Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell’s thought-provoking Three-Point Stance is here with the top commits from the last week or so, another former first-rounder angry at his high school ranking and how bad the NFL is at evaluating quarterbacks.
1. Big week for Ole Miss, Alabama
It’s that time of year again -- commitment time. The dam finally broke when it came to 2019 commitments this past week as some huge names came off the board, at least for now, with early commitments. Here are the top ones from the week.
1. QB Sam Howell, Florida State — Howell is an elite QB that can do it all and is great fit for what Willie Taggart wants to do on offense
2. ATH Diwun Black, Ole Miss – A great athlete pickup, Black could play linebacker, defensive end or even defensive back if he starts on defense. All I know is that he has good size and is a superior athletic talent.
3. DT Keyon Ware-Hudson, Oregon – A big, athletic defensive tackle who can get after the passer and chase things down, he’ll be a key to the Oregon defense sooner than later.
4. LB Anthony Solomon, Miami – He’s not the biggest linebacker, but he loves to hit and he can cover a ton of ground. He’s also very good in coverage.
5. DB Moses Douglass, Kentucky – A tall and rangy defensive back he could play nickel before he settles into safety and he’s a very important legacy recruit. This was a close battle for Kentucky and one it needed to win badly.
6. DE Braedon Mowry, Texas A&M – A high motor kid with a great frame and excellent ability as a pass rusher but also against the run. He’s an important in-state keep for Texas A&M.
7. DE Rashad Cheney, Alabama – He’ll play inside at the college level and be a gap shooter for the Tide. He has outside pass rushing ability with a frame to stay inside.
8. QB Grant Tisdale, Ole Miss – How about this 1-2 punch over two years at quarterback with Matt Corral in 2018? Ole Miss makes the list twice and the recruiting Matt Luke and company have been doing is off the chain.
9. QB Ryan Hilinski, South Carolina – He’s very accurate, sees the field well and has a great feel for the game. I like him better than his ranking right now and think he could be a four-star for the Gamecocks.
10. QB Paul Tyson, Alabama – He’s an excellent decision-maker, doesn’t force the ball or turn it over and he has a compact and quick release. You hate to use the word game manager, but that’s what Alabama has had in the past and he could be that guy down the line.
11. QB Garrett Shrader, Mississippi State – He’s evasive, he can run and extend the play and has good field vision when moving around. His arm strength needs a little work, but his accuracy makes up for it.
12. DT Ledarrius Cox, Tennessee – He plays a tough position to recruit, he’s an athletic kid with power and plays with good leverage and he is physical. Those are all things Jeremy Pruitt loves.
13. QB Jalon Jones, Florida – This is the kind of quarterback Dan Mullen has had success with at all stops as Jones is just starting to scratch the surface of his potential.
2. Johnny Memory
I told ya, these guys have a long, long memory. What am I talking about? I’m talking about ratings out of high school.
First it was Jamal Adams from the New York Jets laughingly complaining about his top 50 ranking out of high school a few weeks ago (placing him in .000001 percent of elite players or in that range) and now it’s Johnny Manziel. At least Manziel has a better point as we had him as a three-star coming out and he ended up not only as a Heisman winner but also a first-round draft choice. Here’s his response to Adam Gorney’s tweet last week.
With all that Manziel has to worry about, mainly finding a new job and likely ending up freezing his butt off in the CFL, he is still upset at his ranking out of high school? By the way, by our standards, we whiffed on Manziel, who used to work out at some camps as a wide receiver because no big schools wanted him as a quarterback at one stage.
Our criteria is as follows – success in college and NFL Draft status and Manziel hit it out of the park on both. He was a college superstar, he won the most coveted individual award in all of college football and he landed in round one of the draft. We whiffed on you, Johnny. Thanks for the reminder, but try to focus on your current issues if you would. Our rankings shouldn’t mean that much to you.
3. Bust factor high among Round 1 QBs
Speaking of Manziel, how often does the NFL get it wrong when it comes to first-round quarterbacks? It’s scary, which is why we know that Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are all iffy propositions when it comes to success at the NFL level.
Let me name some of the recent busts out of round one so you can try to figure out which of the above names will end up completely horrible before their careers are over:
Ryan Leaf
Tim Couch
Akili Smith
Cade McNown
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Patrick Ramsey
Byron Leftwich
Kyle Boller
Rex Grossman
JP Losman
Jason Campbell
Matt Leinart
Jay Cutler
Some of these guys have had varying levels of success, but let’s be honest, none of them have lived up to being a round one quarterback. And that’s just going back the last 20 years.
So when we are staring at a draft that could have as many quarterbacks taken as the great NFL Draft of 1983 when Hall of Famers John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino were drafted, we have to realize at it’s likely three of the five and maybe four will end up being disappointments unless we are looking at a historic quarterback draft.
So who will stink and who will be great? Your guess is as good as mine but I’m going to say Mayfield and Rosen will be the good ones while Darnold, Allen and Jackson will end up on this list above. But the next time someone takes a shot at those of us trying to project high school prospects to college and into the NFL Draft, let’s take a longer look at the NFL scouts, coaches and general managers who can’t seem to get the most important position in all of football correct.
