As with most analysts, NFL Media's Mike Mayock doesn't think much of the 2015 quarterback draft class, and he also thinks Oregon's Marcus Mariota, one of this year's top QBs, is a "projection" for every team but one.
"It's not a real good quarterback draft," Mayock told Philadelphia radio station WPEN-FM, per Philadelphia magazine. "You've got two quarterbacks that are head-and-shoulders above everyone else, and even they have their own holes -- one on the field (Mariota) and one off the field (Florida State's Jameis Winston)."
Mayock said the type of offense Mariota ran at Oregon makes him "a projection" for every team except the Philadelphia Eagles. Mariota was recruited to Oregon by Chip Kelly, who now, of course, is the Eagles' head coach.
"From a physical trait perspective, he has everything you want," Mayock said of Mariota. "He's big, he's athletic, he's got great feet and he's got a live arm. So on the surface, the individual components all work. The problem is he's a projection coming to the next level because of the pocket awareness, the progressions and the reads."
Mayock also said that if Eagles officials "think he's the guy and that they can win a Super Bowl with Marcus Mariota, given people around him and a good defense, then I think they have to try and go get him."
The Eagles own the No. 20 pick in the first round, and they almost certainly would have to trade up to get Mariota. How high they'd have to go and how high a price they're willing to pay are the unknowns.
As for Winston, Mayock said, "I really like everything I see about him on the field. ... But off the field, I'm scared to death of him."
NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah rates Winston as the No. 6 prospect in the draft, with Mariota at No. 11. Jeremiah and fellow analysts Bucky Brooks and Lance Zierlein have Winston going first overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their mock drafts. Jeremiah and Zierlein have Mariota going sixth overall, to the New York Jets, and Brooks has Mariota going 18th, to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.
