It came as quickly as it went.
Cardale Jones’ flirtation with the 2015 NFL draft was officially ended by the young quarterback when he announced that he was returning to school on Thursday. Just reaching this point of the process took some incredible developments. Less than two months ago Jones was a complete unknown. Just another one of the many, many backup quarterbacks at Division I Football colleges across the nation. Even within the boundaries of Ohio, Jones was just the Buckeye’s third string quarterback, a player who was only elevated to second string because of a preseason injury to Braxton Miller.
It took another injury, this time to J.T. Barrett who was Miller’s replacement, to push Jones into relevance at Ohio State.
During a 59-0 victory over Wisconsin, Jones was largely an afterthought. He threw the ball just 17 times, completing 12 passes for 257 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions. His time on the field could easily have ended there. Ohio State weren’t guaranteed a spot in the inaugural four team playoff for the National Championship. They eventually snuck in as the fourth seed, but even then Jones was still an afterthought as his team was an underdog against a resurgent Alabama team. Supposedly the best team in the nation.
If you fast forward to today, Jones is a household name if your household follows college football or the NFL draft. That is because he led the Buckeyes to two seemingly unlikely victories over Nick Saban‘s Alabama in the semifinal of the playoff and Marcus Mariota‘s Oregon in the National Championship Game. Jones’ performances didn’t just win over Ohio State fans and help his team officially become the best in college football, the skill set he showed off during those games piqued the interest of draft analysts.
Jones isn’t a freshman. He is eligible for the 2015 draft. At least, he was eligible.
Before announcing that he was going to return to school, Jones was being talked about as an intriguing, if largely unknown prospect. That mystery coupled with his skill set and momentum created by recent games on the national stage was widely being presented as a positive rather than a negative. That is because this year’s draft class appears to be very weak. Looking past Mariota and Jameis Winston, there doesn’t appear to be a quarterback worthy of going in the first round. Furthermore, there may not be good value projects in the second, third or fourth rounds either.
After Connor Cook returned to school, Brett Hundley appears to be the best option behind the top two prospects. Hundley doesn’t have great physical traits and hasn’t shown enough potential as a passer to be assured of a top 50 selection.
The question is, could Jones have filled that gap in the market? Was his skill set such that he would be appealing to NFL suitors despite of his lack of exposure in college?
Jones’ frame leaves an immediate impression on anyone watching him. He is a thickly built 6'5” with the ability to move well behind the line of scrimmage. He isn’t an overly athletic quarterback, but he has enough athleticism to extend plays and exploit obvious space past the line of scrimmage. Maybe most significantly for his evaluation from NFL teams, his size comes with the coveted arm strength of a downfield thrower.
The quarterback has easy arm strength. He never strains to push the ball down the field, instead he can flick the ball with relative ease and replicate the kind of arm strength that Joe Flacco routinely shows off on his deep balls in the NFL. Jones’ downfield accuracy has been decent, but not spectacular during his short spell on the field so far. Significantly, he has shown off an ability to manipulate the trajectory of his passes without sacrificing velocity. Maybe most significantly, Jones has shown off the ability to sustain velocity on underneath passes while throwing very catchable, accurate balls to his receivers.
His ability to throw underneath allowed this play to turn into a touchdown even though he was late releasing the football.
Jones carried out a play fake with his running back before looking to his left during his drop. The offense had three receivers to that narrow side of the field, creating chaos for the defenders trying to cover them. During the chaos, Jones’ tight end has run uncovered into the flat. There is a defender inside of him who is attempting to recover position, but Jones can easily throw the ball to his tight end for a touchdown at this point of the play without being concerned about the presence of any defensive back.
Instead of doing that, he holds onto the football and pump fakes unnecessarily.
The quarterback holds the ball, inviting the pressure from the edge defender to come towards him unnecessarily. By doing this, he is not only giving the underneath defender a chance to recover to a spot where he can undercut the pass, but he is also allowing the deeper defensive backs a chance to read his eyes so they can come up and hit the tight end from behind or try and knock the ball away from him when it does arrive.
Even though he delays the delivery, Jones’ velocity and relatively quick release is such that the underneath defender is incapable of recovering to a spot where he can make a play on the football. Jones throws an accurate pass that affords his tight end an easy reception at the pylon.
This is an understated, but important play for any NFL quarterback prospect.
It’s easy to see a big arm quarterback who can heave the ball down the field with ease, but the value of that trait isn’t as high as the quarterback who can sustain velocity while controlling trajectory and placement to every area of the field. During his short stint as the Buckeyes quarterback, Jones has shown off that ability.
Having a strong arm and a large frame are typically traits that are valued more during the draft process by scouts than they are in terms of making an impact for a quarterback’s fortunes on the field. However, it’s not size and strength that makes Jones an intriguing prospect. Instead, it’s the combination of that size and strength with the poise and awareness he has shown within Urban Meyer‘s offense. It’s not that difficult to find an athletic quarterback and label him a project quarterback, but real project quarterbacks show off enough potential as passers to entice onlookers.
Against Oregon in the National Championship Game, Jones wasn’t consistently put under pressure. In fact, he was often given too much space and time in the pocket by the defense. However, when he was pressured, he often reacted in a way that will be encouraging to NFL scouts.
On this play, the defense rushes four defenders after the quarterback. It was a rare play when Ohio State’s pass protection broke down quickly in multiple areas. Jones has his eyes downfield through his drop and he is late to recognize the edge rusher who has beaten his blocker with relative ease while accelerating around the corner.
The edge rusher is essentially unblocked as he arrives to Jones. Jones slides away from him to use the defender’s momentum to take him out of the play. While doing so, he protects the football by moving it away from the defender’s outstretched arm. Because of how the pass rush won at multiple spots, Jones doesn’t have a pocket to step up into. Instead, he has to quickly set his feet and throw the ball from a tight area. He doesn’t perfectly reset his feet after initially stepping up, but he also doesn’t panic completely so he has established a decent base to release the football from.
Importantly, Jones never dropped his eyes throughout this play. When he released the ball, he located an open receiver down the field.
Unfortunately for him on this occasion, his pass floated just past the receiver out of bounds. This inaccuracy was likely a result of his unstable base within the pocket. Considering everything positive that Jones did on this play, that should be considered a minor, fixable issue. What was most significant was that he didn’t panic when pressure came.
Although he missed his open receiver on that play, Jones was able to complete some impressive plays from the pocket against closing pressure.
On this play, Jones angles his drop while looking downfield. He doesn’t escape into the flat completely, instead he establishes a base at the top of his drop just inside his right tackle. As pressure comes off of the edge, Jones shuffles his feet subtly to reset further infield. This gives the blocker outside the chance to push the edge rusher away with ease. As Jones releases the football, a second pass rusher comes free and crashes into him just after he has released the football. Jones reacted slightly, but not enough to prevent him from completing the ball to the sideline with precision and timing.
This play highlighted Jones’ arm talent as well as his poise in the pocket.
Jones made a similar play when he was intercepted. On this occasion, he dropped back in the pocket and was confronted by an unblocked edge rusher. The rusher was coming from the side of the field that Jones was looking to, so he was able to stop his momentum and push back upfield. He shuffled his feet slightly to reset and alter the angle of his throw just before the pressure closed in on him. Jones delivered the football from an uncomfortable, but balanced position as he absorbed the hit from the defender.
His pass was perfectly accurate and once again showed off impressive controlled velocity. However, his receiver tipped it straight to a defender.
Although Jones is nothing like Cam Newton as an athlete in the open field, he shows off enough athleticism to be a dangerous runner while also having the subtlety to make important shifts in the pocket. He makes his offensive line look better by showing off the fluidity and body control to throw from different body contortions and adjust his positioning within the pocket. That movement combined with his size can also make him very difficult to bring down in the pocket when a defender does get to him, a trait that will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Ben Roethlisberger moving forward.
To complement his subtle movement and discipline within the pocket, Jones shows off a willingness to look from receiver-to-receiver through his progression and the understanding of when to hang in the pocket and when to escape it. He wasn’t consistent in this area over his short sample on the field, but the ability to be effective was evident.
On occasion, Jones combines poise in and out of the pocket with excellent eye-level. This big play against Oregon showed off his arm strength when he connected with the receiver on a deep crossing route, but more significant was his work behind the line of scrimmage. From the moment he touched the ball to the moment he released into the flat, Jones kept his eyes downfield looking for receivers to throw to. At the top of his drop, he was forced to step up because of edge pressure from both sides. After stepping up, he didn’t immediately run to the flat. Instead he held his position for a moment before escaping to the flat when he couldn’t find a receiver.
It was 3rd-and-12 so Jones wasn’t interested in scrambling. Instead he unleashed an accurate pass down the seam to a receiver running a deep crossing route.
He got the first down and set the offense up in the red zone.
Jones’ tools as a quarterback are very appealing. He showed off relatively impressive accuracy against Oregon and while he was inconsistent with the other aspects of being an NFL quarterback, there was more than enough evidence to suggest that he could be a valuable project for an NFL team this season. His athleticism is an added bonus, but he won’t be overrunning many defensive tackles in the NFL like he has done in college.
Although Hundley, Bryce Petty and whoever else will be considered after Mariota and Winston in the draft have played more than Jones, it’s hard to argue that any of them have shown more than him. The talent he has displayed in a short time isn’t enough to make him a surefire first round pick in 2016, when he presumably will enter the draft, but a good season next year could elevate him to that status.
It would have been very difficult to argue against Jones as the third best quarterback in the 2015 class if he had decided to come out. Instead, he will likely start for Ohio State next season and hope to improve his stock.
That is, unless J.T. Barrett reclaims his starting spot...
