NFL Network analyst doesn’t have Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields as his top 2021 QB
Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields have been linked and compared dating back to their days as star high school quarterbacks in Georgia.
Lawrence was ranked No. 1 and Fields was No. 2 in the 247Sports Composite rankings when they were coming out of high school in 2018. And the two are the favorites to win the Heisman trophy this season.
Most rankings for the 2021 NFL draft, including ESPN’s Todd McShay and ESPN’s Mel Kiper, have Lawrence and Fields as the top two quarterbacks for next year’s draft. However, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah has another QB atop his list.
“If you’re just going off of grades, he’d be my clear No. 1 quarterback in this draft class, and that’s Trey Lance from North Dakota State,” Jeremiah said on The Ryen Russillo podcast last month.
Lance, a Minnesota native, redshirted in 2018 before dominating at the FCS level last year. He completed nearly 67 percent of his passes while throwing for 2,786 yards, with 28 touchdowns and no interceptions. Lance also rushed for 1,100 yards and 14 scores as North Dakota State won the FCS national title.
“If on your check list of important things — you like guys that don’t turn the ball over, throw touchdowns, run touchdowns and never lose football games, you might like this guy,” Jeremiah said. “He’s 6-3, he’s 220 pounds. He’s strong. He’s sturdy. He operates in that North Dakota State offense, which there are so many things they do that translate.”
Jeremiah studied three games worth of film of Lawrence, Fields and Lance from 2019 to come up with his current rankings. He believes that all three have the ability to be very good pro quarterbacks, but right now Lance is at the top of his list.
The fact that Lance plays at a lower level of football doesn’t bother Jeremiah.
“Vision wise I thought he was better than the other two guys. Decision making wise he was better than the other two guys. … I’m getting somebody that’s making all of the plays without any of the hangups,” Jeremiah said. “The skills you can see. The arm strength, the athletic ability, that stuff it doesn’t matter who you’re playing against. You can tell that. He checks all those boxes.”
Jeremiah currently has Lawrence ahead of Fields as his No. 2 quarterback, with Fields third.
“He’s got some rare qualities,” Jeremiah said of Lawrence. “He’s 6-foot-6. He can move around. He’s a tremendous athlete. You can use him in the design quarterback run game, as well as just organically making plays with his athleticism. And he’s got a big arm to be able to squeeze balls in. Those are the things that you really like about him.”
With that said, Jeremiah also sees plenty of room for Lawrence to improve, most notably with his accuracy.
“There are wild throws. I was anticipating seeing like a polished Andrew Luck type of a player. He’s not at that level right now. He’s got some accuracy stuff where he’s just not pinpoint accurate. He completes balls sometimes but the placement is not great. And he’s got these big, rangy receivers that can bail him out on some of this stuff,” Jeremiah said. “The other thing that’s kind of nit picky from a scouting standpoint — his eyes work really quick, but sometimes his feet aren’t catching up with his eyes. So that leads to some of the inaccuracy. He’s tremendously talented, but he is not the pristine, clean prospect that maybe I thought I was going to get when i went into the process.”
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 2:08 PM with the headline "NFL Network analyst doesn’t have Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields as his top 2021 QB."
