QBASE 2020

There's no risk in the NFL quite like the risk of drafting a quarterback. No defense revolves around a single player the way every offense revolves around the quarterback. Trust your offense to the wrong young quarterback, and your team isn't going to climb back into playoff contention. Quarterbacks get drafted earlier than players who rank similarly at their respective positions. And while quarterbacks may have more statistics measuring them than other players do, teams haven't been more accurate in drafting them. Just ask the Chicago Bears, who selected Mitchell Trubisky instead of Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes three years ago.

The lessons of history can at least help us figure out how much of a risk each quarterback prospect will be. That's the point of Football Outsiders' Quarterback-Adjusted-Stats-and-Experience (QBASE) projection system. It looks at college performance, experience, and expected draft position (to incorporate scouting information that college stats will miss). To allow some time for development, QBASE projects a quarterback's efficiency (passing only) in Years 3 to 5 of his career according to Football Outsiders' Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR) metric. 50,000 simulations produce a range of potential outcomes for each prospect, with players drafted later generally having a larger range of possibilities.

You'll notice that every listed quarterback prospect has a chance to be elite and every quarterback has a chance to be a bust. That reflects just how much we don't know about drafting quarterbacks, and the wide range of possible outcomes for each player.

QBASE favors quarterbacks expected to go high in the draft who also have a relatively long resume of college success according to the stats. Those stats include completion percentage, adjusted yards per attempt (adjusted for touchdowns and interceptions), and team passing efficiency (measured with Bill Connelly's passing SP+ stats). These numbers are adjusted both for the quality of the defenses that a prospect had to face as well as the quality of his offensive teammates. QBASE is meant to only be used on players chosen in the top 100 picks; after that, the judgment of scouts becomes even more important, and statistics become even less predictive.

Overall, QBASE thinks this is a good year for moderately promising quarterback prospects. None of this year's quarterbacks come close to the top projections in QBASE history, in part because no top quarterback prospect this year has four full seasons as a college starter. However, this is the first year with three prospects with mean projections over 600 DYAR since 2012 (Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin, and Russell Wilson), and the first year with five prospects with mean projections over 400 DYAR since 2006. Then again, those five quarterbacks in 2006 were Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler, Kellen Clemens, Vince Young, and Tarvaris Jackson -- once again demonstrating that projecting quarterbacks is very difficult.

Here are projections for eight quarterbacks who may go in the top 100 picks of the 2020 NFL draft.

Joe Burrow, LSU (Scouts Inc. ranking: 2)

Joe Burrow in 2019 had perhaps the greatest season ever in college football history. He set a new all-time record with 60 touchdown passes. His completion rate of 76.3% was the second highest ever. His 12.5 adjusted passing yards per attempt ranks fourth. He did this against an above-average schedule in the SEC.

Burrow's forecast takes a small hit from playing alongside a very high amount of draftable talent, highlighted by likely first-round picks Justin Jefferson (this year) and Ja'Marr Chase (next year). But the experience variable is the main reason Burrow's QBASE projection is not higher. The system still identifies the risk that comes with drafting a quarterback with only two years of starting experience. Nonetheless, Burrow has the second-highest projection ever for a quarterback with less than three years of starting experience.

Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama (7)

As a sophomore, Tagovailoa had 12.8 adjusted passing yards per attempt, the third-highest number ever. As a junior, Tagovailoa had 13.4 adjusted passing yards per attempt before he injured his hip. That would be the highest number ever if Tagovailoa had not missed time and failed to qualify for College Football Reference's historical rankings. So the elements of QBASE based on past performance like Tagovailoa an awful lot.

On the other hand, QBASE has a variable to discount quarterbacks whose stats are helped by playing with a lot of draftable talent at the receiver and offensive line positions. And in the history of QBASE, which goes back to 1997, no quarterback played with more talent in his final college season than Tua Tagovailoa in 2019.

Three different Alabama teammates are forecast to be top-20 picks in the upcoming draft: tackle Jedrick Wills and wide receivers Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs. Two more of Tagovailoa's offensive teammates are likely to be top-10 picks in next year's draft: tackle Alex Leatherwood and wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. Receiver Devonta Smith and guard Deonte Brown are also likely to be drafted in 2021. As a result, the projected draft value for Tagovailoa's teammates is over 60% higher than the previous quarterback who played with the most draftable talent, Danny Wuerffel in 1997.

(Joe Burrow also is now in the top five for teammate value, along with Johnny Manziel and Matt Leinart.)

Tagovailoa's schedule also wasn't as hard as you might expect for a quarterback in the SEC; due to his injury, he missed Auburn (fifth in SP+ defense) and the bowl game with Michigan (11th).

These elements only drop Tagovailoa a little bit, however. He still has one of the all-time best QBASE projections for a quarterback with only two years of starting experience.

Jordan Love, Utah State (22)

Scouts are high on Love's arm talent and smooth release, but his final year of college was quite unimpressive. Thanks in part to 17 interceptions with only 20 touchdowns, his already mediocre 7.2 yards per attempt number becomes 6.4 adjusted yards per attempt. In the last decade, the only top-100 pick with a lower adjusted yards per attempt in his final college season was C.J. Beathard. Love had this poor performance against the easiest schedule of pass defenses faced by any of this year's top quarterback prospects.

But there's an asterisk here, which is that Love's performance declined dramatically between his sophomore and junior seasons. In 2018, Love had a far more impressive 9.4 adjusted yards per attempt, with 32 touchdowns and only six interceptions. If Love had come out a year ago, he would have had a higher projection (420 DYAR). Teams considering Love in this year's draft need to watch two years' worth of film and figure out what changed for Love in 2019.

Justin Herbert, Oregon (23)

Herbert has started for two full seasons and two partial seasons at Oregon, so we counted him with three seasons for the purposes of QBASE. That gives him the second-best projection this year, ahead of Tagovailoa but still behind Joe Burrow. Where Herbert takes a bit of a hit is that Oregon was only 36th in FBS in passing SP+ this season.

Jake Fromm, Georgia (57)

Fromm gets a boost in QBASE from three years of starting experience. Both his 8.1 adjusted yards per attempt and 61% completion rate last season are below the mean for top-100 picks over the past 20 years, but he played the hardest schedule among this year's top quarterback prospects. And like Jordan Love, Fromm declined in his final season, as he had a 67% completion rate and 10.1 adjusted yards per attempt in 2018. Unlike Love, Fromm's QBASE projection would have been lower had he come out a year ago with less experience (208 DYAR).

Jacob Eason, Washington (60)

Eason's 2019 season stats were close to the mean for top-100 quarterback prospects, but he put up those numbers against an easier than average schedule. Combine that with a lower expected draft position (end of th second round) and only two years of starting experience, and Eason does poorly in our QBASE projections.

Jalen Hurts, Oklahoma (98)

The QBASE system likes Hurts even though he's projected to be a late-third- or early-fourth-round pick. He's got three years of starting experience and had awesome statistics in his final year at Oklahoma: 70% completion rate and 12.2 adjusted yards per attempt. That latter number is the sixth-highest qualifying AYPA number in FBS history. But when you look at the five players ahead of him, you sense the biggest question about Hurts. Those players include Baker Mayfield twice and Kyler Murray. Four of the top six APYA seasons ever come from Lincoln Riley's Oklahoma offense. How much of Hurts' performance is Hurts, and how much is the offense, especially considering the big jump in Hurts' stats from his two starting years at Alabama to last year at Oklahoma?

Anthony Gordon, Washington State (116)

It's hard to put too much faith in Gordon considering that his only year as a starter came as a redshirt senior. Even Gordon's good-looking stats aren't as impressive as they might seem at first glance. He was second in FBS with 5,579 passing yards and fourth with 48 touchdowns, but those stats were partially the product of ranking first in pass attempts in Mike Leach's pass-friendly Washington State offense. Gordon was also helped by an easier schedule in the offense-friendly Pac-12. His 8.4 adjusted passing yards per attempt ranked only sixth in the conference.

This article originally appeared on ESPN+.