I trust Demeco will choose whomever he feels can help this team. Therefore, I am fine with his choice.
Just a reminder that DeMeco *coaches* the players. He doesn't have the GM job or player personnel job.
He is a very average athlete with little explosion. People are fooling themselves thinking Georgia game was normal.
Watch the tape, there are very few throws that aren’t wide open. He is a very average athlete, no explosion. Georgia tape is not the norm, he consistently gets run down by Lineman and Linebackers. There is no reason at all for him to have been listed as dual threat coming out of highschool, besides the obvious reason. Trevor Lawrence is a far superior athlete and was listed as a pro style QB coming out.
Stroud is a product of Ohio St hype, not one of the QBs coming out of there have ever been able to read defenses. It’s wishful thinking for Stroud to be the first. He does throw a nice ball and is accurate-except when there’s pressure-then he’s one of the worst in the draft. He also won’t have the benefit of superior talent that is wide open and protected. He’s a game manager type in the mold of Cousins/Goff. In no way would or should you want that at number 2.
I know who has ultimate decision making authority but you can’t convince they brought Demeco in to turn things around and are going to ignore his input into the selection process
People complain about Mills, but Bryce wishes he had the arm Mills does. Now I am not talking about processing, etc. but Bryce has an average arm at best.
This is my concern with Stroud: We just talked about how good Stroud is when kept clean in the pocket (71.7% completion rate, 35 touchdowns, 93.4 PFF grade). Well, he is basically the polar opposite under pressure (41.3% completion rate, six touchdowns, 42.0 PFF grade). The same could be said for most quarterbacks when facing pressure, but Stroud is particularly bad when the pocket collapses. He ranks 97th in PFF grade out of 144 qualifying QBs when under pressure. This is definitely an area he needs to improve on. Stroud is somewhat of a statue back there in the pocket and rarely ever breaks out to scramble. It’s weird because he was touted as a dual-threat QB when entering college, but he never really used his legs much during his time at Ohio State. He may have to uncork that at the next level, as he is sure to be under pressure far more in the NFL than he ever has been at Ohio State. https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2023-nfl-draft-profile-c-j-stroud-ohio-state
I think it was either Michigan or Northwestern and against Georgia he showed he can scramble especially under pressure. You could make a case that if MH Jr. didn't get injured, Ohio State wins that game
If you have scouting reports that say he's an average athlete I'd like to see them and see whether they base it on him not displaying it or just not having it. Again, I have read for two years that there is a lot of concern about him not DOING it when people think he CAN do it. As for Georgia game fooling people, look, if you can do something in a game you can do it. You're capable. Average athletes don't have days where they just wake up better than average and then revert. So if he's capable of moving like that in that game, he has the physical ability to do it and the question is why he didn't do it in other games. Is it because he's mentally not able to commit to that type of play? Is it because the coaches didn't let him? Is it because he's not a good decision maker? Is it because he's scared of contact? Etc. But it can't be that he's not capable of it if he actually did it.
I guess we're seeing different things. I see on that clip that almost every one of those runs he has his head up and eyes downfield for as long as possible. I only saw 1 or 2 where he was actually running on purpose, the rest were keeping a play alive hoping for a throw before he just picked up a couple of yards. But regardless, we're not drafting a running back. He's not Matt Schaub or Tom Brady back there. He can move. My bigger concern is not whether he'll be a 1000 yard rusher, it's whether he's actually going to be able to read NFL defenses and make the right plays.
Once he breaks LOS he shows no speed or burst, he also doesn’t make anyone miss and take a lot of solid hits. Because he has no wiggle.
He's definitely not going to be an elite running QB, why do we care though? I'm worried about whether he's actually a good QB and you're focused on him being a running back.
