If you look back throughout NFL Draft history, there have been a few instances where Merril Hoge was right about a prospect, good or bad, being the opposite of what everyone expected.
Perhaps, then, Commanders fans are hopeful one of his latest predictions is right – because when Hoge joined the Junkies on Monday morning, we found out more about how he is NOT feeling the hype over Caleb Williams.
“I said he wasn't special, and let me define special; there are two guys that are special in the last five or six years: CJ Stroud and Joe Burrow,” Hoge said. “Why were they special? Stroud did two things extremely well: he was extremely accurate and he processed things quickly and beautifully, and he functioned in the pocket. When you can do that and you can show that at the college level, that's not an easy thing to see.”
Hoge explained how and why that was important, and why a quarterback who can harness their mobility is dangerous, and even though Williams has ‘elite’ accuracy and is ‘extremely elusive,’ those two traits do not make a surefire no-doubt No. 1 pick into a star.
“When you watch him function in the pocket, even when it's a clean pocket and he's got four seconds, when you look through his progressions, a lot of times you’ll let the first guy go because it's college, and he knows he can make some plays happen,” Hoge said. “USC is a pure college system, and in college they play on the perimeter; in the NFL, we move them in the middle and now you got to play in the middle, and now you got defenses that can scheme well, so you have to function from the pocket. That’s going to be a big hurdle for him. More than likely, he is not going to a playoff team where he’ll sit for a year, like Patrick Mahomes did. If he’s mentally weak, they will destroy you.”
Maybe it’s good if he goes No. 1…so what would Hoge do if he was Adam Peters at No. 2?
“I would take Jayden Daniels,” Hoge said. “He probably demonstrates the best evidence that a guy who plays from the pocket – and they have pro concepts they use, too, so I can use some reality and some realistic concepts that you're gonna see in the NFL. I think he’s very accurate and processes things very well compared to Maye. I wouldn’t draft Maye in the first round; there are a bunch of things that bother me – he’s extremely inconsistent, his accuracy and processing are inconsistent, he misses a lot of hots, he’s not extremely athletic, and I find him more stiff. He's got a longer throwing motion which allows more hits in our league than he gets in college, and I’m just bothered by it.”
And what Hoge sees there are things that will only be magnified in the NFL – and may not be able to be coached out of a prospect.
“There's a certain level of coaching that doesn't exist in college based on the time frame that they have, so coaching is gonna matter,” Hoge said. “Let’s just assume they're gonna get good coaching, so there can be a lot of things you can work through, but the thing that concerns me is a guy can talk smart on the board, but then he can't process it on the field. And if I find out a guy is like that, I wouldn't touch him ever. You can’t fix speed, insticts and toughness – accept that and move on. When you see an inconsistent thrower in college, and these pockets are clean and people are wide open...when you create a dirty pocket for them, it gets worse.”