Where Would Jarrett Stidham Rank Amongst This Year's Prospects?

One NFL Draft analyst give his take on where Jarrett Stidham would rank on his QB big board for the 2020 Draft.

We know New England Patriots quarterback Jarrett Stidham went in the fourth round of last year's NFL Draft. But how would he stack up against this year's prospects at the quarterback position?

NFL.com draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah was asked that question while on WEEI's radio show "Dale & Keefe" on Wednesday, and had this to say:

“(Jarrett Stidham) was a tricky evaluation because I had seen him throw live, I went and watched him as a counselor at the Elite 11 in Los Angeles and saw him throw with all the top college kids. I thought he threw it better than all of them," he said. "I thought he had tremendous ability, but he played in that goofy offense at Auburn, which didn’t do him any favors. He was a tough evaluation, but talent-wise he was impressive.

“I would say last year I had him in probably that third-round range, and then this year I would say, if you just go off of talent, he’d be in the conversation as the fourth or fifth guy.”

To put Jeremiah's evaluation into perspective, the 4th and 5th best quarterbacks heading into this year's draft according to many analysts are Utah State's Jordan Love and Washington's Jacob Eason, respectively. Eason could be drafted in the backend of the first round, but is more likely to be an early Day 2 selection. As for Love, he has a wide range of outcomes, as he could go as early as the 5th overall pick, or could fall to the 25th overall pick based on projections. So, if we were to average out where Love and Eason are projected to go, Stidham could be drafted somewhere in the backend of the first round if he was in this year's draft class based on Jeremiah's remarks. 

While comparing Stidham to this year's draft class is an odd way to evaluate him, especially when considering each year's positional class can be far different from the next one or the previous one, it's just one more way we can try to evaluate a player that has yet to play meaningful snaps in the NFL. But when looking at the fact that Stidham was the 7th quarterback selected in the 2019 Draft, Jeremiah's comments should make fans feel a little more confident about how Stidham can perform as a starter in the NFL.