The first moments after drafting a potential franchise quarterback are euphoric. It’s a time for mythmaking and well-wishing. Every quarterback will be good and they will be good right away, especially the one on my favorite team. Sunshine and rainbows for everyone.
Now it’s June. The draft is more than a month in the rearview mirror. Rookie mini camps and OTAs are underway. We’ve finally gotten to see all of these rookie quarterbacks in their NFL uniforms for the first time and it’s starting to set in how real all of this is.
With that comes the dawning realization of what a good rookie season actually looks like — what it will take, how each rookie can get there, what kind of help they will be getting along the way.
The bar is different for each quarterback. Some prospects are understood to be projects, while others are expected to bring a veteran-like presence right away. One or two quarterbacks may be equipped with a strong team around them; others will be forced to sink or swim on bad rosters. The sliding scale for success has to be adjusted accordingly.
With that in mind, let’s explore the five first-round quarterbacks expected to start games this season (sorry, Michael Penix Jr.) and dive into what their rookie seasons should look like.
Where They’ll Succeed in Chicago’s Scheme
Lincoln Riley and Shane Waldron don’t share a ton of schematic DNA. Riley is a collegiate play-caller through and through, committed to spread formations and RPOs and unique abuses of the wider college hashes. Waldron, by contrast, is one of many Sean McVay disciples, though his passing offenses in Seattle took on more of a spread out approach than McVay ever has.
While that rift will present some growing pains for Caleb Williams, it also presents a lot of opportunities. Waldron’s offense is highly aggressive, both in the dropback game and the play-action game — offensive line play permitting. Waldron wants to attack down the field and give his quarterback the tools to pick defenses apart. For some of his warts as a play-caller, Waldron always equipped Geno Smith with impressive dropback concepts and a flurry of good play calls from empty.
That aggressive dropback nature is a boon for the first overall pick. Williams is inclined to hang onto the ball and make aggressive throws down the field. He has not only the physical tools for it, but the quick processing ability and brazenness to test any window. That’s exactly what made Smith a success in Waldron’s offense, as well as Matthew Stafford in McVay’s retooled passing offense.
Spamming empty formations will be good for Williams as well. Last season, the Seahawks ran plenty of empty formations with Smith. Part of that was done to ensure the ball got out quickly to hide the offensive line, but also to force the defense to tip their hand to their sharp quarterback. Empty formations force the defense to undress their coverage.
A quarterback as sharp as Williams can, as he did at USC, feast with that kind of information. And if Williams needs to pull the ripcord versus immediate pressure, we all know what he can do once he goes into creation mode.
Another byproduct of Waldron’s offense — which wants to incorporate plenty of play-action contrasted by empty formations — is that checking down to the back isn’t a major part of the offense. More of the back’s touches come from running the ball. All of those run plays set up play-action, which more often than not are shot plays that never get to the checkdown, if the back even gets out. Conversely, empty formations do not have checkdowns in the traditional sense.
That’s kind of nice for Williams, who wasn’t used to checking down very much in college. Williams was more often than not his own checkdown. He would turn into a scrambler, either looking for unhinged plays outside the pocket or just taking off himself. The fact that Williams probably won’t be stressed into incorporating checkdowns into his game right away is good. One less thing off his plate while he hones the rest of his game.
Where They’ll Need to Improve in Chicago’s Scheme
All of that being said, Williams isn’t walking into the league without a blemish or two. Williams possesses some of the greatest physical gifts we’ve seen out of a quarterback in the modern era, but he needs a bit of polish.
The first obstacle will be getting Williams to play on time and within the structure of the offense more consistently. Williams wasn’t nearly as untethered to the structure of the play as many led on during the draft process, but it’s definitely something he needs to work on.
At USC, especially in 2023, you could see Williams did not trust the offense to do its thing. He needed to be the X factor. Williams felt that pressure and acted accordingly, which often meant turning down open throws early in the down in favor of a more aggressive opportunity later. It’s hard to live that way in the NFL on a consistent basis.
Williams will also need to throw the middle of the field better than he did at USC. He isn’t a bad passer over the middle, to be clear. Williams quite obviously has the arm talent, accuracy and aggressive mindset to make those throws.
However, a lot of throws over the middle, such as seams and digs, require crisp timing. Windows close faster over the middle of the field because there are more bodies ready to pounce on the quarterback’s eyes and trigger.
They also require the quarterback to be able to throw directly over bodies in the pocket. Williams isn’t as short as Russell Wilson or Bryce Young, but he’s on the short side for quarterbacks at a hair over 6’1″. Quarterbacks on the shorter end of the spectrum tend to struggle seeing and throwing over bodies from the middle of the pocket, and Williams isn’t fully immune from that.
Williams can throw the middle of the field at an acceptable level already, but taking his game to the next level will require him to find more ways to create throwing lanes over the middle and play with more consistent anticipation.
Stat Predictions
17 G, 64% CMP, 4100 YDS 26 TD, 14 INT; 370 RUSH YDS, 6 TD
Realistic Goal / Outcome
On a typical first-overall-pick caliber team, the hype around Williams’ rookie season would be unreasonable. It’s not in Chicago, though. The Bears have a solid offensive line, especially at the bookends, and have three serious NFL receivers who all fit comfortably into different roles. Chicago’s defense should give Williams plenty of support as well.
Williams should be the frontrunner for the Rookie of the Year award. Simple as that.
Where They’ll Succeed in Washington’s Scheme
Kliff Kingsbury’s three-year stint in Arizona did not convince me he is a good NFL offensive mind. He’s not totally without merit, though.
Kingsbury is good at three things: spread quick game, simple vertical concepts, and quarterback-centric run game.
Jayden Daniels is the ideal quarterback for those tenets.
Daniels dominated the 1-10 yard range at LSU, particularly outside the numbers. Per my own charting for Reception Perception, Daniels was accurate on 87.3% of his throws to the outside in the 1-10 yard range. A majority of those throws were hitches, curls, speed outs and flat routes. Daniels showed exceptional timing and accuracy on those throws.
Simple vertical throws outside the numbers were also a boon for Daniels at the Tigers. The LSU offense was littered with go balls and slot fades, thanks to having both Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. on the roster. Daniels rarely missed those two studs down the field. I charted Daniels as accurate on 59.4% of his throws beyond 20 yards — best in class. Daniels doesn’t necessarily have the strongest arm, but he throws with such good timing, arc and touch that he more than makes up for it.
In the run game, Kingsbury should be able to copy and paste a lot of what he did with Kyler Murray onto the Daniels offense. Murray is obviously smaller and perhaps a tad nimbler than Daniels, but the two share a lot of similarities in terms of quickness and top speed.
Daniels, like Murray, thrives not between the tackles with balance and vision a la Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts, but out on the perimeter. Zone read is the easiest way to get that going. There will be more than that, though, if Kingsbury is worth holding the job. Kingsbury can also bring some of the G-T counter and arc read RPOs that we have seen both at the college ranks and around the league, ranging from Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma and USC offenses to the Deshaun Watson offenses in Houston.
Where They’ll Need to Improve in Washington’s Scheme
Kingsbury’s shortcomings as an offensive mind boil down to not putting together a “traditional” NFL offense. At least in Arizona, Kingsbury’s offense did not do very well to get under center or utilize play-action or attack the middle of the field. The whole plane was built out of four-wide shotgun formations designed to do nothing but run Stick and slot fade concepts, save for brief stretches of creativity every now and again.
On one hand, that’s kind of good for Daniels. All of what’s missing from Kingsbury’s offense is what Daniels struggled with at LSU, or simply wasn’t asked to do at all.
Take play-action, for instance. Daniels hardly ran play-action (not including RPOs) while at LSU. Per my own charting, only 7% of Daniels’ attempts at LSU came off of play-action. He was accurate on just 58.6% of those throws, the lowest mark in the class.
There’s a bit of a small sample issue there, but it’s telling that LSU hardly asked Daniels to throw off play-action and that he struggled to do it. Daniels is more of a passer who wants to see everything and throw based off of easily digestible information. It’s why LSU’s spread offense, and soon Kingsbury’s, made sense to him.
Play-action, by contrast, sort of requires a leap of faith. The quarterback has to turn his back to the defense and very quickly make a decision once he snaps his eyes back to the defense. That requires not only anticipation and confidence, but the arm talent to rip those throws somewhere between 12 and 20 yards into a sea of bodies over the middle. That’s why Ryan Tannehill, despite his other shortcomings, is such a good play-action thrower.
Daniels, at least for now, does not appear to be that kind of thrower.
Daniels also didn’t throw the middle of the field very often in general at LSU, play-action or otherwise. When he did, Daniels acquitted himself well. You saw solid ball placement and flashes of veteran-like ability to guide the ball away from an enclosing defender. Daniels tended to shy away from tight windows, however, and did not like throwing the middle of the field later in the down. It was more likely to see him check down or take off than throw a late-developing dig route.
The other concern with Daniels is how he’s going to manage the pocket in the NFL. That’s not really scheme-related, of course. An NFL quarterback has to manage the pocket well in any offense. But for Daniels, his willingness to hang in tight NFL pockets may affect what kinds of passing plays the offense can call.
Daniels’ patience and willingness to play from the pocket tend to run thin. There are moments where he is willing to take a shot when he knows full well where the ball needs to go pre-snap, but when he has to solve problems from the pocket late in the down, he simply opts not to.
Daniels regularly turned down throws late in the down at LSU in favor of scrambling. And for Daniels, leaving the pocket meant he would turn into a runner more often than not. That’s good and well at the college ranks, but in the NFL, it’s hard to consistently play that way.
Now Daniels is going from the Fort Knox that was LSU’s offensive line to the eminently penetrable Commanders offensive line. Washington’s offensive line will either immediately force Daniels to mature as a pocket manager, or start a violent cascade of consequences throughout the rest of his game.
Stat Predictions
17 GM, 62% CMP, 2900 YDS, 15 TD, 9 INT; 550 RUSH YDS, 7 TD
Realistic Goal / Outcome
Daniels has an outside shot at being the Rookie of the Year. His athleticism and accuracy across the board are a good starting point. Between the offensive line woes and Daniels’ own blemishes, however, he probably shouldn’t be a favorite for the award.
Instead, success for Daniels should come in the form of maturation as a passer. Better pocket management and an uptick in aggression over the middle would go a long way for Daniels not only as a rookie, but down the line. If he can show off signs of life in those areas, the Commanders can come away from the season feeling good with their selection.
Where They’ll Succeed in New England’s Scheme
About a month ago, I was a guest on the Mina Kimes Show to talk about every rookie quarterback’s fit on their new team. Kimes posited a question about Drake Maye that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since then: What if new offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt treats Drake Maye like Joe Flacco?
Being 2024 Flacco doesn’t sound very exciting for the third-overall pick. It’s less about efficacy and more about usage, though. Everything Van Pelt (and Kevin Stefanski) did with Flacco in Cleveland last year is right up Maye’s alley.
That is to say Flacco and the Browns threw the hell out of the ball. Flacco threw often, and he often threw it far. Per NextGenStats, Flacco finished the season with the third-highest average depth of target (9.3) and third-highest rate of throws into tight windows (19.1%). Flacco’s 3.01s time to throw was also seventh-highest in the league, pretty much only behind a slew of scramblers.
Hell or high water, Flacco was hanging in that pocket and ripping it down the field. He was an homage to a different era of pocket passers.
Flacco is wired that way, but the offense also embraced that side of him. Van Pelt leaned into deep drops and play-action to support Flacco’s strengths. In just five games, Flacco had 66 play-action dropbacks and 86 five- or seven-step dropbacks, according to SportsInfoSolutions. That’s 17.2 five- or seven-step drops for Flacco per game. No other quarterback with at least 100 total attempts had more such attempts than Flacco.
Maye is leaps and bounds beyond Flacco athletically, but their strengths and inclinations as passers aren’t so different. Maye, too, is exceptionally willing to hang onto the football. He throws well down the field, better than to any other area right now. The vast majority of Maye’s highlights from the pocket are bombs on post routes and deep overs or lasers fit into tight seam and dig windows. Both the arm talent and the unwavering confidence to be a lethal downfield passer are present with Maye.
If the Patriots want to unleash Maye early, the Flacco method will be the way to do it. Let him drop back deep and slide around in the pocket as it collapses before uncorking a 20-yarder. It’s going to look bad at times and Maye will make mistakes, but for the sake of tapping into his best traits for his long-term development, this must be the path.
Maye will also allow Van Pelt to branch into the quarterback run game. In Cleveland, that’s not something he did much of. There was a little bit here and there with Deshaun Watson, and a dash more with Dorian Thompson-Robinson, but the quarterback run element was never a core tenet of the offense. Now, with Maye, it can be.
Athletically, Maye is second only to Jayden Daniels in this class. There’s an argument Maye is the better athlete if you consider size, and prefer strength and balance over pure open field speed. Maye is less of the quick-twitched ghost Daniels is and more of the rampaging ostrich that Josh Allen resembles.
Maye isn’t quite as fast or bendy as Allen (hardly anyone to ever play the position has been), but he’s a close enough approximation that Van Pelt could run all of the same plays the Bills do for Allen, both between the tackles and on the perimeter.
Where They’ll Need to Improve in New England’s Scheme
The conversation around Maye’s “footwork problems” at North Carolina was both overblown and misunderstood, but it wasn’t baseless.
A large part of the disconnect is that Maye’s “drifting” in the pocket was often interpreted as aimless and reckless. Sure, he did slide himself into pressure at times, but Maye was more often putting out fires and creating new, clean throwing lanes with all of his pocket movement. There was more good than bad. The bad just made him look like Mr. Magoo behind a terrible offensive line.
The actual concern, however, is that Maye is coming from an offense that did not give him structure in terms of footwork and timing. North Carolina’s offense was a spread-and-shred operation littered with option routes and loose landmarks. The concept of syncing up a three- or five-step drop perfectly to a route combination and throwing with crisp timing to a specific spot just didn’t really exist in the offense. Not nearly to the degree it does in any NFL offense, anyhow.
In turn, Maye’s freedom to do whatever he wanted with his feet led to some accuracy issues. Not only would Maye be late at times, but he also had a tendency to align his feet too narrow to his target whenever he threw to his right. Those are both issues rooted in having no real structure when it comes to footwork.
That’s all going to change in the NFL with Van Pelt. The mystery is how long it will take Maye to tighten the screws.
Cleaning up Maye’s footwork will probably take years. He may be marginally better as a rookie, but it’s difficult for any young player to completely overhaul the pace and structure they play with in their first year as a pro. It’s more likely this will be a long, slow process that finally starts to bear fruit down the line.
The good news for Maye is many of the league’s best quarterbacks had to undergo similar growth. Patrick Mahomes, though his collegiate footwork issues were also overblown, is a much cleaner operator than he was in his youth. Josh Allen didn’t fix his herky-jerky footwork until his third year in the NFL. Lamar Jackson, a two-time MVP, came out of college with a terribly narrow base that he has since fixed.
Still, there’s no guarantee Maye ever gets there, and he almost certainly won’t get there as a rookie. Expect frustrating misfires from Maye as a result of loose footwork.
Stat Predictions
14 G, 59% CMP, 2750 YDS, 17 TD, 12 INT; 400 RUSH YDS, 6 TD
Realistic Goal / Outcome
Maye probably won’t win Rookie of the Year given the Patriots’ supporting cast. There’s no sure-thing veteran receiver to be his security blanket. It’s mostly a collection of mid-tier role players and fellow rookies. The offensive line, while not as bad as it seems at first glance, isn’t anything better than average. The 2024 Patriots offense is going to be a year of growth for everyone involved.
With that in mind, a successful year for Maye means showing flashes of top-10 quarterback potential and making any amount of headway when it comes to ironing out his footwork issues. That will be enough to make the Patriots feel good about their guy moving forward.
Where They’ll Succeed in Minnesota’s Scheme
J.J. McCarthy will have the smoothest college-to-pro transition of anyone in this class.
Michigan’s offense with McCarthy at the helm was a run-first operation that used under-center formations, motion and NFL-like play-action more than most college offenses. Managing tight pockets and throwing over the middle of the field with conviction was necessary for McCarthy. Likewise, McCarthy was at times responsible for checking into different looks and understanding how a defense adjusted to motion on the fly. He got the closest simulation to NFL play among his peers in the class despite his lack of passing volume.
Now take a bird’s eye view at Kevin O’Connell’s offense in Minnesota. A Sean McVay disciple, O’Connell also operates with a run-first mentality, a philosophy that informs his use of under-center formations, play-action and motion to blend the run game and the passing game together. O’Connell leverages all of those tools to attack the middle of the field relentlessly. With Justin Jefferson as the tip of the spear, it’s been a fruitful approach over the past two seasons.
All of McCarthy’s best throws happen to be over the middle of the field. McCarthy can rip a dig into a tight window with anticipation. He can pin a seam route on the back shoulder of his tight end. Laying the ball out in front of his receivers on deep over routes is second nature to McCarthy at this point.
Moreover, McCarthy has the bravado to hang in the pocket and make those throws. He was fearless in the pocket at Michigan. McCarthy proved time and time again that he would take a hit for the sake of getting a throw off. McCarthy may need to improve his pocket movement to make the most of that, but he’s coming in with a decent baseline there already, especially for such a young player.
McCarthy can also move around a little. He has some bounce to him. What McCarthy lacks in size and strength, he makes up for with agility and decent speed in the open field. There’s not enough juice there to make McCarthy a dangerous designed runner, but he has all he needs to handle O’Connell’s play-action boots and be an occasionally useful scrambler. The latter is certainly an improvement over what the Vikings had in Kirk Cousins for half a decade.
Where They’ll Need to Improve in Minnesota’s Scheme
While McCarthy is a seamless fit for the foundation of the O’Connell offense, he’s not yet ready for the expansive dropback game Cousins was able to add to the offense.
That’s no knock on McCarthy, either. McCarthy is a 21-year-old coming from an offense that did not put a lot on his shoulders. McCarthy only showed flashes of the ability to handle serious dropback concepts in college. That’s not to say he can’t do it at all or can’t improve, but asking him to throw five-step-drop concepts from gun a dozen times a game would be asking a lot in year one.
Cousins, by contrast, is a 12-year vet who has played in a slew of NFL offenses and dramatically improved his ability to handle shotgun dropback concepts over the years, particularly since joining the Vikings. Of course he understands how to decipher how defenses are hiding coverage shells pre-snap. Cousins knows how to take shortcuts through his progressions when need be. Those just aren’t skills McCarthy will have built up yet.
McCarthy also needs to clean up his mechanics. That applies to both his footwork and his upper body.
In college, McCarthy struggled mightily throwing to his left. The intermediate range was particularly tough for him. By my own charting, McCarthy was accurate on 38.9% of throws to the left side of the field in the 11-20 yard range. McCarthy was accurate on 73.3% of throws to his right in that same yardage range.
Most of the issue boils down to McCarthy’s footwork. When transitioning to throw to his left, McCarthy has a tendency to swing his lead foot way too wide of his target. That leads to a massive power leak from his core and disrupts the flow of the throwing motion, both of which put a ton of stress on just the arm to finish the throw.
McCarthy also struggles a little bit to get touch on certain throws right now. Deep crossers, corner routes and even speed outs in which McCarthy needs to get the ball up and over a defender are his Achilles heel. McCarthy throws the hell out of the ball in a straight line, but getting that feathery up-and-down touch is not in his arsenal right now.
McCarthy may still be an effective quarterback without ever sorting that out, but more in the Baker Mayfield to Jared Goff range than among the league’s best.
Stat Predictions
10 G, 61% CMP, 1950 YDS, 11 TD, 9 INT; 175 RUSH YDS, 2 TD
Realistic Goal / Outcome
Everyone wants McCarthy to be a Rookie of the Year candidate. It’s hard to fight that feeling considering the coach and roster supporting him. McCarthy is a very green player, though. He is a 21-year-old coming from an offense that didn’t need him to be the man in order to win a National Championship.
The goal for McCarthy should be to prove he can handle the core of the O’Connell offense and sprinkle in some flashes of top-12 quarterback potential. If the Vikings come away from the season believing they can win with McCarthy for at least the next four years, then this season is a win.
Where They’ll Succeed in Denver’s Scheme
There’s always a degree of flexibility when talking about Sean Payton’s scheme. Payton has core concepts, same as anyone else, but his offense has been so many different things over the years. The early Drew Brees offenses were different from the late Drew Brees offenses. Teddy Bridgewater’s spot starts in New Orleans looked nothing like the year Jameis Winston was the starter, neither of which looked anything like when Taysom Hill was behind center.
With that in mind, it’s better to look at Bo Nix through the lens of which version Payton offense to expect, not what the Payton offense can be in totality.
The Bridgewater iteration with a dash of the Hill package is probably the closest approximation to what we’ll get with Nix in Denver. Boring, I know, but that’s the reality when a team takes the sixth quarterback off the board — a fifth-year senior, at that.
Nix is an awesome quick game operator. Pre-snap, Nix does very well to pick apart basic coverage shells. He knows which matchups to attack and where his receivers have a leverage advantage relative to the coverage at hand. Nix executes on that information without hesitation, and he’s got a lightning quick throwing motion to make good on it. All of the one- and three-step drop concepts that Payton wants to spam in this offense will be available.
RPOs are a major tool for Nix for the exact same reasons. Nix does well to know who he is keying on and how to make the right decision. Likewise, Nix’s snappy throwing motion makes it easy for him to go from having the ball in the belly of the running back to suddenly being halfway to the receiver. There’s a world where Nix is quicker on the draw in RPO situations than everyone but Tua Tagovailoa.
Payton’s other use for Nix will be his legs.
Nix is a good athlete. There’s no one trait that pops off the screen, but he checks all of the boxes. Nix has a thick frame with good balance. He’s quick and responsive when maneuvering tight spaces while also being fairly dangerous when he gets to stride out in the open field. Nix ran for 1,613 yards and 38 touchdowns over his five seasons in college, including a 510-yard, 14-touchdown campaign in 2022. Nix is at least the athlete young Andy Dalton was, likely better.
Where They’ll Need to Improve in Denver’s Scheme
The flip side of the things with Nix is which aspects of the Payton offense he may take off the table.
Payton has largely enjoyed his offenses being under center. Late-stage Brees had to shift away from it a little, but for the most part, Payton has wanted to be a team that can go under center and marry the run game with the passing game. All good offensive minds want to get there at the end of the day. Payton is no different.
Nix is coming from the polar opposite of an under center offense. While Nix did get some under center experience at Auburn, his days at Oregon were almost purely played from four-wide shotgun formations. It was a spread-and-shred offense. Oregon’s offense didn’t do a whole lot of shifting or motioning, either. They had their set of core plays and that was that.
To say the least, Payton wants to put a lot more on Nix’s plate than he ever had at Oregon. The ideal Payton offense requires a quarterback who can comfortably play from under center, handle having motions in the offense, and manage multiple play calls at once to get the offense into the right look. Nix may get there in time, but it’s probably unreasonable to expect him to handle it all in his rookie season.
Nix also needs to attack the middle of the field better if he wants to unlock the best of the Payton offense.
To be clear, it’s not that Nix struggles when he does throw the middle of the field. Nix’s arm strength clears the bar and he’s plenty accurate. More accurate than almost anyone else in the class, if anything.
The problem is Nix was not asked to throw the middle of the field very often at Oregon. In turn, there’s not many examples of Nix anticipating a tight window over the middle and threading it with confidence. Those moments are so few and far between on his college film.
It’s not always easy to teach quarterbacks to be more aggressive and confident either. Taming a quarterback is one thing, but getting them to be more aggressive than they are inclined to be is a tough ask. Even a coach as good as Payton will likely struggle to get that out of Nix, at least early on.
Stat Predictions
17 G, 64% CMP, 3200 YDS, 17 TD, 11 INT; 350 RUSH YDS, 4 TD
Realistic Goal / Outcome
Nix does not need to be a revelation. He doesn’t need to win Rookie of the Year or blow anyone away. Nix primarily needs to be accurate and smart with the football. That we can certainly expect from him.
To put it over the top, Nix would need to show some degree of flexibility in the way Payton can run the offense, which would be both a diversion from what Nix was at Oregon and what Payton’s scheme was last year given the constraints Russell Wilson put on the offense.