The Art of Scouting Quarterbacks: How Scouts Win and Whiff in Today’s NFL

The room is dark and quiet when you walk in with a binder full of scouting reports, a pen, a spit cup and a coffee. It’s just you, a projector and the 2017 class of quarterbacks on the 90-inch screen in front of you. Now, how do you find a quarterback in an era of football that we’re told is changing as teams adopt spread principles and take more responsibility away from the quarterback? 

The game has not changed—no matter what you read on Twitter or hear on the TV broadcast. Going back to the days of Montana, Marino and Elway, the NFL has always been dominated by a tier of roughly five elite quarterbacks, followed by a tier of 10 quarterbacks who are good enough to win ballgames and another tier of 10 quarterbacks who are solid starters. And of course that bottom tier of 10-or-so quarterbacks who will be on the hot seat each season. That’s football in 1983 and football in 2016. So why do we keep hearing that the game has changed?

To discover the art of scouting quarterbacks, I talked to six NFL scouts and asked each what has changed. What do you look for now that spread offenses have taken over college football? What do you look for now that quarterbacks don’t take snaps under center or call plays in the huddle?

The answers might surprise you.

“The game hasn’t changed. The traits you look for in a quarterback—accuracy to all levels, touch to all levels, football IQ, pocket presence—haven’t changed. The only thing that has changed are the expectations.”

That, from a director of college scouting, was echoed by every scout I spoke with. The game hasn’t changed, but the expectations have.

Situations

One scout laid out a scenario—imagine Dallas successfully trades up with the New York Jets for Paxton Lynch at pick No. 20 overall in Round 1. Is Lynch the one we’re praising as a great pick instead of fourth-rounder Dak Prescott? Probably so.

Situations and expectations are an underrated aspect of scouting—or maybe under-reported is a better phrase. If Jared Goff goes to the Cowboys or Jets or anywhere but Cleveland or Los Angeles, are fans calling him a bust because he sat for the first eight games of the year? Probably not, because he would be in a better situation.

The same logic applies to the Prescott selection—there were zero expectations for the fourth-round pick, and he landed in an amazing situation on a Dallas team that was built for a Super Bowl run with Tony Romo at quarterback.

Situations and expectations. That’s the difference between Jerry Jones looking like a genius for “waiting” on Prescott and Les Snead fighting for his job in Los Angeles after selecting Goff at No. 1 overall.

Tools

Situations and expectations are often uncontrollable, though. And rarely can they be impacted by the scouts grinding it out on the road each week during college football season. After all, we’ve all been …

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