Why the NFL (constantly) misses on Quarterbacks.

scouting and drafting quarterbacks has proven to be one of the most impossibly difficult things to do in sports you can light an entire organization on fire instantly in the 2021 and 22 drafts only two quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence and Brock pie are currently starters whereas the other 17 including five first rounders are either benched traded or out on the streets why do so many fail well well today we're going to use Drake May's film to explain why he does have a ton of tools which is why he's projected as the top three pick next month but the thing about film study and why it's so hard to hit on college quarterbacks in the draft is because what happens on each and every play is incredibly subjective you have to take into account a gigantic Melting Pot of his skills mixed with the scheme that is being run the receiving Talent the offensive Line's ability the quality of the opposing defense these are all wildly variable factors changing constantly playto playay game to game and make it brutally challenging in determining if the prospect will or will not succeed in the NFL May has a ton of good on his tape he has a powerful throwing arm can touch balls in a different pockets in zone can gun go balls deep down the field outside fits in high level throws over the middle on occasion has great athleticism in a sturdy lower half where he can shake off Defenders and can even factor into the QB Run game if you choose to use them in it North Carolina scheme is designed to start with an alert read outside where they usually have an ISO fade that means if Macy is a just one high safety and he has a one-on-one outside he can read that first but if let's say the safety is shifted way over or something he can ignore the fade and read out the concept to the other side this is where his armed Talent really shines just a beautiful bomb down the field dropped perfectly with Precision to his receiver who doesn't give him a lot of room to work with knowing how the Dar heels design their concepts with the alert first gives us more context but it also begins our journey of trying to parse through weather May is bad even when he's good or vice versa this is one of my favorite throws of his where we have the alert at the bottom and then dagger up top the reason this potentially isn't good is cuz NC State sends a cat Blitz from the boundary which changes the alert progression because the tar Hill's offensive line is sliding away from the cat pressure and typically omary and Hampton is on a dual read where he's looking at pton Wilson to the cat pressure to block whoever's coming well when Hampton doesn't block anybody now may knows the corner is coming free and that he's hot JJ Jones knows it too he sight adjusts which means he cuts his route off and becomes immediately available since the blitzer's coming free but may doesn't see him and we'd like to think he sees his first read not open so he throws to his second but without sitting down and watching film with him we can't know whether or not he's just throwing the Dig come hell or high water there are times where he demonstrates reading the field really well the Tar Heels have this smash concept against two high where he's going to read the cornerback and depending on if he drops deep or stays back may is supposed to hit whoever's open and despite the fact Justin Wally plays this pretty well and doesn't give him a ton of room to throw the corner he unleashes a missile this will translate to NFL Sundays but then there are times where he doesn't read the field well like on their double seam concept where he's supposed to just Vision the post safety and throw the seam away from him his receiver gets a free release and has all the room in the world but instead of throwing up the seam away from the safety he leads John copenhaver into the safety he can't even complete the pass and almost gets his guy blown up now to defend May typical cover three Zone as the safety in two corners playing the three deep zones so you just read the safety it's pretty easy but NC State plays cover three double cloud with both Corners playing underneath and both safeties playing the other thirds this is not a coverage you'll almost ever see in the NFL so maybe it spooked him and made the read more challenging one of his traits that for me is most concerning is how Wild and erratic his footwork is there are traits that can't be coached up others that can I do think footwork can be improved at the next level but once again this goes back to our overall thesis of the episode if it is subjective to assume that Ma bad footwork can be improved which makes the evaluation harder here in overtime a touchdown wins the game and they have this Julian Edelman Super Bowl 49 route where Nate McCullum fakes inside then whips out against man but may just misses the throw and it's because of his footwork without a solid base to throw it's nearly impossible to have consistent accuracy when your feet are moving that moves your head your eyes your hips your arm and it's going to be hard to hit your spot every time I don't know why but someone's teach tape that PO to mind is Russell Wilson look how quiet refined soft comfortable his footwork is in the pocket his head can stay still his base intact May probably can get to this level with NFL coaching but if we can't be 100% certain this could easily tank his career this footwork definitely affects his timing if you're not ready to throw at every moment when someone suddenly comes open you'll speed up your delivery and throw wildly he's trying to get to this deep curl outside but look how late he is on the throw by the time TZ Walker breaks open the ball should come out now it's still in his hands and it's nearly intercepted if this is the spot dead middle behind the center where he should be launching the ball from look at where he is he's choppy he's uneven he's bouncing all over the place he drifts into the pass rush so he creates his own pressure this is not good at all and if it's not cleaned up yeah he is Zach Wilson but now let's look at this glass half full when he wins in spite of the bad footwork that means that if we can clean it up as a coaching staff his potential is through the roof here's the same alert dagger concept where we have the alert fade here and then the dagger concept here where we're reading one to two if we're not peing the alert since Clemson is playing one high and blitzing off the edge s to that cap pressure from before the alert is in play but when it's not open look at how tight this window is that may squeezes it into and let me tell you why it's even more impressive Clemson's coverage is designed to take away this exact concept they are playing what's called cover onean match Wade wudz is in man but to make sure dagger doesn't come open Andrew makuba takes the Crosser and Wuda switches into his position May is still able to fit this in but look at how insane his footwork is now Hampton does pick up the edge so may not hot but from this moment on his footwork is not tied to his eyes or arm and so he can't throw dagger until now where he walks himself closer to pressure and creates what's really a much more difficult throw if you're a scout are you giving him a plus here for fitting in the tight window ball backside or are you giving him a minus cuz we can't work with a quarterback whose footwork may never improve to complicate matters further his pre and post Snap processing is also super inconsistent so it's just hard to tell what he's really seeing before and after the snap we have a couple of examples of Minnesota running some of the worst drop a coverages I have ever seen so we got our slot receiver just wide open even though they're dropping everybody in their mama into coverage and to see this play out multiple times in a game shows that may is processing what is about to happen he's marrying his re pre and post Snap to confirm what he's seeing so he can easily dice up these boo boo shoes coverages but then a few minutes later on Third and five Minnesota is scrambling we have the safety 10 yards off the receiver on the curl for the first down throw it he's looking right at him but then we get to see some of the playmaking ability and the Big Arm once again are we giving this a plus or a minus it is so subjective it's hard to say these bad reads keep playing out on his film but then there's also good so maybe he's lucky on the good or is just inconsistent I mean when you're constantly misreading lion which is double or triple Slants this is a major red flag lion is universally coached to be red inside out but if there's any issue with the first slant the second should be open since you're clearing out the coverage inside pre- snap we have a tighter Defender and then outside the other is another four yards further instead of May reading that and then post Snap reading the first slant really isn't open he just jams it in there while the second one comes free maybe he didn't read it well and is bad at processing or maybe he saw the Blitz and wanted to replace the pressure with the first slant breaking into that space there are always a million different ways that you can look at the same single play on film now against South Carolina we have three receiver lion based off the pre- snap read I'd probably take the first or third slant based on where the defense is positioned but may takes the second and completes the pass is this good or bad I don't like the read but he shows good accuracy maybe he was worried about someone on the line dropping into his first window without talking to the man himself and going through each and every play it is nearly impossible to tell which is why scouting is so difficult hell even the guys who do get to sit down with him mess up all the time pie and Lawrence are the only survivors from these two recent classes and py was passed on 2 61 different times to plant my flag I do like may I think he has a ton of tools a super high ceiling I love his arm his legs the way he moves in and out of the pocket but it's impossible not to worry about all of his flaws then mocking him at two overall if these flaws don't get ironed out he could easily be dust scouting football players especially quarterbacks is one of the hardest jobs in the world but this is why it makes it so fun everybody sees every single play differently which is a major reason it's so damn challenging Drake May does have the ceiling does have what it takes to be really good but we won't know what he really is until the very first [Music] Sunday

Channel: AlexRollinsNFL

Views: 148,705

Keywords: drake maye, nfl draft, nfl, drake maye highlights, drake maye scouting report, drake maye film, drake maye film breakdown, drake maye 2023 highlights, drake maye unc highlights, quarterback, nfl draft 2024, alex rollins, alexrollinsnfl

Id: v_ywnMqjHQs

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024