Hendon Hooker was an unimaginable story throughout the 2022 NCAA season, however now this storyline has jumped the shark. Mike Tannenbaum of ESPN turned heads on Tuesday when he shattered each morsel of typical knowledge with regards to the 2023 NFL Draft, mocking Hooker to the Seattle Seahawks at No. 5.
Numerous issues with regards to the draft and prospect analysis come down to non-public opinion and intestine emotions, however that is simply dumb. We don’t have to humor this considering, or faux it’s someway genius. Hooker within the Prime 10 is silly. It gained’t occur, it’ll by no means occur, it was by no means going to occur.
Let’s talk about why.
Hendon Hooker is the anti Will Levis
Projecting NFL quarterbacks is extraordinarily troublesome, so groups search for predictors of success on the subsequent degree. The best means is to look at the offense they ran in faculty, and map that onto the best way the game is performed within the NFL.
That is a lot, way more necessary than uncooked faculty stats. Clearly it’s good to see somebody win and put up huge numbers, however we’ve seen mammoth faculty stats earlier than, and in the event that they’re within the incorrect offense they may by no means, ever translate.
Do you keep in mind Brandon Doughty? Most likely not. In 2015 the Western Kentucky quarterback had one of many biggest passing seasons within the historical past of school soccer. Doughty threw for five,055 yards, accomplished 71.9 % of his passes, threw 48 touchdowns and solely 9 interceptions. He was drafted within the seventh spherical and was out of the NFL in two years.
There was nothing in regards to the Western Kentucky offense that translated to the NFL. They ran a variation of the Air Raid, which is superb at placing up enormous numbers and making life depressing for faculty defenses, however only a few of the traits wanted to run an Air Raid work within the professionals.
Equally, Tennessee’s 2022 offense was enjoyable as hell, and likewise a complete gimmick. Head coach Josh Heupel ran his personal variation of Artwork Briles’ system, that spreads receivers large, and makes use of stack alignments to trigger defensive confusion. The quarterback has one learn, and the character of receiver placement leads to busted protection on virtually each passing down. As long as the quarterback can get the ball to that one man shortly, it’s easy.
“So, when this idea is signaled from the sideline, there may be one goal and just one goal. It’s not a full-field development learn from the quarterback that’s frequent in most West Coast programs. Because of this once you look to the alternative finish of the sphere, receivers aren’t even getting off the ball. They’re merely conserving their vitality for once they get tagged.”
This leads to mammoth yardage features, low danger of interceptions, and a system designed to destroy groups who don’t have the time to do immense homework on offense.
None of this works within the NFL. Cross rushers are too good to permit for operating five-wide on each passing down. Defensive coordinators would possibly get fooled a number of occasions by gimmicks, however given them a while and so they’ll grind a gadget offense down — keep in mind when the Dolphins went 11-5 due to the Wildcat in 2008 earlier than it received found out?
The inverse of that is Will Levis. There’s little question that drafting Levis takes an amazing quantity of religion as a result of his numbers and faculty efficiency don’t move the scent check. Nonetheless, the offense he runs does. Mark Stoops and offensive coordinator Liam Coen run a carbon copy of an NFL offense, with Coen coming immediately from the Los Angeles Rams to Kentucky. There’s no guess work. No matter constructive traits Levis confirmed operating Coen’s offense will translate to the NFL, so the work must occur in rounding out what he did poorly.
Levis needed to work by means of a full learn development. He wanted to throw into tighter home windows. He needed to have an understanding on NFL route timber and timing. Make no mistake: Levis didn’t do lots of this stuff nicely, however not less than you recognize what you’re getting. Hooker, alternatively, is a wild mess of guess work that he may even adapt to the NFL from the system he’s been flourishing it.
Hooker can also be 25 years previous
There’s only a easy actuality that groups need quarterbacks who can carry out on their rookie deal, and in the event that they succeed you need to lock them into two main contracts after that. Patrick Mahomes is simply two years older than Hooker, and he’s already realized an NFL offense, grow to be one of many biggest quarterbacks of all time, and gained two Tremendous Bowl trophies.
Justin Herbert is coming into his fourth NFL season and he’s the identical age as Hooker.
In case you suppose it’ll take 2-3 years (conservatively) to get Hooker on top of things, then he’s already approaching 30. When it’s time to signal the second contract you’re the potential for him being in his late 30s when the deal is full. There simply isn’t sufficient time to make it value it.
Hooker is additionally coming off an ACL tear
Yeah, keep in mind that his faculty season was shortened BECAUSE HE TORE HIS ACL! Yeah, there’s that too — and in justifying the decide Tannenbaum hilariously talked in regards to the damage prefer it was a superb factor, saying:
“The ACL, oddly to me, is somewhat little bit of a constructive from this standpoint. They simply prolonged Geno Smith. Geno Smith can be their starter this yr. Let the ACL come alongside.”
An ACL tear is by no means a constructive from any standpoint. It implies that Hooker will sit all of 2023 whereas he rehabs, taking his first NFL snaps (perhaps) when he’s virtually 27 years previous.
The assertion for Hooker is “nicely, he appears to be like so good it’s definitely worth the wait.” The problem is that each one the methods he appears to be like good don’t translate. This isn’t some Tua Tagovailoa minor leap of religion, it’s a chasm — and even when Hooker was younger and fully wholesome he wouldn’t be taken within the Prime 10 of the NFL Draft due to scheme translation alone.
Hooker may find yourself being a stable quarterback regardless of all this
For all of the logic of projecting gamers into the NFL the league is affected by examples of the alternative. Nothing about Josh Allen made sense within the pre-draft course of, and now he’s top-of-the-line quarterbacks within the NFL. In the meantime every thing about Sam Bradford screamed that he was going to be elite, and he ended up being mediocre at greatest. The listing goes on if we get into deeper rounds and discover gems who fell too far.
The purpose is: On the subject of deciding on NFL quarterbacks with excessive picks the sport is all about projection and danger mitigation. Ceilings and flooring. On the subject of Hendon Hooker there’s a mean ceiling, and a tremendously low flooring. Why any staff would take that over somebody like Anthony Richardson, who shares comparable flooring dangers — however with authentic “may take over your complete NFL” potential is past me.
Hooker will solely go within the first spherical if a staff is prepared to miss each little bit of logic about how the draft works. That would completely occur and if he pans out they’re geniuses, however every thing we find out about draft logic tells us that Hooker can be a Day 2 decide at greatest, and most certainly final into the mid rounds. He is not going to go within the Prime 10.