he’s done a great job representing not only himself, but the whole state of Hawaii.”
Video: Gutekunst on drafting a QB
Justin Herbert, Oregon (6-6, 237): In four seasons, Herbert threw for 10,541 yards with 95 touchdowns vs. 23 interceptions. As a senior, he completed 66.8 percent of his passes for 3,471 yards with 32 touchdowns and six picks. He finished second in school history in career passing yards, touchdowns and completion percentage, and he helped the Ducks score 37.2 points per game during his tenure.
"I've done everything that I've wanted to do," Herbert told the school athletics site. "I think this has been the best year of my life, and it's been an experience that I've learned so much from. And I'm 10 times the player I was last year, and I think to be here with the team and to be in this opportunity, it's awesome and an honor to be here." He ended his career by being Rose Bowl MVP and Senior Bowl MVP. It’s a career not even he envisioned. “I think I remember telling you, maybe I step in my junior or senior year and get a couple snaps,” told the Register-Guard. “I never envisioned what was going to happen. It’s been so much fun these past four years. It’s crazy to think about all the things that have happened and where we are today.” With his career complete, he penned a thank-you note published in the Register-Guard. “My brothers and I were introduced to Oregon football through our grandfather Rich Schwab. He instilled in us a passion for the game that only grew stronger during our time growing up in Eugene. Watching the Ducks play every home game from Section 12, barely a mile away from our home, are cherished childhood memories. My brothers and I would replay those games in our front yard, pretending to be Joey Harrington, Kellen Clemens and other Oregon greats. Receiving a scholarship to play at the University of Oregon was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.” He spent his final season playing alongside his brother, freshman tight end Patrick.
Herbert, a native of Eugene, Ore., went from No. 4 on the depth chart to starter as a true freshman who was so young that he hadn’t started shaving. Herbert is a three-time Academic All-American with a 4.01 grade-point average. Herbert repeated as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, joining Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow as the only other plays to accomplish that feat. He also won the William Campbell Trophy – aka the Academic Heisman. Said National Football Foundation President & CEO Steve Hatchell: "He truly embodies the scholar-athlete ideal and we are proud to have him as a member of this elite fraternity. He stands as the perfect example for the next generation to emulate."
Jordan Love, Utah State (6-4, 225)*: Love had three big-time seasons with 8,600 passing yards, 60 touchdown passes and a school-record 9,003 total yards. In his final season, he completed 61.9 percent of his passes for 3,402 yards, but his touchdown total plunged from 32 to 20 and his interception tally soared from six to 17.
Love had quite a growth sport from his days at Liberty High School in Bakersfield, Calif. He went from 5-foot-6 and 140 pounds to 220 pounds by his freshman year at Utah State. Graduating from high school a semester early helped. “Coming up here early and getting reps at the college level, it always helps,” Love told Bakersfield.com. “Leading into that next semester, I had a big jump on everyone else. I put on about 30 pounds. It was good to get into the weight room and actually start lifting for once.”
Utah State was his only FBS scholarship offer. "It is kind of sinking in, yet at the same time, you can't really let it sink in," Love told Bleacher Report. "But growing up and wanting to be in the NFL your whole life, the time is here where it's like, 'It can happen.'" He made it happen despite his father’s death by suicide in 2013 when his son was 14. "My darkest moment was definitely the day it happened, just hearing about it right there in the car," Love told NFL.com. "I didn't want to believe it. … "If you knew him, he was the happiest dude you would ever see. He was always smiling. Even if things in his life got him down, he never showed that," Love said. "Our family knew it was the medication messing with his head, not acting like himself, not acting right. If people make assumptions about depression that aren't right, there's nothing that can be done about that. It's good enough for me to know it was the medication. As long as I know, I'm good with it.” With his degree, he played in the Senior Bowl. Marijuana charges recently were dropped.
Jake Fromm, Georgia (6-2, 220)*: Fromm was a three-year starter who threw for 8,236 yards with 78 touchdowns and 18 interceptions in his career. During his final season, he completed a career-worst 60.8 percent of his passes but had career-best totals in passing yards (2,860) and interceptions (five).
The native of Warner Robins, Ga., took over the starting job as a true freshman and led the Bulldogs to the national championship game. “Jake is a gamer. He is a kid that grew up around the game,” coach Kirby Smart said as Fromm prepared for his first start. “I look at him and compare him to a coach’s son, a football junkie. He likes it. He loves being around it. He’s always cheering and fired up out there. Every time he makes a good throw or a good play in practice, he is jacked and he is as excited for the kid who made the play as he is for himself. As a defensive coach you may see him cheering and think that he’s rubbing it in, but that’s just who he is.”
In 2019, he was one of 20 semifinalists for the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year, was named to the 2019 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team and was academic all-district. Before he was a football star, he was a Little League World Series star. In 2011 at age 12, he was a 5-foot-11, 163-pound pitcher for the Warner Robins team. At the World Series, he hit three home runs and struck out 11 of the 18 batters he faced. “I think it has definitely helped,” he told LittleLeague.org. “It puts you in those pressure situations and opens you up to playing on TV and in front of a big crowd. It has definitely helped me playing football on the big stage because you’ve already been there. You’ve been through it, you know what’s going on, you know what it’s about, and you just get to go out and play the game you love.” How big is Fromm in Warner Robins? There’s a taco named after him called the Fromm-inator. He’s rooted in his faith, studious and competitive. “We mess with each other all the time because I like to hunt and fish, too. I would bring him a picture of a deer and he would go, ‘I’ve got one bigger.” And I’d have to go kill me one bigger. And then I would have a fish and he would say, ‘That fish is smaller than the one I caught,’” his high school principal told Saturday Down South.
Anthony Gordon, Washington State (6-3, 210): Gordon replaced Gardner Minshew and became the latest Mike Leach legend. In his lone season as the starter, Gordon completed 71.6 percent of his passes for 5,579 yards with 48 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He led the nation in completions and was second in yards and touchdowns behind only Joe Burrow, and set Pac-12 single-season records for passing touchdowns, passing yards, total offense (5,559) and completions (493). He authored three of the top four single-game performances in the country with 606 yards vs. Oregon, 570 yards vs. UCLA and 520 yards vs. Stanford ranking first, second and fourth, respectively.
Gordon had to be patient. Coming out of high school, he was a zero-star recruit with zero scholarship offers. He played at City College of San Francisco in 2015 before going to Washington State. It was his only scholarship offer. "If someone told me last year that I had the chance to play in the NFL, I would've said, 'Man, you're crazy.' I wouldn't have believed it," Gordon told Bleacher Report. "Not because I don't think I'm good enough. It has just been unthinkable with this path I have taken."
Under Leach, he redshirted in 2016, didn’t appear in a game in 2017 and threw five passes in 2018. He could have transferred – the chic thing to do in today’s game – but bided his time. “A lot of guys in his position would’ve got out of here, just being honest,” Easop Winston Jr., a senior wide receiver at WSU and former teammate of Gordon’s at City College of San Francisco, told the Spokesman. “But he just believes in himself. He wasn’t going to go anywhere else. He believed in his heart he would play here. I think he’s closer to his dreams. I tell him every day, I have so much respect for you for hanging in there through that.” Before football, there was baseball. An uncle, Greg Reynolds, was the No. 2 pick of the 2006 draft as a pitcher. Gordon was drafted as an outfielder by the Mets in the 36th round in 2015. “Seeing him as a can’t-miss prospect, second pick in the whole draft, in the same draft as Tim Lincecum, Clayton Kershaw, all of them,” Gordon told LMTribune.com, “and then to see his career go down and those other players’ go up, I was like, ‘Wow, if that could happen to him’ — I’m nowhere near as talented as he was in baseball. So when football came to me the way it did, I was quick to jump on it.”
Jacob Eason, Washington (6-6, 227)*: Eason went from starting as a true freshman at Georgia to suffering a knee injury to losing his starting job to Jake Fromm to transferring. After sitting out the 2018 season to comply with NCAA transfer rules, he completed 64.2 percent of his passes for 3,132 yards with 23 touchdowns vs. eight interceptions in 2019.
He spent his lone year at Washington being pestered about the NFL. “The Twitter, the Instagram, the radio, all that stuff,” he told The Associated Press. “I know it's out there. I don't pay attention to it,” Eason said. “I've got people asking me questions all the time. What do you think about this? I still don't want to respond to all those questions because there's so many of them.” At Lake Stevens (Wash.) High School, he was the Gatorade National Player of the Year in 2015. During his high school career, passed for 9,813 yards with 102 touchdowns and only 18 interceptions. His father is Tony Eason; not the NFL quarterback, though he did play receiver at Notre Dame. “He was a firefighter, so he was always able to take some time off on Fridays or Saturdays to take me to Little League,” Jacob told the school athletic site. "We used to throw the ball around before the bus and before school, and he'd always be critiquing my form and everything.” He was a legend at Lake Stevens, with ESPN televising one of his football games. In his final at-bat in baseball, he homered. “He was good at everything,” his high school quarterbacks coach told RedAndBlack.com and then corrected himself. “Good is probably not the word. He was excellent in everything — baseball, basketball, football. Then on top of it, when you sprinkle in the fact that he's just a really nice, respectful kid, it's impossible not to like the kid.” In high school, he drew comparisons to Matthew Stafford. "I try to take it all with a grain of salt, but that's one of the things I do strive to be—as good as him," Eason told Bleacher Report. "It's a goal, but I don't want to keep my head in all that stuff. I just keep working hard to try and get to that level, instead of thinking that I'm there already."
Jalen Hurts, Oklahoma (6-2, 218): Hurts led Alabama to the national championship game in 2016 and the national championship in 2017 before losing playing time and, ultimately, the job to phenom Tua Tagovailoa. With degree in hand, he transferred to Oklahoma, started immediately and finished as runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. A second-team All-American and a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award, Hurts completed 69.7 percent of his passes for 3,851 yards with 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions and rushed for 1,298 yards and 20 more scores during a stellar senior year. For his career, he threw for 9,477 yards, rushed for 3,274 yards and accounted for 123 total touchdowns. His record as a starter was 38-4.
Hurts led the Sooners to the College Football Playoffs this year. The game was played in Atlanta, where Hurts was benched in favor of Tagovailoa in one national championship game but rallied the Crimson Tide the following year when he replaced an injured Tagovailoa. “I think my story is a bit unique,” Hurts told the Oklahoman. “Just from the standpoint of the success I had early playing for one of the best coaches ever to do it and starting as a freshman. I don’t think there’s anything that’s comparable just from that standpoint.”
“Having six different coaches in my time has helped me more than anything,” he told Sports Illustrated. Six coaches? Yes, six: Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Mike Locksley, Josh Gattis and Brian Daboll at Alabama, and Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma. Hurts is a physical powerhouse and wise beyond his years. After enrolling at Alabama, one of his first tasks was pretending to be Clemson’s Deshaun Watson as the Tide’s scout-team quarterback. His father and brother played a big role in his success. His dad, Averion, was a high school coach. "I was that kid in the field house," Hurts told the school athletics site. "Just being around the older guys and seeing those guys play for my father. Being a ball boy, running down the sideline, throwing the ball to the refs when they need a new ball in a game. Just those little things. Those are things that I'll never forget.” Both of his parents were special-education teachers. With that, he participated in Tim Tebow’s Night To Shine prom for special-needs children and he formed a special friendship with a man with Down syndrome. “I would ask him the score, and the score would be reasonable,” Hurts told The Athletic. “It would be a reasonable score. Then I’d ask him, ‘OK, how many touchdowns?’ And he’d say ‘37!’ or ‘45!’, like really crazy numbers. Then I started recording him on Snapchat and sending it to my friends. He’s a really sweet guy. I loved his honesty.”
Cole McDonald, Hawaii (6-4, 220)*: McDonald threw for 8,010 yards and 69 touchdowns in two seasons as the starter. In 2019, he completed 63.8 percent of his passes for 4,135 yards with 33 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He closed his career with five touchdowns in the bowl game to give Hawaii its first 10-win seasons since 2010.
McDonald was lightly recruited and figured he was headed to Division II as Signing Day approached. “I was actually still up, working on a school project, and I decided to pick up the phone,” he wrote for AthletesForGod. “On the other end was Nick Rolovich, the head coach here at Hawaii. But he wasn’t calling with a scholarship offer. He was calling me to let me know he was thinking about it. ‘I’m not sure if I want to offer you yet,’ he told me. ‘I’ll call you back.’ I started freaking out. I had been chasing after this dream for years, going from one game and one camp to another looking for a shot, and now it was finally within reach. It was halfway across the Pacific Ocean, and I didn’t even know their record from the previous year, but I didn’t care.” Family means everything to McDonald. As detailed by WestHawaiiToday, he played through a knee injury and internal bleeding. It is how his grandfather would have played. “My grandpa is a tough Irish dude,” McDonald said. “He simmered down quite a bit. He was one of those old-school guys that if you’re talking bad, he would settle it with his fists. But he’s a respected man. He has the best respect for everybody and care for people on a person level.”
James Morgan, Florida International (6-4, 213): Morgan spent three years at Bowling Green before going to Florida International for his final two seasons. He threw for 5,312 yards with 40 touchdowns vs. 12 interceptions during those two years. His best year was 2018, when he completed 65.3 percent of his passes for 2,727 yards with 26 touchdowns vs. seven interceptions.
Morgan grew up in the Green Bay suburb of Ashwaubenon. “It was absolutely awesome,” he told the Draft Network. “My high school was a couple of blocks away from Lambeau Field and my house was about 10 minutes away from it as well. (I was a) huge Brett Favre fan growing up and absolutely loved watching him. He had some magical moments at Lambeau. It was a fantastic atmosphere for me and it was at a young age that caused me to fall in love with football. Ever since then, I really wanted to be a quarterback.”
He graduated from Bowling Green with a degree in pre-law, which allowed him to play at FIU immediately. His coach at Bowling Green called him a “gym rat.” His coach at FIU, Butch Davis, said: “James is a really special kid and he has a chance to be the best I’ve ever coached at quarterback. Having the program led by him, it helps me sleep at night, because not only is he going to do his job, he’s going to be trying to help lead the other guys.” At FIU, he worked toward a master’s degree in public administration. “Football places daunting challenges in front of you and asks how you will respond,” he wrote for FIU Magazine. “Whether it be a talented opponent, an extremely tough run or lift, or the pressure to perform at a high level week in and week out, at some point you will be pushed to your absolute limit. The same discipline that has taught me to get the through physical pain and exhaustion has been critical to my academics. Just as my entire playing season is planned out almost to the minute—accounting for practices, meetings, watching film and game day—so has that approach worked to the advantage of my studies.
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