Joe vs the Pros
The easy 1.01 in the NFL Draft this year is LSU's Joe Burrow. There is nothing more to say about it. The Cincinnati Bengals will draft him. There will be no trades. They won't overthink it. But how confident should we be that he will be an elite signal caller. Only time will tell, but there are a few things going in Joe's favor, one of those being his college Total QBR. If you are unfamiliar with this metric, it was created by ESPN with input from none other than Jon Gruden. It's different than Quarterback Rating because it takes more things into consideration like quarterback rushes, sacks, penalties attributed to the QB, garbage time, etc. So it gives a clearer picture of how good the quarterback was than a boxscore can. Here are the Top 20 Total QBR Ratings for college quarterbacks going back to 2013 when the metric was last updated.
| rk | Name | QBR | College |
| 1 | Kyler Murray | 95.8 | Oklahoma |
| 2 | Joe Burrow | 94.9 | LSU |
| 3 | Russell Wilson | 93.9 | Wisconsin |
| 4 | Andrew Luck | 93.2 | Stanford |
| 5 | Baker Mayfield | 92.6 | Oklahoma |
| 6 | Sam Bradford | 91.6 | Oklahoma |
| 7 | Marcus Mariota | 90.9 | Oregon |
| 8 | Johnny Manziel | 90.3 | Texas A&M |
| 9 | Kellen Moore | 89.8 | Boise State |
| 10 | Cam Newton | 89.4 | Auburn |
| 11 | Jameis Winston | 89.4 | Florida State |
| 12 | Colin Kaepernick | 88.3 | Nevada |
| 13 | Brandon Allen | 87.9 | Arkansas |
| 14 | Aaron Murray | 87.1 | Georgia |
| 15 | Colt McCoy | 86.9 | Texas |
| 16 | Bryce Petty | 86.6 | Baylor |
| 17 | Dwayne Haskins | 86.3 | Ohio State |
| 18 | Kevin Hogan | 85.9 | Stanford |
| 19 | Zach Mettenberger | 85.7 | LSU |
| 20 | Dennis Dixon | 85 | Oregon |
As you can see, there are some really good names at the top of this list. Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson are both Top 5 Dynasty and Redraft Quarterbacks, and his metrics compare very nicely with theirs.
Other things going for Joe Burrow is his completion percentage. You have to go all the way back to Colt McCoy in 2008 to find a completion percentage higher than Burrow's 76.3%. His yards per attempt of 10.8 is also very good. Also, the level of competition was as good as it gets. He completed the greatest quarterback season of all time in the SEC. The guy threw 60 friggin touchdowns vs competition that included teams like Georgia, Mississippi State, UCF, Florida and Alabama. We also saw him torch Oklahoma and Clemson in the College Football Playoffs.
I also think his landing spot helps. In Cincinnati, he has an offensive-minded head coach with tons of talent around him. He couldn't ask for a better set of skill-position players.
There are blemishes on his resume however. His final season at LSU while historic was the only decent season he had in his entire college career, which isn't a good thing. He is also coming out as a 23-year old rookie. That's not ideal. You prefer younger experienced quarterbacks coming out as 21 or 22 year olds like Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes.
While I do really like Burrow, I'm not sure he will not be an elite fantasy prospect like Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson. And I don't like him as much as I did Kyler Murray last season. I see him as more of an upgraded Jared Goff with rushing upside similar to Aaron Rodgers. In dynasty drafts, I'd be looking to take him in the mid 2nd round.
Thank you to @designedbyjohnny for the Joe Burrow jersey swap.
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