2018 NFL Draft: Why QB prospects have to show they can throw - NFL.com

The enormous windows of Lucas Oil Stadium framed a pale, blue, cloudless sky while keeping the chill of early March firmly at bay. Inside, gargantuan speakers hung silently above the field, which somehow seemed too brightly lit for midday, and the dull rush of recirculated air whirred in the background, as if the world's largest white-noise machine had been set at its lowest volume.

On a normal game day, details like those are no doubt swallowed up by a full house cheering on live football in the Indianapolis Colts' roofed stadium. On that day, though, not even the modest crowd that had gathered to watch quarterbacks throw to receivers at the NFL Scouting Combine managed to puncture the quiet, studious, almost respectful atmosphere.

Except for one moment. When Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen launched a towering, arcing ball nearly 70 yards downfield, an appreciative murmur descended from the upper levels -- a clear violation of the warning, which flashed occasionally on the stadium's video screen, that fans remain quiet.

Afterward, a buoyant Allen confirmed that performing in the relatively noiseless environment was "weird," citing the "cameras following you around all over the place." The crews stationed on the field, steps away from the prospects, served as a constant reminder of the television audience for these drills, which were ostensibly intended to help teams accurately identify quarterback talent.

By the time the average college quarterback is ready to play in the NFL, he's amassed a hefty record of game tape, proof of what he is capable of doing against live defenders in competitive situations with real stakes. But between the end of the college season and the draft, QB prospects are displayed in a limited number of strikingly un-gamelike settings, including the combine, a pro day and any private workouts teams might arrange. In each of those workouts, the prospects are asked to throw the football to receivers without defenders on the field, sometimes following their own plan, sometimes taking orders, but always throwing, attempting to repeat the motion to the satisfaction of the NFL coaches, GMs and scouts who will determine their professional fates.

With the pro-day schedule in full swing and the actual selection of the NFL's next crop of rookies still about a month away, this is the time of year when 20-somethings throwing footballs in shorts take center stage, when technical matters like mechanics and velocity and release points seem to be of utmost importance.

How much can these drills, these surreal simulacrums of football action -- stripped of the urgency, unpredictability and sheer stress of real life on the field -- really say? How much do they help teams in the eternal quest for people who are capable of playing quarterback in the NFL?

'I do want to see it live'

When it comes to evaluating quarterback prospects, the game tape is sacrosanct.

"For me, nothing is more important than watching tape and watching them play football against a defense, against a rush," Houston Texans quarterback coach Sean Ryan said. "Watching them react to game situations. I don't think anything substitutes that. Because when it's all said and done, when it matters, that's what they're going to be faced with."

"The value of seeing these guys in shorts and a T-shirt is really just to verify what you've seen on tape and seen in person," said Tim Jenkins, who trains quarterbacks through his company, Jenkins QB. "No quarterback is going to make crazy jumps. You don't go from being a kid who nobody knows to being a kid who's drafted because you worked out well in shorts and a T-shirt."

"For a lot of these kids in this (year's draft) class, it's really for trying to change maybe what (NFL decision-makers have) seen on tape," Jenkins added. "If they've seen on tape that you're not accurate or they've seen on tape that you have biomechanical flaws, it's to show them that hey, in this setting, you can tell that I'm fixing these or I'm working on these."

Even prospect Tanner Lee, who spent significant time preparing for the combine and his pro day at Nebraska, pointed to the primacy of the tape.

"I think the good part about the draft process is that your film is really, first and foremost, the biggest part of your evaluation," Lee said two days after his pro day. "Film tells these scouts the most about how you perform when you're playing ball. Film is gold, and you're going to want to put your best foot out there, period, on your film."

And yet, before the Rams selected Jared Goff No. 1 overall in the 2016 NFL Draft, general manager Les Snead had to see him throw the ball with his own two eyes.

"You can feel the ball when you're there," Snead said at the combine, when asked about what he can see at throwing drills that one can't see on tape. "When we did Jared -- and he throws an interesting ball, because, and we've analyzed it right, but you can kind of hear it go by you. But it looks smooth. But what's interesting is, they, physically, they say it doesn't spin as much, like a tight, tight [spiral]. When a ball is spinning, it just looks faster. And when it's spinning less or rotating less, it may be faster, it just doesn't look that fast. But there's an element when you hear it or see it that you get up close and personal."

Every NFL head coach, GM and private QB instructor who was asked about watching quarterbacks throw in person against air -- either at the combine, a pro day or a private workout -- said it's important.

Colts coach Frank Reich: "I do want to see it live. I want to be on the field with them, watching the ball come off their hand."

Dolphins coach Adam Gase: "I think any time you can watch somebody throw live, it helps you. You can kind of see in between plays, kind of the reaction. How do they come back from a throw that wasn't really great?"

The quarterback position is complex, and those who attempt to man it must possess a vast skill set, including the ability to handle multiple responsibilities and perform a staggering array of mental tasks. At its most basic level, though, playing quarterback is about getting the football from Point A to Point B through the air.

"What's your job once you get into the NFL? Your job is not to hand the ball off on third down," said John Beck, a former NFL quarterback who helps prospects prepare for the pre-draft process as part of the 3DQB group led by Tom House and Adam Dedeaux. "The critical downs, usually those first downs are found through the air. So it's about throwing the football."

To perform that function reliably, one's throwing mechanics -- how the quarterback's feet, legs, body, arms and, of course, hand work in concert to launch the ball -- should be sound. And when it comes to evaluating mechanics, there's nothing like an in-person inspection. As Ryan explained it, mechanical consistency and rhythm are sometimes "not as easy to pick out" when watching game tape "as it is when it's just throw after throw of routes on air." Watching a quarterback throw on air, he said, allows him to "get a feel for this guy's rhythm. And it really comes down to a real sense of, you get a feel of, is his footwork consistent?"

"And then the same thing with the upper body," Ryan said. "As you kind of work your way up, it becomes, alright, let me check his release point. And that's always something I like to look at, because every guy's release point is a little bit different. It's a pretty individual thing. A lot of it's very personalized to them. And I just like to be able to check and see, is this consistent?"

Private quarterback coach Jordan Palmer, a former NFL quarterback -- and brother to recently retired Cardinals QB Carson Palmer -- has trained quarterbacks like Blake Bortles and Deshaun Watson and has been prepping Allen and USC's Sam Darnold. Palmer, who said he pays attention to sequencing in a quarterback's throwing motion and wants to see "maximum efficiency," also closely examines athleticism, which he said can be best observed live.

"It's really, really underrated in coaching, [but] I think one of the most important aspects of a quarterback being coachable is athletic ability. ... I don't care about 40 times. You have to be able to think about a body part and actually put all of your energy on that and your thought on that. But you have to be able to take an old muscle memory and replace it with a new muscle memory. And that takes athleticism."

Terry Shea said watching a player throw live gives you "an appreciation for the velocity of the ball." Shea, who has been a quarterback coach in the NFL and, like Beck, Jenkins and Palmer, now works as a private instructor who has helped players like Robert Griffin III and Sam Bradford prepare for the draft, feels it can be difficult to assess how the ball comes out of the quarterback's hand "unless you're right there, standing on the field, shoulder to shoulder almost with the passer."

How the ball comes out of his hand is one of those terms that is tossed around so often as to nearly divorce it from any sense of meaning. ("I kind of hate it, actually," Palmer said, calling it "pretty vague.") But it was also frequently cited as an aspect of quarterback play that can be best viewed in a live setting. Asked to explain it, Shea called upon memories of former No. 1 overall draft pick Matthew Stafford.

"What I learned from being with Matthew for about eight weeks in his training for the combine and so forth, and what I appreciated the most, was I was able to see the ball almost disengage or separate from his hand, and the ball speed at that moment seemed like it was traveling about as fast as the ball would travel at the end of the throw, where the completion was made," Shea said. "His ability to generate tremendous velocity on the ball as it left his hand was something that I will always remember."

Shea added that arm quickness and mechanics and the speed of a quarterback's release are "what separates the college quarterback from the very

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