Sam Darnold

Scouting Report

Similarly to Allen, he’s able to keep plays alive, just not quite as well. Not as athletic as Allen either.
Ball velocity is just okay right now, BUT…
Rarely sets his feet before throwing; often attempts passes with his feet even with each other instead of being able to draw a line from his feet to the target.
- This likely costs him some ball velocity
Ball placement is pretty good, especially considering how messy his footwork is. Easy to think that if you fix his footwork, he could become a precision thrower.
Makes anticipatory passes more often than anyone else in the draft class
Makes almost no full-field progressions and doesn’t even have to make half-field reads very often; USC’s system utilizes a ton of one read and go type throws.
Overall take:
- Pro-readiness (ranking out of 11): 5th
- Potential: 3rd
- Overall: 2nd
- Number Grade (out of 100): 91
- I think Darnold is more of a project than most people let on; if it goes unfixed, his footwork will ultimately cause him to wash out of the NFL. On top of that, he’ll need a lot of work to adjust to an NFL-style offense. I’m not concerned about him taking nearly all of his snaps out of shotgun; that’s pretty consistent with the NFL nowadays; he simply hasn’t really shown the ability to make the reads that will be required in the NFL. That doesn’t mean he CAN’T make the reads; just that USC’s system didn’t require him to. It wouldn’t seem to make sense based on the scouting reports, but I prefer Darnold over Allen despite having what I think is both a lower floor and a lower ceiling. I simply think it’s more likely that Darnold can reach his ceiling than Allen; I think his ability to make anticipatory passes makes it likely that he’ll eventually adjust to making NFL reads and I think he has more natural accuracy than Allen has. Overall, Darnold is my #2 QB, but much like Allen, if I’m a team that prefers playing it safe, I’d lean towards Mayfield and Rosen.
- Most likely comp: 2017 Jameis Winston
- Peak: Philip Rivers