Justin Fields, for some reason, has fallen down on draft boards. Trying to find a reason for this, I found a major discrepancy within NFL Draft Expert’s reasoning. The issue? College.
College decisions matter more than ever for a draft prospect’s, well, prospects. Let’s look at an example. Justin Herbert was regarded as a future bust, with PFF going as far to say that he would get someone fired. However, this was clearly not the case, as Herbert was the offensive rookie of the year with the Chargers.
So why was Herbert a popular bust prediction? The main reason was his college choice. The last quarterback to come out of Oregon was Marcus Mariota, a huge disappointment at #2. How does that affect Herbert? It doesn’t. But, for NFL Draft Experts, it does.
This is the phenomenon affecting Fields. Ohio State hasn’t put out any good quarterbacks recently, and their most notable QB picked was the huge bust of Dwayne Haskins. But this isn’t necessarily hypocritical by itself, even if it’s wrong. The hypocrisy lies with another quarterback in the 2021 draft.
Mac Jones saw a meteoric rise in the draft process. After the national championship, Jones was viewed as a late first round quarterback. Now, he might be taken in the top three. And it’s not like he had a great combine or anything, he just raised drastically for the sake of it. Jones went to Alabama. Who was the last good Alabama quarterback? Joe Namath? He had more interceptions in his career than touchdowns. For all their success recently, Alabama hasn’t exactly been a quarterback factory. So, why does college choice affect Fields and not Jones?
Who’s to say — but it’s downright hypocritical.
