Washington Football Team: Five best QB prospects available in the 2021 NFL Draft
Mac Jones had a sensational 2020 season. The Heisman Trophy Candidate and first full year as a starter for the University of Alabama, Mac Jones took college football by storm.
Throwing for nearly 4,500 yards, 41 touchdowns to just four interceptions, Jones had a collegiate football season that rivals Joe Burrow’s 2019 campaign.
With the statistical numbers that look out of this world, many could say that there’s no way Jones could be Washington’s fourth-best option, let alone the fourth-best quarterback in his class!
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But, sometimes the numbers can be a bit misleading.
The positives in Jones’ game is that in the pocket he’s as cool, calm, and collected in the pocket as can be. Completing nearly 81 percent of his throws from a clean pocket, Jones tore up Div. I defenses like nobody’s business.
In addition to that, he also faired very well when blitzed, completing over 77 percent of his passes. He was an accurate passer in the short and intermediate game and routinely made quick decisions to put the ball in the hands of his loaded skill position players.
In the same breath, he had the best collection of talent, arguably ever, at his fingertips.
Jones, fortunately for him, was throwing to sure-fire two first-round picks Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle, and underrated talent John Metchie III in one of the most simple offenses in college football.
The simplicity of this offense shows in some advanced numbers. Jones completed only 44 passes into tight windows, while also throwing over 600 more yards than the second place leader to receivers that were deemed “open” according to PFF.
Also, he had the 57th best average depth of target throws and a big-time throw rate that ranks in the ’20s in all of college football.
While on face value, Jones had one of the greatest collegiate football seasons we’ve seen, the offense he ran was loaded with simplicity and high impact skill position players that did a ton of heavy lifting for that offense.
He’s also a QB who benefited from Steve Sarkisian’s heavy dose of screens and RPO concepts that made his reads simple and quick as can be. In the screen game, Jones had the second-highest amount of screen yards at 591.
Outside of his accuracy in the short to intermediate passing game, he isn’t someone who can make plays off script either. He’s not a good athlete outside of the pocket and was heavily reliant on his talent around him to take five-yard passes and turn them into 50-yard gains.
Jones is as much of a statue in the pocket as Kyle Trask is, yet is just a tad more accurate at the short and intermediate levels. While both are extremely limited as athletes, Jones is the more accurate of the two, which puts him over Trask as not only the fourth-best non-Lawrence QB in the draft, but also as Washington’s fourth-best option at the position.