Making comparisons is never a bad thing, but when it becomes a heavy-handed endeavor to cement an loose opinion... fools errand.
I've always viewed "situations" as the ultimate game changer. Seems logical enough, but who's to say if Patrick Mahomes was drafted by Chicago Bears, would he still be the player that he is now? What about Tom Brady?! Some rare talents are unfazed by circumstances, but that curve ball never really seems to get the respect it deserves.
Interesting article. I hadn't minded the Mac Jones/Kirk Cousins comps when discussing the Niners (because they explain why the Niners might theoretically like Mac Jones, given Shanahan's public admiration of Kirk), but you make a compelling argument for how Jones and Cousins profiled very differently at similar points in their career. For me I would say that Mac Jones has a realistic range between Chad Pennington and Matt Ryan, where he clearly can find open players accurately and his ceiling is controlled by how well he can toy with defenses by understanding what the defenses are doing.
Beyond that, I admit I am unsure how useful real athletic scores are for pocket passers. Mac Jones just does not scramble. This year he had 35 rushes for 14 yards and 1 TD. His RAS is basically right between Matt Ryan at 5.77 and Matt Stafford at 6.03, which feels accurate to me. (Incidentally, Jimmy Garoppolo's RAS is about 5.01, for an example of a somewhat improvisational QB who does not have a particularly high RAS.) I buy entirely that RAS is super important for the scrambling/improvising QBs, but it feels like it has minimal relevance to the guys that never run even when they could. It would be really interesting to see how RAS correlates to success for the traditional pocket passers of the league of the last 20 years (Brady, Ryan, Cousins, Stafford, Eli, Peyton, etc.).
Otherwise, I really appreciate how you state that you can be offended by how Justin Fields has been overly attacked, even as it is kind of weird to use Kirk Cousins to prop up Mac Jones. Further, I think it is super easy to be down on both Mac Jones and Justin Fields. To the extent that you think that demonstrating a quick ability to read defenses is important, you should not be high on Justin Fields. Justin Fields did not demonstrate this on anything resembling a statistically significant sample. It's true that his offense didn't ask him to, but that means we have literally no idea if he can. If anyone thinks that he can, they are guessing (which is fine, ranking prospects is largely a guessing game, but I'm just calling a spade a spade). Beyond this, I am concerned about the fact that Justin Fields because when his teammates are not the best he does not seem to rise their level of play. His worst 3 games this year (Indiana, Northwestern, Alabama) were when Ohio was missing some players (such that they were not elite at every level compared to their competition) and then when they were facing Alabama (such that his teammates were not overpowering their competition). Recent history has shown us that many of the QBs that have objectively over-delivered on promise to date (Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar, Herbert, Dak) were on college teams that did not just overpower their components. There are some exceptions (Watson, most notably), but I do not think anyone is being unreasonable for thinking that it is risky to pick a QB that has never/rarely had to deal with being on the worse team on the field, especially when you are picking that QB high (such that, logically speaking, that QB will have to adjust to the NFL while being on one of the worst teams for the next few years). Of course, this counts equally against Mac Jones and Fields, hence why I am down on both of them.
Mayfield played on a good team, though it's a stretch to compare those Sooners to this year's Tide. Jones thrived on a team that has, what, 30+ NFL players on it? It's tough to separate how much of this production was Jones vs the overall talent and coaching and, e.g., assess what any other QB prospect would have done on that team.
Making comparisons is never a bad thing, but when it becomes a heavy-handed endeavor to cement an loose opinion... fools errand.
I've always viewed "situations" as the ultimate game changer. Seems logical enough, but who's to say if Patrick Mahomes was drafted by Chicago Bears, would he still be the player that he is now? What about Tom Brady?! Some rare talents are unfazed by circumstances, but that curve ball never really seems to get the respect it deserves.
Interesting article. I hadn't minded the Mac Jones/Kirk Cousins comps when discussing the Niners (because they explain why the Niners might theoretically like Mac Jones, given Shanahan's public admiration of Kirk), but you make a compelling argument for how Jones and Cousins profiled very differently at similar points in their career. For me I would say that Mac Jones has a realistic range between Chad Pennington and Matt Ryan, where he clearly can find open players accurately and his ceiling is controlled by how well he can toy with defenses by understanding what the defenses are doing.
Beyond that, I admit I am unsure how useful real athletic scores are for pocket passers. Mac Jones just does not scramble. This year he had 35 rushes for 14 yards and 1 TD. His RAS is basically right between Matt Ryan at 5.77 and Matt Stafford at 6.03, which feels accurate to me. (Incidentally, Jimmy Garoppolo's RAS is about 5.01, for an example of a somewhat improvisational QB who does not have a particularly high RAS.) I buy entirely that RAS is super important for the scrambling/improvising QBs, but it feels like it has minimal relevance to the guys that never run even when they could. It would be really interesting to see how RAS correlates to success for the traditional pocket passers of the league of the last 20 years (Brady, Ryan, Cousins, Stafford, Eli, Peyton, etc.).
Otherwise, I really appreciate how you state that you can be offended by how Justin Fields has been overly attacked, even as it is kind of weird to use Kirk Cousins to prop up Mac Jones. Further, I think it is super easy to be down on both Mac Jones and Justin Fields. To the extent that you think that demonstrating a quick ability to read defenses is important, you should not be high on Justin Fields. Justin Fields did not demonstrate this on anything resembling a statistically significant sample. It's true that his offense didn't ask him to, but that means we have literally no idea if he can. If anyone thinks that he can, they are guessing (which is fine, ranking prospects is largely a guessing game, but I'm just calling a spade a spade). Beyond this, I am concerned about the fact that Justin Fields because when his teammates are not the best he does not seem to rise their level of play. His worst 3 games this year (Indiana, Northwestern, Alabama) were when Ohio was missing some players (such that they were not elite at every level compared to their competition) and then when they were facing Alabama (such that his teammates were not overpowering their competition). Recent history has shown us that many of the QBs that have objectively over-delivered on promise to date (Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar, Herbert, Dak) were on college teams that did not just overpower their components. There are some exceptions (Watson, most notably), but I do not think anyone is being unreasonable for thinking that it is risky to pick a QB that has never/rarely had to deal with being on the worse team on the field, especially when you are picking that QB high (such that, logically speaking, that QB will have to adjust to the NFL while being on one of the worst teams for the next few years). Of course, this counts equally against Mac Jones and Fields, hence why I am down on both of them.
Mayfield played on a good team, though it's a stretch to compare those Sooners to this year's Tide. Jones thrived on a team that has, what, 30+ NFL players on it? It's tough to separate how much of this production was Jones vs the overall talent and coaching and, e.g., assess what any other QB prospect would have done on that team.