Memphis QB Lynch might be best of bunch – STLtoday.com
With the Rams moving up to No. 1 in the NFL draft, top quarterback prospects Carson Wentz and Jared Goff figure to be gone quickly.
So where does that leave other quarterback-needy teams, such as San Francisco at No. 7 and Denver at the end of the first round?
It leaves them looking long and hard at Paxton Lynch of Memphis and Connor Cook of Michigan State.
Three years from now, Lynch might be regarded as the best quarterback in the draft class of 2016. Standing nearly 6 feet 7, Lynch won’t have to worry about seeing over his linemen in the NFL. Athletic and mobile for his size, he should be adept at bootlegs and rollouts at the next level.
And did we mention he has the strongest arm in the draft? He was clocked at 59 miles per hour, the best velocity of any quarterback who threw at the NFL Scouting Combine this year.
“Lynch may be the most physically talented,” said Russ Lande, NFL draft analyst and college scouting directing for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. “That one thing that doesn’t get talked about enough with him, if you look at he NFL and all the quarterbacks that are 6-5 and above — Joe Flacco, Cam Newton and those guys — you see very few, if any, with the ultra-quick upper-body release. This kid’s release is instant. Ball’s gone.”
But Lynch is very much the late bloomer. Among the top quarterbacks in this year’s draft pool, Lynch might be the least ready to play right away. He played in a wing-T offense in high school in Florida, rarely throwing the ball.
In college at Memphis, he played almost exclusively out of the shotgun in a spread offense. The footwork required to operate under center remains a work in progress, and it showed during his combine workout.
“I know a lot of teams in the NFL, basically all of the them, are under-center teams,” Lynch said. “But there’s been some coaches spitting some facts to me about how 61 percent of the snaps (in the NFL) were out of the shotgun last year. So I think the game is kind of going that way.”
That might be true, but there’s still that other 39 percent worth of snaps to worry about. You know, the ones under center. Lynch has spent much of his draft preparation time working on the mechanics and footwork necessary for three-step, five-step, and seven-step drops.
Once he gets that down, we’re talking potential. A lot of potential.
“He’s a great athlete for 6-7,” NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said. “He’ll surprise you with his athletic ability. He’s got a big arm, but he’s a year or two away from playing. So if you’re sitting there at (No.) 7, you’d better have a quarterback ready to play this year, and that could be (Blaine) Gabbert while you develop a Paxton Lynch.”
That’s assuming Wentz and Goff are gone, which seems a safe bet. And if the 49ers like Lynch enough to take him seventh, they could end up trading Colin Kaepernick to Denver after all.
As for Michigan State’s Cook, some draftniks believe he’s the third-best quarterback in the draft based on readiness to play right away. Cook played in a pro-style offense with the Spartans; he doesn’t need to learn all of the footwork that’s new to Lynch.
“I’ve done a lot of the stuff from under center,” Cook said. “I’ve done the five-step drops, the seven-step drops, naked play-action pass rollouts. We have pro-style concepts, reading the whole field.”
A three-year starter at Michigan State, Cook was a Rose Bowl MVP and is the first two-time MVP in the Big 10 championship game. The winningest quarterback (a 34-5 record) in school history, Cook displayed toughness, durability and a knack for making the money throws.
Even with those check marks, there are questions marks to ponder.
Even though he’s Michigan State’s career record-holder in passing yards (9,194) and touchdown passes (71), Cook was a career 58 percent passer, which points to less than ideal accuracy.
In fairness, Michigan State’s system features aggressive downfield passes, and not so much in the way of the bubble screens and check-downs that pad completion percentage. Additionally, Cook gutted it out last season through an injury to his throwing shoulder, to the point that he wore a harness in a couple of games.
But the lightning rod issue with Cook is the “Bo Callahan” factor. Callahan was the highly touted quarterback in the “Draft Day” movie, whose leadership qualities were in question because no teammates showed up to his birthday party.
In the case of Cook, the question is how can someone be a three-year starting quarterback for a national powerhouse and not be the team captain?
“To some teams and GMs, it doesn’t matter that you’re not a captain, but to other teams it does matter,” Mayock said. “Why didn’t his teammates vote their best player and their quarterback to be their captain and their leader? That’s a legitimate question.”
Cook did his best to answer such questions at the combine, both to the media and to club officials.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people about it,” Cook said. “We had a great group of leaders that were seniors. We had a leadership council of 12 guys and they would pick each and every week a guy in that council — which I was in — to be a captain. I was selected for four games. Usually guys only get selected once throughout the season.
“If you want to go back and talk to any of my teammates and ask them if I was a great leader, they would say ‘Yes.’”
So as Cook sees it, he’s no Bo Callahan.
