Watching the top college athletes perform this past season, it dawned on me that the upcoming 2016 NFL Draft class wouldn’t be too inspiring on the offensive end.
Stats aren’t everything, but they did back up this assertion on a weekly basis. And then at the end of the year when the Heisman voting went down it was painfully obvious. Two of the three finalists were sophomores with exceedingly bright futures, and the winner was a running back Derrick Henry.
That’s all been in the back of my mind. Then, watching the NFL Scouting Combine this weekend it hit me like a ton of bricks: This draft class sucks from an offensive standpoint.
The top three quarterbacks that have clearly separated themselves — Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch — are far from locks as future NFL franchise passers.
Goff is the least risky of the three, but he might end up being taken last behind Wentz and Lynch. He surely throws the prettiest ball, but he didn’t play in a pro-style offense, running the “Bear Raid” no-huddle instead.
Wentz appears to be the real deal, but he wasn’t exactly prolific playing for the Division 2 North Dakota State Bison. Yet we’re going to expect him to make a smooth transition into the NFL? He could just as easily disappear into irrelevance in a few years, as we’ve seen happen many times in the past.
And finally, Lynch had nice accuracy numbers (66.8 percent completion rate) and showed good judgement when you look at his end-of year stats (28 touchdowns and just four interceptions), but he actually struggled pretty badly against top competition. This fact caused one college scouting director to say Lynch was overrated.
Making things worse on the quarterback side of things is the fact that the next-best guys — Connor Cook, Cardale Jones and Christian Hackenberg — all have significant issues of their own.
It’s a bad year to need a quarterback. Period. We will likely look back at this draft class in five years from now and see another Jake Locker/Christian Ponder situation as teams desperate to land a franchise passer take terrible reaches in Round 1 later this spring in Chicago.
There are some potential game-breaking receivers in the draft this year, but again, as a whole this class sucks.
You know this is the case when two guys who might go in Round 1 — Braxton Miller and Will Fuller — are a former quarterback with just one season at receiver under his belt and a speed demon with butterfingers.
And in an era when speed matters more than ever before in the NFL, this draft class ran awfully slow Saturday at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Interesting nugget from NFL Media research: pic.twitter.com/LtldxppOrP
— Bucky Brooks (@BuckyBrooks) February 27, 2016
Yes, we all know. Jerry Rice didn’t run a fast 40 time. What must be understood about that is Rice was THE EXCEPTION to the rule.
Furthermore, while a 4.56-second 40 time isn’t slow, it’s a bit slower than what Michael Crabtree ran back in 2009. There just aren’t many inspiring athletes in this year’s class at receivers.
And in today’s NFL, explosiveness, quickness and speed are what all good teams have in common.
Obviously there will be some excellent running backs entering the league this season. They will impact games, and perhaps a few will even remain relevant for more than a few years. However, outside of Derrick Henry (who is a freaky athlete) and Ezekiel Elliott, we might not see another back drafted until the middle- to late-second round.
The truth of the matter as it relates to running backs is that, outside the freak athletes who can also produce, they will continue to be devalued in a passing league.
Some years bring a cornucopia of offensive talent to flood the league with budding superstars, but this isn’t one of them.
Instead, 2016 is going to be remembered as an explosion of defensive talent, with linemen and defensive backs leading the way.