From ESPN, a second pro day for Mac...

[TitleWave]

Every year, we hear noises like this where it create doubts in people's mind. We went through that with Tua.. WE heard so much about him dropping out of 1st round, etc. Same thing

Yeah, but don’t forget Aaron Rodgers was seen as a potential No. 1 pick 16 years ago, and then kept falling...and falling...and he’s gotta be very thankful these days that he’s holding on by a thread as substitute host of some game show that allows him to display a modicum of his real talent enough to pay the bills for his ascetic social life and car insurance.

 

[TideEngineer08]

It may be easier to ask this question. How many QBs who are drafted high and also described as "can't miss" actually have a productive career as opposed to QBs drafted later, whether later in the 1st round or in later rounds?

There have been so many QBs drafted in the top 10 picks of the draft who have completely bombed out within 5 years. Some of this is because the teams usually drafting that high are always drafting that high because they are so poorly run.

Oh well, it will be what it will be. I'm pulling hard for Mac to prove all the doubters wrong no matter where he's drafted at.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

I have got to stop listening to Atlanta radio. They cannot even fathom why anyone would take Mac over Fields. I hope everyone that does not draft Mac, immediately regrets it.

 

[Padreruf]

Mac will be fine, wherever he is drafted. Any player who sat calmly on the bench for 3+ years behind JH and TT knows how to handle situations where others do not believe in you. He outplayed JH by a mile in a Spring Game but was never given a chance to start. Then TT came in and he was pushed a seat further back. Then they left and he outshone them all. He will be fine...and he will make more money in his first contract that all of us in our lifetimes.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Athleticism, especially elite athleticism has always been viewed in high regard because it cannot be coached into a player. The things a coach can do with a player only go as far as the talent he's working with and that applies all the way down to youth sports. You can coach the mental side of the game into any player, but you cannot coach more physical ability into him and I think that's where all the pushback is coming from against Mac about being drafted at the top of the first round.

I haven't heard any of the prognosticators say Mac wasn't worthy of a 1st round pick. As a matter of fact, all of the ones I've heard talk about Mac believe he is definitely worth a first round. However, when a team is drafting in the first five picks and the position of need is QB, they cannot afford to miss and miss on someone who they knew going into the pick was the least athletic of the top quarterbacks. People get fired over risks like that because it sets the franchise back another 5 years. Granted, if the risk works and Mac turns out to be the next Tom Brady or even Kurt Warner, those that drafted him will be deemed geniuses.

There is a lot of chatter on the morning ESPN shows (I see clips on Youtube) about how big of a mistake it will be for the 49ers to "waste" their #3 pick on Mac. I'd like to know how often these people actually pan out to be correct with their projections. No one follows up on it. No one holds them accountable. They spew this nonsense all draft season, we have the draft, and we move on with life. The seasons come and go, and no one really looks back and says oh wait... Todd McShay's prognostications prove to be incorrect 78% of the time.

I get it. That's an impossible task and no one is patient enough to undertake it. Not even Selma, I'll bet. Anyway, I'm struggling, maybe because of my bias, to understand why drafting Mac at #3 is so much of an overreach. Apparently NONE of the talent evaluators that these talking heads speak to has Mac rated as the 3rd best pick or QB in this draft. NONE. So I wonder... is much of this just bluster from the teams themselves, feeding the media a narrative in an attempt to influence other teams?

I would not be surprised to see Mac NOT be drafted at that #3 pick or even in the top 10. I hope folks are prepared for that. Yet, I most certainly will not be surprised if in 5 years we are looking back and realizing Mac was by far the best QB in this draft. And then I'd like to ask David Pollack what the hell difference did it make that Mac was already at his ceiling while these other QBs had so much more potential left yet to develop?

 

[PattheCatinSaudi]

It’s always fun to mention the 1983 draft where 5 QBs were selected before Dan Marino; including such All-Pros as Todd Blackledge, Tony Eason and Ken O’Brien.

 

[Padreruf]

It’s always fun to mention the 1983 draft where 5 QBs were selected before Dan Marino; including such All-Pros as Todd Blackledge, Tony Eason and Ken O’Brien.

I've always wondered what these "brain trusts" really look at when selecting QB's. Great arms and spectacular speed do not always a QB make...

 

[TideEngineer08]

It’s always fun to mention the 1983 draft where 5 QBs were selected before Dan Marino; including such All-Pros as Todd Blackledge, Tony Eason and Ken O’Brien.

I particularly enjoy the one that saw Cade McNown, Akili Smith, and Tim Couch drafted in the first 12 picks. Granted, Dante Culpepper was drafted 11th and had a decent career, and them you had Donovan McNabb taken 2nd and had a great career.

 

[TideEngineer08]

Athleticism, especially elite athleticism has always been viewed in high regard because it cannot be coached into a player. The things a coach can do with a player only go as far as the talent he's working with and that applies all the way down to youth sports. You can coach the mental side of the game into any player, but you cannot coach more physical ability into him and I think that's where all the pushback is coming from against Mac about being drafted at the top of the first round.

I haven't heard any of the prognosticators say Mac wasn't worthy of a 1st round pick. As a matter of fact, all of the ones I've heard talk about Mac believe he is definitely worth a first round. However, when a team is drafting in the first five picks and the position of need is QB, they cannot afford to miss and miss on someone who they knew going into the pick was the least athletic of the top quarterbacks. People get fired over risks like that because it sets the franchise back another 5 years. Granted, if the risk works and Mac turns out to be the next Tom Brady or even Kurt Warner, those that drafted him will be deemed geniuses.

I would submit that it seems to me the "athletic" picks rarely pan out. They are more often injured completely out of the league or into a far lesser state of their selves (Cam Newton).

But it's a crap shoot either way.

All of this bluster seems to be the classic media setup to me, though. Well, not necessarily set up by the media on their own, but they are taking something being fed to them by the teams and regurgitating it to the public. It's a narrative meant to influence. But I don't know enough nor care deeply enough to figure out what. We'll see on draft day.

 

[RollTide_HTTR]

FWIW, I think they've done analysis that shows the QBs drafted earlier in the draft tend to be the better QBs in the draft and the later the QB goes the lower odds for success. That's apparently not true of WRs for example. Obviously, there are exceptions but 1st round QBs tend to be the better QBs

 

[crimsonaudio]

Would be interesting to see a chart of the 'great' QB's of the last, say, 2-3 decades and where they were actually drafted out of college.

I suspect few of them were "#1, can't-miss locks" and most of them were passed over for the flavor of the month who was either 'meh' in the NFL or failed to make it past about five years.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Would be interesting to see a chart of the 'great' QB's of the last, say, 2-3 decades and where they were actually drafted out of college.

I suspect few of them were "#1, can't-miss locks" and most of them were passed over for the flavor of the month who was either 'meh' in the NFL or failed to make it past about five years.

I think the problem is the #1 picks that were failures, fail so spectacularly that it seems like there are more than there are.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Athleticism, especially elite athleticism has always been viewed in high regard because it cannot be coached into a player.

That's the one thing that gives me pause (and may well be giving the GM's pause) about Mac - he doesn't look like he's done the work to hone his body into the finest fighting machine it can be, but rather relies entirely on his brain. Like it or don't the NFL is sport, and showing up physically unprepared tends to be a recipe for disaster.

 

[RollTide_HTTR]

NFL Draft: Round-by-Round QB Study (1994-2016)

The truth is that teams still have to consider the top 40 picks as the most probable spot to land a quarterback of Prescott's caliber. His success keeps the dream alive that a quarterback can be found later, but it's just not the reality of the NFL. Every NFL draft now comes with a reminder that Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick, yet among the 92 quarterbacks drafted in the fifth round or later since 2001, only three have thrown at least 1,000 passes: Derek Anderson, Matt Cassel, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. That trio's "success" is driven mostly by their hard-to-explain continued employment rather than the actual success of their passes.

Interesting article on QBs drafted in each round from 1994-2016.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

That's the one thing that gives me pause (and may well be giving the GM's pause) about Mac - he doesn't look like he's done the work to hone his body into the finest fighting machine it can be, but rather relies entirely on his brain. Like it or don't the NFL is sport, and showing up physically unprepared tends to be a recipe for disaster.

Or, it may be that's just the way he's built. As has been pointed out many times, Brady has never been an outstanding physical specimen...

 

[Evil Crimson Dragon]

I have got to stop listening to Atlanta radio. They cannot even fathom why anyone would take Mac over Fields. I hope everyone that does not draft Mac, immediately regrets it.

Those morons are still mad that Bama stuck it to UGA all those times

I think there had been a conscious effort to devalue and downplay Mac for various reasons, one of which is Bama fatigue. Mac has the ability and the skill to be an excellent NFL QB........ lots of people don’t think so, but lots of people are wrong
The 49ers coach apparently likes him

 

[gtgilbert]

I hope Mac is the next great QB (along with Tua and Jalen). And he was incredible for us.

But, the problem with Mac in the NFL is simply that he doesn't have a ton of elite physical tools. He's definitely not an elite athlete but he also doesn't have an elite level arm. This means that when he is late on a read he won't be able to rifle it in, or if he has pressure up the middle it will be more difficult for him to complete an accurate pass while throwing off his back foot.

People are wrong about QBs a LOT. Heck, Josh Allen has proven most of these guys wrong very recently. I hope Mac does the same.

Other than arm talent, the 'physical tools' part of the QB evals are flawed. The most important tools the QB needs are 1) ability to consume and recall information to understand scheme, concepts, and where match ups will be from week to week and team to team, 2) vision to see and process the entire field and where all the other 21 players are, 3) clock speed to take the visual cues and translate to point #1 to know what progressions are.

None of that stuff is tested at a pro day, or combine, or measured with a stopwatch.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Or, it may be that's just the way he's built. As has been pointed out many times, Brady has never been an outstanding physical specimen...

No need to beat on the subject, so I'll just say from some photos I've seen he's not where he could be. Maybe means nothing in the NFL, but I'd suspect that everyone would benefit (even if slightly) from being in the best shape they can be in the NFL.

 

[gtgilbert]

Athleticism, especially elite athleticism has always been viewed in high regard because it cannot be coached into a player. The things a coach can do with a player only go as far as the talent he's working with and that applies all the way down to youth sports. You can coach the mental side of the game into any player, but you cannot coach more physical ability into him and I think that's where all the pushback is coming from against Mac about being drafted at the top of the first round.

not really. Just like athleticism, each individual player has limits on what they can do mentally as well. That's why there are times when a player has all the physical tools they could ever want, and they sometimes might not live up to it because they just don't get it, or just can't mentally process enough, quickly enough...

 

[RollTide_HTTR]

Other than arm talent, the 'physical tools' part of the QB evals are flawed. The most important tools the QB needs are 1) ability to consume and recall information to understand scheme, concepts, and where match ups will be from week to week and team to team, 2) vision to see and process the entire field and where all the other 21 players are, 3) clock speed to take the visual cues and translate to point #1 to know what progressions are.

None of that stuff is tested at a pro day, or combine, or measured with a stopwatch.

Probably mostly true. But Mac also lacks upper level arm strength.

He's going to have to out smart everyone to a higher degree than guys with bigger arms and more mobility.

Idk where he gets drafted but I do hope he goes somewhere like San Francisco