The 2024 NFL Draft is fast approaching. The PFF big board is live, mock draft season is in full swing and the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine has wrapped up.
This year's draft presents an exciting quarterback class chock full of big names. USC's Caleb Williams headlines the group as one of the nation's premier playmakers, but North Carolina's Drake Maye, LSU's Jayden Daniels, Michigan's J.J. McCarthy and Oregon's Bo Nix have all been taken in the first round of recent mock drafts.
Let's look at Washington's Michael Penix Jr., who led the nation in passing yards last season.
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SCOUTING SUMMARY
Penix has been a productive quarterback in Washington's Air Raid system over the last two years. He shows off NFL-caliber distance and velocity on a variety of different throws, mostly outside the numbers.
Penix can attack the intermediate middle of the field, but it is not as natural. He also tends to throw with power too much. He can be a tick late on timing his throws, opting to put more juice on passes rather than more air underneath. This lends itself to a lack of consistent ball placement. He also opts for the bigger throws and not as many “layups” even when available.
WINS ABOVE AVERAGE
WAA represents the number of wins a player is worth over an average college football player and is a metric that evaluators can utilize to assess performance. It combines how well a player performed in each facet of play (using PFF grades) and how valuable each facet is to winning football games. The result is a first-of-its-kind metric that allows for cross-positional valuation and predicts future value at the player and team levels.
HOW PENIX RANKS IN THE STABLE METRICS
The most stable facets of quarterback play are those with the biggest sample sizes — even though they intuitively seem “easier.” When projecting a quarterback’s future output, their performance from a clean pocket, on early downs and with no play action should be weighted heavily, and these are strong components when projecting PFF’s Wins Above Replacement metric. Good quarterbacks dominate these situations, while lesser quarterbacks rank near the bottom of the league. Negatively graded plays are also highly correlated from year to year, meaning the quarterback is largely in control of their negatives, while their positive plays may fluctuate due to supporting cast and play calling.
Compared to other players with PFF college data, Penix’s metrics in the most predictive of data subsets measured up moderately.
While Penix doesn’t compare to others on straight dropbacks, he still earned an 87.1 PFF grade on non-play-action plays. He has been elite at avoiding sacks his entire career and plays well from a clean pocket.
In 2023, the Washington signal-caller produced a 92.9 passing grade and a 0.9% turnover-worthy play rate, both top-10 marks among all qualified quarterbacks.
PENIX’S PROJECTIONS
In league-average circumstances, here are Penix’s projections for yards per attempt and completion percentage as a rookie:
Let’s look at how Penix does when we make his situation better. With a low pressure rate, high play-action rate and more down-the-field looks, he remains slightly below league average.
Let’s also look at how Penix does when we make the situation less favorable. With a high pressure rate and low play-action rate things break down a bit.
BOTTOM LINE FROM PFF's 2024 NFL DRAFT GUIDE
Penix has an NFL-level arm talent in addition to two years of good health and top-tier production in a spread-out shotgun offense. However, to become a consistent starter and top-15 quarterback in the league, he will need to clean up his footwork, throw with more anticipation and touch (which will improve ball placement), as well as be willing to attack the middle of the field.
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