At this point, even the optimistic take on Fields s he’s a guy you can win with, if you have the surrounding talent, but not an upper echelon QB.
But I don’t think guys like that are really that hard to find; witness Flacco this year. And with a guy like that, you still need to build top notch surrounding talent and even so will require a really lucky run to win a Super Bowl. Witness Flacco with the Ravens.
Whereas if you can get a really elite QB, with even middling talent you are still in the mix, and with a bit above average talent you’re a Super Bowl contender on an annual basis for 4-6 years before the salary cap starts to hit during his second deal.
So it seems like the upside of drafting Williams is way higher than the upside for trading down, and the odds of reaching that upside aren’t much lower. Yeah, Williams might be Jeff George, but you’re also likely to miss on a fair number of the extra picks you’d get, when you need to be landing multiple all pros to build a good team around a middling QB.
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i've seen 6 full games of caleb, including the bad game vs. ND, and so far i'm sold.
yeah, he made some really bad mistakes vs. ND, but you won't find a high profile QB prospect that didn't have a bad game (except for joe burrow in his final year at LSU).
"but he can't play against top competition. haven't you seen that graphic of him vs. top 25 defenses? (https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1715913507579777234/photo/1)"
yeah and after that game, he played two more top 25 defenses: #22 defense at Oregon: 19/34, 291 yards, 2 TD (1 pass/1 rush), 0 INT #10 defense v. UCLA: 31/42, 384 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT
he also played against Washington where he went 27/35, 312 yards, 4 TDs (3 pass/1 rush), 0 INT
yeah, they didn't win as much as last year. their defense giving up 41 points per game in their last 9 regular season games might have something to do with that.
from what i see of williams, he is an elite improvisor with great pocket mobility, an aaron rodgers level arm, and great vision. most of his highlights are off script, both because that's what's attention grabbing about him and that's kind of what the lincoln riley offense does.
let me explain. there are some plays with full-field progressions and meaningful routes for multiple receivers where your QB does need to sit in the pocket and go through NFL style progressions. there are also probably 25-35ish% of plays that are specifically schemed for 1 read. for example, you might have 3 receivers to one side and two of them are essentially running the defenders off of the third to clear out space. and that works great until the defense sniffs it out. if that one read is covered, they're designed to dump it off if the RB is there as an outlet, or to scramble and make a play. you saw this with baker mayfield, jalen hurts, and kyler murray at oklahoma.
another reason you see him scrambling so often is because his offensive line was kind of shit. williams would have at least a dozen plays per game with pressure immediately in his face. and while you see him bailing out around the outside a lot, you will also him doing a great job of sifting through the pressure and coming up and through the blocking with his eyes up to find space to throw. on most of his scrambles he's not looking to run, he's looking to pass, and he does it incredibly well off-platform.
"so he's just an improvisor?" no. he does on-platform progressions extremely well, too. they're just not as flashy. he throws with anticipation, he can make full-field reads with multiple progressions. that just doesn't make the highlight reels.
i plan on watching every game of his that i can find as well as every game of drake maye and jayden daniels prior to the draft. so far, i'm all in on williams. there's just not a lot to dislike about his game. that said, i don't know and won't know about the mentality and intangibles, which is a huge part of quarterbacking.