All of the top QBs in the NFL Draft have now had their Pro Days, so the Commanders (and other teams) have gotten their looks at the big guns – and to Logan Paulsen, who joined the Junkies to discuss Pro Days on Friday, it’s just another link in the chain.
“I don’t think it's that big of a deal, it’s just another data point in terms of these guys getting to meet them one more time,” Paulsen said. “They don't get that many opportunities to kind of like interact with them – it’s the Combine interview, the pro day, and then it's maybe the official visit, so of those three, can I kind of get a feel for the guy? I think that's where the value really comes in. It's not necessarily what you're seeing on the field, it’s to confirm some things like isolating the quarterbacks’ mechanics a little bit more, and let you see kind of what the stuff they've been working on since the season ended.”
To Paulsen, physical evaluation is about 80 percent film, with the Combine, Pro Day, and visits filling in the rest, but interviews are the most important part of the process, because it lets you see the man behind the player.
“Obviously I don't have access to the interview stuff, which I think is maybe the most important part of that process for me in the way I evaluate,” Paulsen said. “It's another data point to see how they are around teammates, or the hostess when you go out to dinner – let’s just make sure you're the type of guy we want to lead the program and be the face of the franchise for the next decade. That’s why the Pro Days are so critical.”
Other than that, Pro Days are pretty scripted by players/schools, so it’s all in what they give you to see – so does Paulsen think Adam Peters and Dan Quinn already had a pretty good pecking order going into those visits?
“I've heard multiple stories from different scouts and GM-type people where they knew weeks before Pro Days – but I personally think that they don't know specifically yet,” Paulsen said. “I think they have a pretty good idea, but just because they got started so late with hiring the staff and getting everything kind of acclimated in Ashburn, they’re maybe a little behind the process and are extra thorough. So I think they have a pretty good idea, but I don't think they have it definitively defined yet, and honestly, I don't think anything that you would have seen at the Pro Day would change that. Maybe some of the conversations they had with those guys might be swaying them one way or another, but it’s also important to remember the coaches also start evaluating quarterbacks and offensive talent much later, so input is still coming in and they’re still having conversations. So I think it's still a very fluid process.”
Paulsen gave his thoughts on Daniels and Maye’s Pro Days, which were televised this week, and then it came down to business: which QB is probably best for Washington? His take on Maye:
“What Maye showed a talent evaluator is that you can get some stuff corrected, and if you do, I think you get really excited about where his ceiling is,” Paulsen said. “When you watch his big time throws and ability to make plays from the pocket and extend plays, it's high level stuff. He’s probably the best in that area of any of those top four guys in the class, so he’s an exciting prospect for sure, but there is a lot of uncertainty about him. He has a really high ceiling but also a pretty low floor, and it really depends on the environment that he's going to. Do the Commanders have the ecosystem around him from a quarterback mentoring standpoint, from a receiver talent standpoint, from an offensive line standpoint, from a defensive standpoint to allow him to be the best version of himself over the length of that rookie deal?
And Daniels, who gets knocked for having two first-round receivers at his disposal?
“Yeah, they're talented guys, but Joe Burrow was also throwing to talented guys, so you just have to look at the types of throws he's making and his process in the pocket and the line of scrimmage and ask what is transferable,” Paulsen said. “There are elements of that when you watch his film; it's just not in the volume of some of the other guys, so you have to extrapolate a lot off of a smaller number of opportunities, but the thing with Daniels that gets you super excited is he is just such a consistent playmaker. He's got great poise, and when the team needs him to do something dramatic, he's able to deliver at the highest level. Obviously his running ability is known, but I think he does have an excellent release and his mechanics and his fundamentals when it comes to throwing the football are very clean. In some ways I think he is a little bit better developed, and those things are gonna be transferable to the NFL level regardless of the talent that that's out there for him to throw the ball to.”
Take a listen to Paulsen’s entire segment with the Junkies above!