Dear NFL Draft Experts,
What in the heck are we doing with these “way-too-early” 2023 NFL Mock Drafts? These things are preposterous. You are trying too hard. Quit trying to outthink the room.
Some lessons should be learned from this past year’s draft. Just look at the quarterbacks to see what I mean.
Remember just three weeks ago when Malik Willis was “supposedly” going to be taken as high as sixth overall in the draft?
Yeah, he went 86th instead. He was not alone, however. Desmond Ridder and Matt Corral, both potential first-rounders and in the discussion to be the first quarterback in the draft, had to wait 74 and 94 picks, respectively, to hear their names called.
Now on to 2023…
Depending on where you look, Will Levis of Kentucky is projected as either first overall to the Houston Texans or eighth overall to either the New York Giants or the Seattle Seahawks. With all due respect to Levis, are we kidding?
Levis is a good college player. He has a lot of size, strength and athletic ability for a quarterback, but I have watched him in games where the Kentucky passing game has been atrocious.
Levis failed to surpass 150 passing yards in half of his SEC games in 2021. He averaged 206.9 total yards, 2.25 touchdowns and 1 interception in SEC play. When you take out the outlier of Levis’s 419-yard, 5 TD performance against Tennessee, that average shrinks to just 176.6 yards, 1.9 TDs and 1 INT for each game in conference play. That is not going to cut it in the NFL.
Don’t get me wrong. Levis is a solid prospect, but perhaps we are getting carried away with him. Labeling him as the potential #1 overall pick feels like we are wayyy out over our skis.
Levis is far from the only quarterback receiving enormous hype this offseason. Tanner McKee of Stanford and Anthony Richardson of Florida are receiving a lot of attention in their own right.
Pro Football Focus slots McKee as high as sixth overall to the Panthers. McKee is touted as a tall, polished product, but the lack of production worries me to an extent. Just 15 passing touchdowns to 7 interceptions is not ideal, especially when all 7 INTs came in conference play. Not only that, but they came in bunches. All 7 interceptions came from three games in the back half of Stanford’s schedule: throwing 3 against Arizona State, 2 against Washington and 2 against Cal.
ESPN’s Todd McShay has Florida’s Richardson in that same sixth spot to the Panthers as well. The only explanation is that McShay fell head over heels for Richardson’s athletic ability. At 6’4″ 236 lbs., this feels like people are forcing Cam Newton’s trajectory on someone who has yet to prove he is that guy.
Richardson threw more than eight passes in a game just twice last season: 19 against LSU and 20 against Georgia. The redshirt freshman completed just 58.7% of his passes against SEC opponents in 2021, throwing for just 282 yards, 3 TDs and 5 INTs.
Richardson is big, strong and athletic with a strong arm, but he has not shown enough to say he is a top-10 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. In fact, his stats fall short of 2014 Cardale Jones, who flamed out in the NFL after 11 career pass attempts.
Moving on from quarterback, two more ridiculous projections stick out to me. The first is Will Anderson, Jr. CBS Sports slots Anderson at sixth overall to the Bears. Quite frankly, I do not know how you can possibly have him that low.
In my opinion, Anderson should have not only been invited to New York this past season for the Heisman Trophy ceremony, but he should have won the dang thing over his teammate, Bryce Young. Anderson was, and still is, the best player in college football, and I am not entirely sure it is that close.
The Alabama linebacker made waves in his freshman season in 2020 when he amassed 52 tackles, 10.5 tackles for a loss and 7 sacks. In 2021, Anderson blew those numbers away, totaling 101 tackles, 31 tackles for a loss and 17.5 sacks.
He was the absolute definition of a game wrecker. At times, it felt like he was single-handedly keeping Alabama in games. If Travon Walker and Aiden Hutchinson were deserving of top-2 picks this season, Will Anderson should be the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. I understand that teams needing a quarterback will likely pick high or trade up to take a QB, but make no mistake, Will Anderson Jr. is the best player in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Finally, I am absolutely dumbfounded that Arik Gilbert is projected as high as the fifth pick in the draft. What on Earth?! He has not played a snap in almost a year and a half. Yes, he is 6’5″, 248 pounds and is a freak athletically, but he has not shown nearly enough to warrant a top-5 projection.
In his freshman year, Arik Gilbert caught 35 passes for 368 yards and 2 touchdowns. That is a good year for a college tight end, but it is not elite production.
After that season, Gilbert’s path became a bit of a circus as rumors of him transferring began to swirl. LSU tried to hang on to their young star, but he decided to transfer to Florida. Just 27 days later, Gilbert was back in the transfer portal for a second time before landing at Georgia in July.
Just a month later, Gilbert left the team for the 2021 season. Yes, now he is back, but with the way that NFL teams weigh distractions and off-the-field incidents, it is hard to believe that a team would be willing to risk a top-5 selection on Gilbert.
He could explode in 2022 and have a season reminiscent of Kyle Pitts at Florida in 2020. He could test off the charts at the NFL Combine. He could very easily do enough to ease the concerns that teams would have about his career to this point, but until then, I will be Missouri on this one. Show me. Sustain success for the entire season without rumors of sitting out, leaving the team or transferring. Show me that you can be the great prospect that you were coming out of high school.
There have only been three top-5 tight ends in the NFL Draft history. Right now? I just do not see that changing.
One thing is true; it is way too early to project the draft stock of many of these players. The draft experts have taken it a bit far, and they are swinging for the fences when taking a single the other way is all they need to do right now. There are known commodities like Anderson or his teammate Bryce Young or Ohio State’s CJ Stroud that we know will be drafted in the top-10, but if you are trying to hit on the next Josh Allen or Cam Newton, you are just trying too hard.
Keep it simple, stupids. 2023 NFL Draft: Anderson-Stroud-Young. 1-2-3. Simple as that.