Daniel Kelly, a former Jets scout who now runs FirstRoundMock.com, got on the Junkies’ radar Monday when he responded to a Tweet about Merril Hoge’s critical assessment of Drake Maye by saying he himself had ‘a third-round grade’ on Jayden Daniels.
The Junks then had him come on Tuesday, which is when we found out Kelly was actually a Redskins fan as a kid and had an unpaid internship with former Washington GM Charley Casserly that, after a stint in “the real world,” led him to the Jets.
And, when it comes to who he thinks the Commanders would select at No. 2…it’s not Jayden Daniels.
“I have a third round grade on him, and there's no question that he's the best runner and best deep ball thrower in this draft class, but over three seasons, I have concerns,” Kelly said. “No. 1 is his frame – he looks like the thinnest, most slender, most frail-framed quarterback I've seen. I know there's comparisons to Lamar Jackson, but the concern is, all I can see when I close my eyes is RG3 in that catastrophic injury. Daniels doesn’t just run as a hobby, and the bigger concern how this translates to the NFL game is when he's in the pocket – he has happy feet. He bounces around a lot and has a very hard time settling his feet, and in the NFL, footwork is fundamental when it comes to throwing timed routes. You can get away with that in college and manipulate college defenses a lot easier, but he has a slower time to throw, and I don’t think he’s a good translation based on some of those fundamentals. He’s an ideal backup in the NFL, but if it’s not the injuries that are going to get him, it's gonna end up being the fact that he's gonna struggle in the short to intermediate passing game.”
Still better than Caleb Williams, who, later in the morning, Boomer Esiason said on his show on WFAN in NYC that Bears GM Ryan Poles ‘should be fired’ if he doesn’t draft him…but he’s OFF KELLY’S BOARD?
“I see what everybody else sees and what the mainstream pushes every day, as far as the athleticism and arm angles and ability to create and extend, but it’s the same thing to me: he’s underdeveloped in the finer points of the game,” Kelly said. “That’s the reason I've dropped him down to a fourth-round evaluation, and as of yesterday, I completely removed him from my board with his decision not to throw at the Combine. That screams that he doesn't want to be in a situation in front of all the league’s scouts and decision-makers trying to throw timing routes with receivers he's unfamiliar with and he doesn't trust. That's a huge concern, and probably the biggest red flag I've ever seen in doing this.”
And also…
“This is also especially true about Caleb Williams: to me, it seems like he puts himself above the process,” Kelly said. “He puts himself above the team, like opting out of the Liberty Bowl off fear of injury, and the post-game conduct after the UCLA game and the Utah game.”
And now, Drake Maye:
“He’s a guy I was really high on, he was giving me kind of Tom Brady vibes and I had him as my QB2 next to Spencer Rattler heading into the process in 2023 – but the film this last year was very concerning, because you could just pick up this vibe of strong frustration, this inward anger that he had, and you could just see it kind of on his face,” Kelly said. “How that that translated to the game film was he started to press even more, and his ball placement down field became a little bit more erratic. My fear is that the expectations rise in the NFL, and as they do, he’s gonna continue to get more and more frustrated and the ball placement will become more and more erratic. I do have him as a late first round guy because there's a lot of things he shows that are great, but I think he has to go to a team between 18-32 where he has that playoff team structure and that support around him.”
And that brings us to what will happen above the Commanders…
“I think the Chicago Bears should trade out of No. 1 and take the draft haul and stick with Justin Fields and continue to build around him,” Kelly said. “I think they have a historic chance here to get a huge haul.
The ability to build a team over drafting one player to me is always more valuable, so take the picks, build around Fields for another year at least, and see once and for all, by providing the right type of structure around him both from a personnel standpoint and a play-calling standpoint that plays to strengths, if he’s the guy, or if a change is needed.”
Take a listen to Kelly’s entire segment, which also includes a quick thought on Sam Howell, above!