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Hendon Hooker was an unbelievable story through 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.
Loads of issues with regards to the draft and prospect analysis come down to private opinion and intestine emotions, however that is simply dumb. We don’t have to humor this pondering, or fake it’s one way or the other genius. Hooker within the High 10 is silly. It gained’t occur, it can by no means occur, it was by no means going to occur.
Let’s focus on why.
Hendon Hooker is the anti Will Levis
Projecting NFL quarterbacks is extraordinarily troublesome, so groups search for predictors of success on the subsequent stage. The best method is to look at the offense they ran in faculty, and map that onto the way in which 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 large numbers, however we’ve seen mammoth faculty stats earlier than, and in the event that they’re within the fallacious offense they’ll by no means, ever translate.
Do you bear in mind Brandon Doughty? Most likely not. In 2015 the Western Kentucky quarterback had one of many best passing seasons within the historical past of faculty 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 concerning the Western Kentucky offense that translated to the NFL. They ran a variation of the Air Raid, which is superb at placing up large numbers and making life depressing for school defenses, however only a few of the traits wanted to run an Air Raid work within the execs.
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 broad, and makes use of stack alignments to trigger defensive confusion. The quarterback has one learn, and the character of receiver placement ends in busted protection on nearly 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’s one goal and just one goal. It’s not a full-field development learn from the quarterback that’s widespread in most West Coast techniques. Because of this whenever you look to the other finish of the sphere, receivers aren’t even getting off the ball. They’re merely conserving their power for once they get tagged.”
This ends in mammoth yardage positive factors, low threat 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 instances by gimmicks, however given them a while and so they’ll grind a gadget offense down — bear in mind when the Dolphins went 11-5 due to the Wildcat in 2008 earlier than it bought discovered?
The inverse of that is Will Levis. There’s little doubt that drafting Levis takes an amazing quantity of religion as a result of his numbers and faculty efficiency don’t go the scent check. Nevertheless, 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 optimistic 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 way of a full learn development. He wanted to throw into tighter home windows. He needed to have an understanding on NFL route bushes and timing. Make no mistake: Levis didn’t do quite a lot of this stuff effectively, however at the very least you recognize what you’re getting. Hooker, then again, 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 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 barely two years older than Hooker, and he’s already discovered an NFL offense, grow to be one of many best 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 the event you assume it can take 2-3 years (conservatively) to get Hooker in control, then he’s already approaching 30. When it’s time to signal the second contract you’re taking a look at the potential of 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 choose Tannenbaum hilariously talked concerning the harm prefer it was factor, saying:
“The ACL, oddly to me, is a little bit little bit of a optimistic from this standpoint. They simply prolonged Geno Smith. Geno Smith will likely be their starter this yr. Let the ACL come alongside.”
An ACL tear is by no means a optimistic from any standpoint. It signifies that Hooker will sit all of 2023 whereas he rehabs, taking his first NFL snaps (perhaps) when he’s nearly 27 years previous.
The assertion for Hooker is “effectively, he seems to be so good it’s well worth the wait.” The difficulty is that every one the methods he seems to be 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 utterly wholesome he wouldn’t be taken within the High 10 of the NFL Draft due to scheme translation alone.
Hooker might find yourself being a stable quarterback regardless of all this
For all of the logic of projecting gamers into the NFL the league is suffering from examples of the other. Nothing about Josh Allen made sense within the pre-draft course of, and now he’s among the best quarterbacks within the NFL. In the meantime all the things about Sam Bradford screamed that he was going to be elite, and he ended up being mediocre at finest. The listing goes on if we get into deeper rounds and discover gems who fell too far.
The purpose is: In relation to choosing NFL quarterbacks with excessive picks the sport is all about projection and threat mitigation. Ceilings and flooring. In relation to Hendon Hooker there’s a median ceiling, and a tremendously low flooring. Why any group would take that over somebody like Anthony Richardson, who shares related flooring dangers — however with legit “might take over the whole NFL” potential is past me.
Hooker will solely go within the first spherical if a group is prepared to miss each little bit of logic about how the draft works. That might completely occur and if he pans out they’re geniuses, however all the things we find out about draft logic tells us that Hooker will likely be a Day 2 choose at finest, and probably final into the mid rounds. He won’t go within the High 10.
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