First, let me clear the air...
Luck, to me, was a better prospect than Haskins. By a decent margin. I only included that little tidbit to grab the reader - but those are essentially the results he's found here. I don't actually think Haskins = Luck and don't want the thread to devolve into that.
Anyway, Wharton's work on Haskins was mentioned a few times here and there in different threads. Im not sure if this was shared, but I thought it was a pretty deep dive/worth sharing on its own.
I know one of the biggest hot button topics on DH has been the pressure angle. Whether the narrative is "didn't face it," or - incorrectly - "couldn't handle it," - I think you'll see here that in the short/midrange game, it's actually not true at all that he couldn't handle it.
In fact, he fared quite well.
The deep ball pressure passes are obviously completed at a very low clip - I'd imagine this to be true for most QB's. Throwing a ball 20+ yards when you're pressured probably has relatively low odds at a completion.
The plus is that he only turned the ball over one time that way. So, while you'd like to see him hit on a couple more of those long balls, he's at least protecting the rock and not giving it away.
Wharton's situational play charting does a nice job of breaking down how he did in different scenarios.
This is the final chart Wharton did pre-draft. Similar charts have been shared here, but this one is from 10 days ago - so I don't believe this is the same one that we've had floating around here before that.
I've made no secrets that I like this guy. I think he's a really nice fit for the Giants in more than one way. Very bright kid, wants to be here - this was his team as a kid - he puts in the work. He understands the game. Has the persona to handle New York without issue (if you think this point is irrelevant - see the last trade we made....)
Perfect prospect? No, of course not.
I worry about the situational footwork. He throws off his back foot a lot. He drifts backwards too far and sometimes just continues to drift backwards with pressure coming rather than trying to jump up past the wave and get ahead of it to either get rid of the ball or avoid a big loss.
RZ production is also a common knock - but I'm not sure that's entirely attributable to Haskins. A lot of the spread concepts don't work as well down near the goal line where you start to get totally squeezed by the back boundary and I'm not sure the sample size is even large enough for me to take away a whole lot.
TL;DR - in the end, I think the footwork concerns, lack of experience, and even RZ production are fair critiques.
His arm is the best NFL arm in this class, though. His football IQ is very high, and most importantly Haskins continued to get better and better as the year went on. He is still getting better, he will continue to do so in the pros with good coaching, and if I'm going to trust Pat Shurmur to do anything, it's develop the QB.
This isn't Davis Webb where no amount of hard work will cover up that he's just not much of a player.
I thought he looked really good today, and most encouragingly, made some great throws on the move - which is what I've been looking for.
Louis Riddick today - "I'm all in on the man"
I don't think it'd be wise to trade up in this particular draft - but if DH is there at 6, go get him.
I'm so torn on Haskins because I really like the guy, I'm just not ready to commit to a trade up.
There are some exceptions, but when two QB's of similar rank differ in experience, the one with just a year of playing time has performed worse the vast majority of the time.
I am open to drafting Haskins if the Giants feel he has franchise upside. The lack of mobility is overblown. Athletically I would compare him to Big Ben but obviously with a higher character. If people are going to use Haskins lack of experience to criticize then it is only fair to consider that he will improve when pressure as he gains more experience.
In all likelihood, he's going to sit, learn and prepare this entire upcoming season which would be a nice boost to his level of experience.
I'm so torn on Haskins because I really like the guy, I'm just not ready to commit to a trade up.
It doesn't work against him. It's just that history has shown that QBs with a longer track record of college success are easier to project to the NFL.
But at the same time - it's sort of a paradox, because if he IS the real deal, then the trade up is totally worth it anyway and no one would care that we had to do it to get him. That's how we got Eli and many times, that's what you have to do to get your QB. It often comes with the territory.
It would just sting because we have so many holes and need as many of the picks as we can keep.
I'd imagine that the collection of capital we have will be used to move somewhere, though - I'd be very surprised if we just stood pat and drafted 12 players in the slots we have now.
For Haskins, if we were to draft him, for instance - I'd be fine with Eli being the starter, and then going to Haskins as soon as things look like they're going south. I think that'd be the sweet spot. Haskins gets PT in year 1, but doesn't have to do it immediately and has a few weeks to acclimate.