2022 NFL Draft preseason QB rankings
25. Tanner Morgan | Minnesota | 6’2/215
24. Jack Coan | Notre Dame | 6'3/225
23. Anthony Russo | Michigan State | 6'3/245
22. Dorian Thompson-Robinson | UCLA | 6'1/197
21. Graham Mertz | Wisconsin | 6'3/215
20. Myles Brennan | LSU | 6'3/221
19. Dustin Crum | Kent State | 6'1/210
18. Kenny Pickett | Pittsburgh | 6'3/219
17. Grayson McCall | Coastal Carolina | 6’3/200
16. D’Eriq King | Miami | 5’11/185
15. Emory Jones | Florida | 6’2/210
14. Dillon Gabriel | UCF | 6’0/186
13. Michael Penix Jr. | Indiana | 6’3/218
12. Jayden Daniels | Arizona State | 6’3/185
11. Brock Purdy | Iowa State | 6’1/212
10. Phil Jurkovec | Boston College | 6’5/226 | Scouting report
9. Desmond Ridder | Cincinnati | 6’4/215 | Scouting report
8. JT Daniels | Georgia | 6’3/210 | Scouting report
7. Tyler Shough | Texas Tech | 6’5/221 | Scouting report
6. Kedon Slovis | USC | 6’3/216 | Scouting report
5. Matt Corral | Ole Miss | 6’1/205 | Scouting report
4. Carson Strong | Nevada | 6’4/215 | (Below)
1-3. (Coming soon)
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4. Carson Strong | Nevada | 6’4/215
The most pleasant surprise of the 2022-eligibles on tape this side of Malik Willis.
Strong was an overlooked two-star recruit from the 2018 class. He redshirted that season, and won the starting job the following year, in 2019. Following a ho-hum redshirt freshman year (2,335 yards and 11/7 TD/INT rate), Strong exploded in 2020 for 2,858 passing yards and a 27/4 TD/INT rate on 8.1 YPA (up from 6.2) and 70.1% completions.
Of the 2022-eligible quarterbacks, Strong is unsurpassed in arm strength. Absolute cannon. Quick release. Ball shoots out of his hand and gets there in a hurry in a tight spiral. High-end velocity to consistently beat Cover-2 safeties playing forward. Ball comes out with smoke rings even when Strong is throwing off-platform.
The best of Strong’s deep balls are heart-breakingly beautiful, rainbow moonshots that drop into tiny buckets. Observed on tape multiple balls travel 60 yards or more in the air. Easy, natural arm strength. What makes Strong so intriguing is the accuracy and touch we saw accompany it more and more often as 2020 wore on. In the bowl game, he cooked Tulane for five TD passes while throwing only six incompletions.
Carson Strong is 🔒 in tonight. pic.twitter.com/GUFoSkTOSv
— CBS Sports Network (@CBSSportsNet) October 25, 2020
Of quarterbacks with 350 or more attempts last season, Strong ranked No. 3 in PFF deep-passing grade behind only two 2021 first-rounders -- Zach Wilson and Mac Jones. And Strong was one of only four quarterbacks who had an aDOT of 7.5 or above with an adjusted accuracy percentage higher than 80%, along with Wilson, Jones and Justin Fields.
It’s more than arm talent and natural downfield accuracy. Strong is a merciless head-hunter for one-on-one situations. He is going to dial up a long ball if the look is there. Fearless due to implicit trust in arm. Won’t shy away from any throw.
Strong managed to avoid putting the ball in harm’s way despite a modus operandi of ripping it vertically. In 2020, Strong went 299 attempts without throwing an interception at one point and tied for No. 2 among qualified quarterbacks with a 1.7% turnover-worthy play rate, per PFF.
Nevada’s Air Raid offense heavily skews towards the short and deep passing games, taking advantage of numbers, often denoted by Strong pre-snap. “My coaches have a lot of faith in me, and a lot of times they’ll give me a run play and a pass play,” Strong said. “I’ll go up to the line of scrimmage and I see what the defense is trying to do I get us into the right play. They give me a lot of freedom to audible play.”
Carson Strong’s the real deal
— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) June 22, 2021
Biggest arm of the draft-eligibles imo
Very raw, 1-read offense, not mobile
But man can he spin it — and he doesn’t put ball in harm’s way despite inexperience
Upside guy that must be monitored
Preseason QB4 for me
pic.twitter.com/sxFFnN2qqc
Strong is clearly a good pre-snap diagnoser of the field, and he does a really good job, even in instances where he’s going to his primary target, manipulating safeties with his eyes. But the offense doesn’t give Strong many opportunities to go through a full set of progressions, nor does it afford him the opportunity to attack the middle of the field as often as some of his contemporaries.
Passes in the intermediate sector accounted for only 15.8% of Strong’s passes last year -- the lowest percentage of any quarterback in my preseason top-10 2022 quarterbacks. To be fair, Strong posted a 90.3 PFF grade on his 56 intermediate throws last year -- No. 3 among my top-10 with a 71.3% adjusted accuracy percentage -- but these are not advanced concepts, and he’s not a veteran of layering balls in.
Carson Strong cut-up (for article) pic.twitter.com/ljeSeyHeM7
— Selyan (@selyan_fb) May 14, 2021
It’s doubtful that Nevada is going to modify its offense to allow Strong to sit in the pocket longer, or go through full progressions, or attack the middle of the field -- that’s not how the Mumme’s run Air Raid (Matt is Nevada’s OC). One thing Strong can do this coming fall to show maturation in the fluidity-of-decision-making department is to improve against pressure.
Last season, Strong’s 92.0 PFF passing grade in clean pockets dropped to 48.2 under pressure. His adjusted accuracy percentage dropped from 83.0% to 66.7%, while his percentage of turnover-worthy plays went from 1.0% to 3.6% under pressure. That’s a red flag in a limited-read offense.
Of the three QBs I watched yesterday, Neveda’s Carson Strong is comfortably my favorite of the group. His arm talent really pops. This ball hit his WR in the face btw. #BlueChipSummer pic.twitter.com/z6A829aEn2
— Dante Collinelli (@DanteCollinelli) June 8, 2021
Nevada’s offense doesn’t need Strong to be mobile, because it stretches the defense horizontally with the sideline-to-sideline quick-passing game to open up the deep one-on-one shots Strong and Romeo Doubs are so dangerous in. Strong is a pocket-passer only -- he has rushed for -97 career yards.
Last season, even if you take out sack yardage, Strong still would have rushed for less than 100 yards over nine games. This is somewhat analogous to Mac Jones’ preference to remain behind the LOS. In 14 games last season, Jones only narrowly cracked 100 yards with sacks omitted.
To be fair, Strong was coming off offseason surgery to clean up a knee injury and was said to be less than 100-percent on the hoof (he missed spring practices that year because of it). Even when he is this fall, don’t expect him to leave the pocket often.
One thing I noticed is Strong has a habit of bicycling backwards in his drop-back instead of the more traditional shuffle from a ready-aim-fire throwing base. Extremely quick pressure off the snap can chew him up, particularly from the interior, because Strong doesn’t always have time to square his shoulders. Sometimes he’ll just fling it up mid-backpedal to avoid the sack. His accuracy doing so is poor.
There are myriad instances of Strong losing stock of his lower-half and throwing balls all-arm in the face of heat in order to get rid of it. Revamping his set-up and consistently marrying his lower- and upper-halves on throws will lead to an accuracy boost and likely improve Strong’s performance under pressure.
Entering Strong’s third year, fully healthy, with most of his supporting cast back (Doubs, Elijah Cooks, Melquan Stovall and Cole Turner), I expect him to improve. With luck, in the specific areas we’re talking about. I see him as an early-Round 2 guy heading into the season. With further developmental gains, he’ll barge into Round 1.
Catch up on scouting report’s of Thor’s preseason 2022 QB8-10 (JT Daniels, Desmond Ridder and Phil Jurkovec) here, QB6-7 (Kedon Slovis and Tyler Shough) here, and QB5 Matt Corral here.
