2022 NFL Scouting Combine Winners and Losers: Quarterback
As part of our coverage of the 2022 NFL Scouting Combine, we are looking at the winners and losers at each position.
Winners
Malik Willis, Liberty
If his arrow was pointing up after an impressive Senior Bowl performance, his stock is soaring after the combine. He showed velocity and accuracy on the slants and timing routes, arc and arm strength on the deep balls. He impressed in the interviews, and he was even caught on camera helping out a homeless person outside Lucas Oil Stadium. I mean… just… what else is left for Willis to do!?
Willis didn’t participate in the athletic testing, but his speed and athleticism were already known strengths. The big questions were his arm strength and accuracy, and at this point those have been put to rest. Not only did he show sufficient arm talent, he threw the best (i.e. longest AND most accurate) deep ball of any QB at the combine.
Desmond Ridder, Cincinnati
Ridder just laid waste to the combine.
His 4.52-second 40-yard dash is tied for the fourth-fastest ever by a QB. His vertical and broad jumps both were tops among the QBs. He’s also one of the tallest QBs in the class at 6’3″, and turned in the largest hand measurement at 10 inches (which is of great importance to NFL scouts – eye roll emoji). With Malik Willis sitting out the athletic testing, Ridder stood out as the freak athlete among the QBs.
And his impressive performance carried over to the throwing portion, where he showed both arm strength and accuracy at all levels. The only concern left is with his footwork, and he was middle of the pack at both the three-cone and the shuttle. But his overall athleticism is likely to tantalize an NFL team into taking him in the first round, which was beyond his range before the combine began.
Sam Howell, North Carolina
The forgotten man in the upper tiers of the QB class, Howell reasserted himself as a first-round talent by simply showcasing his arm talent.
Howell did not participate in the athletic testing, where he probably wouldn’t help or hurt himself. But throwing the ball, Howell reminded analysts why he was the consensus QB2 in the class for essentially three years.
With the rise of Matt Corral, Kenny Pickett, and now Malik Willis, Howell was consistently overshadowed as a prospect. But his deep ball accuracy never went away, and it was on full display at the combine. An event that demonstrates pocket presence and poise may tell another story, but for the purposes of the combine, Howell’s pure passing abilities were arguably the best of the entire field.
Losers
Matt Corral, Ole Miss
Corral was the consensus QB1 in the class when the season ended, and now he isn’t even in the conversation. He sat out the workouts (with good reason as he rehabs an ankle injury), allowing Willis to completely separate himself as the best QB in the class. In fact, Sam Howell, Kenny Pickett, and possibly even Desmond Ridder are closer to joining Corral in the second QB tier than Corral is to Willis and the top tier.
Corral is still the most complete QB in this class, but he missed an opportunity to prove it at the combine. He’s officially in Willis’ rearview mirror, and he will need to dazzle scouts at his Pro Day in order to hold off the rest of the field for the silver medal.
Carson Strong, Nevada
Let me preface this by saying I LOVE Carson Strong. He’s polished and pro-ready as a pocket passer who can make both pre-snap and post-snap reads quickly, and deliver the ball on time and on target. Stylistically, he’s Dan Marino with a more lively arm.
The combine was never going to be his event.
One of the big knocks on Strong is his athleticism/mobility, and the only way for him to make it into the “win” column was to exceed expectations athletically. He didn’t run the 40, because it would have been gross. He made some beautiful throws in the throwing portion, and one could argue that leaving the athleticism questions open is preferable to running and removing all doubt that it will be an issue.
But if the goal of the combine is to improve your position on NFL Draft boards by disproving negative priors, Strong did nothing to that end, and was probably overtaken by Ridder to boot.
Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh
It’s never a good thing when they start talking about the size of your hands. Once the experts get ahold of that one (pardon the pun) and control the narrative, it becomes the defining feature of your combine performance. Pickett’s 4.73-second 40-yard dash was fine for a QB, and he made several impressive throws, but the topic of conversation keeps coming back to his 8.5-inch hands.
Historically, quarterbacks whose hands measure 8.5 inches or less have not experienced much success. Is that necessarily due to their stumpy little paws? It’s debatable. It also helps that another QB with the same ‘freakish’ deformity – Joe Burrow and his 9-inch hands – was selected first overall in 2020 and, in 2021, led his Bengals all the way to the Super Bowl before his disfigurement allowed Matthew Stafford, his 10-inch hands, and Cooper Kupp to drive 79 yards for the game-winning touchdown.
If Pickett’s hands don’t doom his NFL franchise until the final five minutes of the Super Bowl, perhaps that is sufficient mitigation for a team to be willing to overlook his “shortcoming.” For the moment, despite impressive athletic testing and throwing demonstrations, his tiny hands were the talk of the combine, which is not something a QB prospect wants scouts talking about.
