It remains a delightfully maddening fact: Quarterback is the most important position of any team sport, but despite having all the data in the world available at this point, we’re not really any better at projecting who will actually be particularly good at it in the pros.

Among the NFL’s top 10 in Total QBR last season were three former No. 1 picks (Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, Kyler Murray), the third and fifth QBs taken in the 2018 draft (Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson), the fourth and fifth QBs taken in 2020 (Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts), the ninth QB taken in 2022 (Brock Purdy), a rookie (Jayden Daniels) and, well, Patrick Mahomes. Some had extensive track records in college, and some had smaller, spottier résumés. Some were considered system QBs, and some were considered alarmingly small or skinny. Meanwhile, the No. 1 picks in the 2021 (Trevor Lawrence), 2023 (Bryce Young) and 2024 (Caleb Williams) drafts ranked 15th, 20th and 28th, respectively, in Total QBR.

It’s still a bit of a mystery figuring out who will succeed and how long it might take a guy to click, and it sometimes seems as if the quality of the organization selecting a given QB matters as much as the QB himself. But as mysterious as this all can seem, we still know a lot about these guys, and by the time they leave college, we at least have a pretty good idea of why a quarterback prospect will succeed or fail. So, for the 11 quarterbacks ranked among Scouts Inc.’s top 300 prospects, let’s walk through the best and worst traits for each one.

(Note: Unless otherwise noted, all rankings below are based on a sample of 65 QBs with at least 16 FBS starts in 2023-24.)

Jump to a QB:

Ward | Sanders | Dart | Shough
Milroe | Howard | Ewers
Gabriel | McCord | Rourke | Henigan

Cam Ward, Miami Hurricanes

Raw 2023-24 stats: 25 starts, 628-for-939 passing, 8,048 yards, 67% completion rate, 64 TDs, 14 INTs, 6% sack rate, 49% success rate, 7.7 yards per dropback, 120 non-sack rushes for 739 yards and 12 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 7th (78.5)

Why he might succeed: He’s an evolving Caleb Williams. An option quarterback in high school, Ward was overlooked as a recruit and landed at FCS school Incarnate Word as an unrated prospect. But thrust into Eric Morris’ QB-friendly system, he immediately thrived, throwing for 6,908 yards and 71 TDs in only 19 games and winning the Jerry Rice Award (for the best freshman in FCS). When Morris took the Washington State offensive coordinator job, Ward followed, and after two years in Pullman, he landed at Miami in an attempt to improve his draft stock in 2024.

It worked. With the Hurricanes, Ward was Caleb Williams incarnate, only even more explosive than the 2024 No. 1 pick and 2022 Heisman winner.

• Completion rate: Williams 68% (2022-23), Ward 67% (2024)

• Yards per completion: Ward 14.1, Williams 13.6

• Yards per dropback: Ward 8.8, Williams 8.1

• Air yards per attempt: Ward 8.7, Williams 8.6

• Average time to throw: Williams 3.1 seconds, Ward 2.9

Ward could buy time and scramble when needed, and he could make every throw from every arm angle. Perhaps more intriguingly, he was both better than Williams at escaping pressure and was able to make more plays from inside the pocket.

• Pressure rate: Williams 33.6%, Ward 30.0%

• Sacks-to-pressures ratio: Williams 20.5%, Ward 15.5%

• Scramble rate: Williams 6.6%, Ward 6.1%

• Pct. of passes thrown out of the pocket: Williams 22.7%, Ward 15.2%

An equally mobile but slightly more disciplined version of last year’s No. 1 pick? Sounds like a pretty good No. 1 pick.

Why he might fail: He might have Williams’ flaws without Williams’ sustained track record. Before last year’s draft, I struggled to find a proper prospect comparison for Williams, who basically looked like a better Zach Wilson or Sam Ehlingeron paper. Obviously neither Wilson nor Ehlinger came close to clicking in the pros, and Williams’ first season with the Bears was a somewhat predictable struggle. With a shaky supporting cast, he attempted to balance his natural playmaking instincts with the discipline and safety required in the pros.

It might be encouraging that Ward seemed to have already balanced those instincts a bit better in 2024, but he produced only one elite season in college and looked the part for a shorter amount of time than Williams. (Again: He went to Miami because his draft stock was unimpressive.) He might have finished on a higher note, but despite Williams-like tendencies, he was genuinely elite for a shorter amount of time than Williams and therefore might not be quite as trustworthy as a top prospect.

Shedeur Sanders, Colorado Buffaloes

Raw 2023-24 stats: 24 starts, 651-for-907 passing, 7,364 yards, 72% completion rate, 64 TDs, 13 INTs, 9% sack rate, 46% success rate, 6.6 yards per dropback, 117 non-sack rushes for 687 yards and 8 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 21st (69.8)

Why he might succeed: Accuracy and the right kind of experience. Among the 65 college quarterbacks with at least 16 starts in 2023-24, Sanders ranks just 21st in Total QBR (69.8) and 37th in yards per dropback (6.6). College stats aren’t incredibly projectable to the pros — otherwise, Dillon Gabriel or Jaxson Dart would be the consensus top prospect — but we can usually generalize that your college averages are your pro ceiling. We can also therefore wonder whether Sanders’ ceiling is high enough to be a projected top-five pick.

If he succeeds, it probably will be because of extreme accuracy and the fact that he has been playing on All-Madden level for a while. The accuracy is easy enough to explain: His 71.8% completion rate in 2023-24 was the second highest among the aforementioned 65 QBs, and although he didn’t throw a ton of downfield passes, he was accurate on those too: On passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield, he ranked ninth in completion rate (43%) and fifth in yards per attempt (15.8), which suggests that he hits guys in stride.

He also did most of his work in a college system that was simply more difficult than others. For starters, he dealt with a completely rebuilt offensive line in 2023, then did so again in 2024. But beyond that, most good college offenses steal free yards (in ways that are hard to replicate in the pros), and Colorado’s offense didn’t do that.

Piloting an offense that was coordinated a majority of the time by former NFL OC Pat Shurmur, Sanders threw only 31% of his passes at or behind the line of scrimmage (59th out of 65), and while he left the pocket quite a bit, he was keeping his eyes downfield and not automatically looking to run — his ratio of out-of-pocket pass attempts to scrambles/rushes was 2.2, which is pretty pass-happy compared with other guys trying to capitalize on their mobility (Alabama’s Jalen Milroe‘s ratio was 1.4, and Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard‘s was 1.2). This was a harder way of going about things, and it got him hit quite a bit, but you could say that it was a more accurate picture of what awaits him in the pros. Perhaps that means he won’t have as much of an adjustment to make?

Why he might fail: Too many sacks and not nearly enough big plays. Accuracy is forever a good thing, but there’s just very little about Sanders’ statistical résumé that suggests he should be considered a top prospect. He held on to the ball forever, and he rarely pulled off any explosive plays by doing so. Out of the 65 QBs in question, Sanders ranked 48th in yards per completion (11.3) and 52nd in average air yards per pass attempt (7.4) despite averaging 2.9 seconds to throw (11th highest). His offensive line wasn’t very good, but opponents almost never blitzed (the 18.7% blitz rate he faced was the lowest), and his average pressure time was 5.1 seconds (third lowest). So when you see that he also ranked 61st in sack rate (9.4%) and 60th in pressure rate (39.2%), know that a lot of that was on Sanders and Sanders alone. And again, it produced few chunk plays.

Sanders’ receiving corps featured Heisman winner Travis Hunter, but he still couldn’t reliably produce big plays against college defenses. How is that supposed to change against NFL defenses?

Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss Rebels

Raw 2023-24 stats: 26 starts, 509-for-756 passing, 7,643 yards, 67% completion rate, 52 TDs, 11 INTs, 7% sack rate, 49% success rate, 9.0 yards per dropback, 188 non-sack rushes for 1,221 yards and 11 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 4th (81.0)

Why he might succeed: He’s not bad at anything. On paper, Dart seems like just about the perfect QB prospect. Out of the 65 QBs in question, he ranked ninth in completion rate (67%) and second in yards per completion (15.0), behind only Army’s option quarterback Bryson Daily. Dart torched man coverage (9.3 yards per dropback, first), and he torched zone coverage (9.7, first). He was about as well-rounded a QB as you’ll see at the college level.

He seems athletic enough, but he didn’t rely on that too much — while he averaged 8.7 yards per scramble (10th), he still stayed in the pocket most of the time, attempting only 8.9% of his passes outside the pocket (second lowest). Combine all that with a strong NFL combine performance and that’s how you earn first-round buzz.

By the “your college stats are your pro ceiling” rule, few college QBs produced a higher ceiling than Dart in recent years.

Why he might fail: When he loses the plot, it’s totally lost. Dart’s pocket-heavy tendencies do get him hit quite a bit (he was 42nd out of 65 in sack rate and 47th in QB contact rate), but to find serious flaws, you have to slice his three-year Ole Miss tenure up into pretty small samples. In four games against the SEC’s two most preeminent programs (Alabama and Georgia) he completed 58% of his passes with more interceptions (three) than touchdowns (two) and averaged 5.5 or fewer yards per dropback three times. In games in which Ole Miss entered with a worse FPI rating than its opponent, he rarely got the Rebels to overachieve (59% completion rate, 6.9 yards per dropback).

The prime example is his genuinely dreadful fourth-quarter performance in last season’s late loss to Florida, a defeat that kept the Rebels out of the College Football Playoff.

Dart went 4-for-10 for 34 yards and two interceptions while trailing in the fourth quarter against the Gators. Ole Miss had one of the best teams in the country in 2024 but went 0-3 in one-score finishes, and, fairly or unfairly, that lowered perceptions of a QB who was otherwise mostly brilliant in college. We’ll see what that means in the pros.

Tyler Shough, Louisville Cardinals

Raw 2023-24 stats: 16 starts, 311-for-500 passing, 3,941 yards, 62% completion rate, 30 TDs, 10 INTs, 4% sack rate, 43% success rate, 7.0 yards per dropback, 67 non-sack rushes for 353 yards and 3 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 18th (71.1)

Why he might fail: He’s 25 with unproven upside. We’ll start with the negatives on this one.

Shough’s story is one of extreme perseverance. A prospect from the same recruiting class as Trevor Lawrence and JT Daniels, he took snaps in parts of seven seasons after sustaining season-ending injuries in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Shough saved his best performance for last, throwing for 3,195 yards and 23 touchdowns with Louisville, his third school, in 2024. But he’ll turn 26 this fall, and his full-career stats — 71.1 Total QBR, 63% completion rate, 7.3 yards per dropback — leave a lot to be desired.

As with Sanders, it’s really difficult to make a statistical case for Shough to be near the top of QB draft lists. Focusing only on these past two seasons, he ranked 38th in completion rate (62%), 28th in yards per dropback (7.0) and 34th in passing success rate (43%); his age leaves him little room for growth, and after so many injuries, he offers very little from a rushing or scrambling standpoint. You have to fall in love with his film if you want to believe in him as a prospect.

Why he might succeed: You can fall in love with his film. Take it away, Ben Solak: “Shough has a big body and a legit NFL arm with great downfield touch. While his pocket management is as panicked as you’d expect from a quarterback with three straight season-ending injuries, he has a nice throw on the move when he extends plays. It’s not hard to find some Jared Goff in his game. Shough is the trust-the-film quarterback because that’s exactly what you’re betting on: Despite his injury history and age, the quality of play is good enough that he’ll be a starter available for a discount contract.”

I want to believe in Shough because his success would be a hell of a story. But even that endorsement from Solak references “panicked” pocket management. Consider me skeptical.

Jalen Milroe, Alabama Crimson Tide

Raw 2023-24 stats: 26 starts, 392-for-603 passing, 5,678 yards, 65% completion rate, 39 TDs, 17 INTs, 10% sack rate, 47% success rate, 7.9 yards per dropback, 262 non-sack rushes for 1,765 yards and 32 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 6th (79.5)

Why he might succeed: Jalen Hurts succeeded, right? It’s really easy for our brains to want to compare one player from a given system or team to another. We compared Justin Fields to C.J. Stroud simply because they were both Ohio State quarterbacks, even though they had little else in common. We compared every Air Raid “system QB” to one another for a decade or more, at least until Mahomes broke every possible definition of “system QB.” And it has been particularly easy to watch Milroe and compare him to another absolute specimen named Jalen who led the show in Tuscaloosa. It’s also easy to compare them with stats and measurements.

• Jalen Hurts (2016-19, Alabama/Oklahoma): 6-foot-1, 222 pounds, 65.2% completion rate, 13.9 yards per completion, 8.1 yards per dropback, 34.9% pressure rate, 13.6% scramble rate, 65.5 non-sack rushing yards per game, 6.7 yards per carry

• Jalen Milroe (2021-24, Alabama): 6-2, 217 pounds, 64.3% completion rate, 14.1 yards per completion, 7.8 yards per dropback, 37.4% pressure rate, 11.5% scramble rate, 55.7 non-sack rushing yards per game, 7.0 yards per carry

Hurts and Milroe share similar builds and dramatically similar tendencies, and while Hurts’ numbers ended up a smidgen better overall, he also had the benefit of spending a year in the Lincoln Riley QB Finishing School at Oklahoma when Riley was at the peak of his powers. Milroe’s Bama numbers were better, and considering Hurts just won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles, it’s fair to say that any Hurts similarity is a good thing for Milroe.

Why he might fail: The negative plays are just too much. Here are a few more stats for comparing Milroe to Hurts:

• Hurts: 1.9% interception rate, 6.1% sack rate, 19.8% sacks-to-pressures, 35.9% contact rate

• Milroe: 3.0% interception rate, 9.9% sack rate, 27.5% sacks-to-pressures, 39.6% contact rate

Milroe took more hits than Hurts, ran himself into more sacks and threw more interceptions. It’s one thing to trust your mobility; it’s another to run yourself into constant trouble.

Milroe’s rate of mistakes also picked up late in 2024 despite playing under Kalen DeBoer in a system that made Michael Penix Jr. a top-10 pick a year earlier. His interception rate rose from 2.1% in 2023 to 3.4% last fall, and in his last nine college games he threw six touchdown passes to 10 interceptions.

Hurts indeed benefited from a year with Riley, and one has to assume that Milroe will need at least a year of apprenticeship before he can develop into anything particularly trustworthy. He’s going to need patience and a very specific system, and although both of those things exist in the NFL, not every quarterback gets that lucky.

Will Howard, Ohio State Buckeyes

Raw 2023-24 stats: 28 starts, 528-for-780 passing, 6,653 yards, 68% completion rate, 59 TDs, 20 INTs, 4% sack rate, 51% success rate, 7.9 yards per dropback, 156 non-sack rushes for 771 yards and 16 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 3rd (84.1)

Why he might succeed: Accuracy and pocket presence. Will Howard spent most of his college career in what you might call a protective system. In parts of four seasons at Kansas State, he averaged just 27.6 dropbacks per start in a low-tempo and relatively run-heavy attack. In 2024 at Ohio State, he won a national title while averaging only 28.3 dropbacks per start thanks to both big leads and a good run game. We know he’s a good front-runner, and we know he has a strong pocket presence: Out of the 65 QBs, Howard ranked 12th in sacks-to-pressures ratio (13.1%) even though his scramble/rushing rate of 2.6% was seventh lowest. That suggests good things about his sack avoidance and pure ability to get passes off. He’s also remarkably accurate in shorter ranges.

Solid pocket maneuvering and safe passing will get you a decent distance down the road in the pros.

Why he might fail: Passing upside. Look at the above chart again — it’s all green inside of 10 yards and mostly at least light red outside of it. And that only hints at Howard’s biggest problem: On passes thrown between 10 and 19 yards downfield, Howard completed a decent but unspectacular 60% but also produced a 5% interception rate (51st out of 65) in that range and a 7% interception rate on passes of 20-plus yards (48th). And when pressured, he could be baited into mistakes as well (4.5% interception rate, 56th).

Interception totals don’t have to be damning when talking about a quarterback prospect — sometimes a willingness to throw picks, as opposed to always taking safe passes, can be a strong decision-making trait in the pros. But Howard finished his career with 35 interceptions. He might have a bit too much willingness.

Quinn Ewers, Texas Longhorns

Raw 2023-24 stats: 26 starts, 565-for-839 passing, 6,951 yards, 67% completion rate, 53 TDs, 18 INTs, 7% sack rate, 46% success rate, 7.4 yards per dropback, 58 non-sack rushes for 327 yards and 7 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 9th (76.8)

Why he might succeed: He’s polished. Ewers won 21 of his last 26 starts and led Texas to two College Football Playoff appearances. His Total QBR rating over the past two years was better than Sanders’ or Shough’s and nearly as good as Ward’s. That Florida defense that vexed Dart? Ewers torched it for 333 yards and five touchdowns. He’s willing to step up into the pocket, and he had the full faith of one of college football’s best QB coaches, Steve Sarkisian.

Want evidence of that faith? Sark didn’t call timeout before this absolute do-or-die beauty in the CFP quarterfinals:

In terms of stats and results, the No. 1 quarterback in the 2021 recruiting class lived up to a good portion of his hype.

Why he might fail: Athleticism and key mistakes. If Sanders played on All-Madden level, you could say that Ewers did the opposite. Sarkisian’s system is as good as any in college football at offering up eye candy and stealing free yards, as evidenced by the fact that 34.7% of Ewers passes in 2023-24 were thrown at or behind the line of scrimmage (second most out of 65 QBs). Take those passes out of the sample and his numbers are merely decent: 59.7% completion rate (32nd), 2.9% interception rate (31st). And while staying in the pocket is great — and easy to do when you’re firing off so many quick passes to the sideline — Ewers offered less of a run threat than almost any quarterback in this sample. He scrambled downfield only 4.9% of the time (53rd), threw only 9.3% of his passes outside the pocket (62nd) and ran on a designed run 1.2% of the time (65th). Despite this, he turned 24.6% of pressures into sacks (57th). If the initial intent of a given play doesn’t work, he’s not buying time with his legs, and he’s quite possibly getting sacked.

This was a particular issue in the red zone, where he averaged 0.0 yards per non-sack carry and 3.3 yards per dropback (46th) with a 2.3% interception rate (38th). Texas won big in 2024 despite ranking just 55th in red zone touchdown rate and 129th in turnovers. One has to be awfully concerned about Ewers’ upside in this regard.

Dillon Gabriel, Oregon Ducks

Raw 2023-24 stats: 26 starts, 592-for-831 passing, 7,517 yards, 71% completion rate, 60 TDs, 12 INTs, 4% sack rate, 51% success rate, 8.3 yards per dropback, 130 non-sack rushes for 781 yards and 19 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 1st (87.6)

Why he might succeed: A high floor. Gabriel threw for the second-most yards in FBS history. He won 46 games as a starter over three schools, including a run of 16 straight wins in 2023-24. He completed more than 70% of his passes over his final two seasons. He was equally devastating against man and zone defenses.

The increased degree of difficulty in beating pro defenders means you have to have a particularly high ceiling to make it as an NFL starter. But having a high floor can at least make you a solid, long-term backup option, and who could possibly have a higher floor than the guy who did all the things I just mentioned?

Why he might fail: A low ceiling. He’s just 5-10, 205 pounds. His hand size (9¼ inches) is, by NFL standards, tiny. He was, like Sanders, more efficient than explosive, averaging just 11.8 yards per completion this past season at Oregon. (His stops at UCF and Oklahoma were more productive.) His arm strength has been called into question by basically every scout or analyst on the internet. In all ways literal and figurative, there seem to be reasons to wonder about Gabriel’s ceiling and whether it’s high enough for him to thrive at the pro level.

Kyle McCord, Syracuse Orange

Raw 2023-24 stats: 25 starts, 620-for-940 passing, 7,949 yards, 66% completion rate, 58 TDs, 18 INTs, 4% sack rate, 50% success rate, 7.7 yards per dropback, 56 non-sack rushes for 222 yards and 3 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 5th (80.6)

Why he might succeed: The ball comes out quickly. It seems pretty difficult to rattle McCord. Granted, Pitt figured out how to do it in 2024 — McCord briefly lost his bearings to the tune of five interceptions (three returned for TDs) and a Total QBR of just 19.0 in a 41-13 loss — but no one else really could. After losing his job as Ohio State’s starting quarterback, McCord led Syracuse to a rousing 10-win season, averaging 35.8 points outside of that Pittsburgh outlier and finishing 15th in Total QBR despite the five-pick dud.

McCord’s secret: a quick, accurate delivery.

Out of these 65 QBs in 2023-24, McCord ranked sixth in success rate (50.2%) and in average time to throw (2.55). He faced more blitzes than most (30.7% blitz rate, eighth highest), but he made strong, quick decisions, and his numbers when pressured were sharp: 54% completion rate (fifth best), 3.08 average time to throw (first) and only a 2.0% interception rate (seventh). Granted, he had Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka for half of this 2023-24 sample, but he also excelled at Syracuse. (Pitt aside.)

Why he might fail: Athleticism and improvisation. You’re not going to be asking McCord to do much with his legs. Ohio State and Syracuse certainly didn’t. His scramble rate was just 2.4% (62nd), he averaged just 4.0 yards per non-sack carry (58th), and he threw only 13.3% of his passes outside the pocket (52nd). And if his first read wasn’t there, his effectiveness sank sharply: Looking specifically at passes thrown after three seconds, he fell to 15th in completion rate (54.2%), 27th in yards per attempt (8.3) and 35th in interception rate (3.7%). He reacts well to what the defense throws at him, but once improvisation becomes part of the job, it seems he does far worse at the job.

Kurtis Rourke, Indiana Hoosiers

Raw 2023-24 stats: 22 starts, 417-for-627 passing, 5,249 yards, 67% completion rate, 40 TDs, 10 INTs, 5% sack rate, 52% success rate, 7.6 yards per dropback, 80 non-sack rushes for 422 yards and 6 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 13th (74.5)

Why he might fail: Decreasing mobility. We’ll start with the negatives again. Injuries defined a good portion of Rourke’s college career, sapping some of his general athleticism even as he thrived as a passer. His brother, Nathan Rourke, was a dual-threat star at Ohio (and has carved out a niche for himself in the CFL), but while Kurtis Rourke started out with a certain level of mobility at Ohio as well, ACL injuries in 2022 and 2024 (he sustained a partially torn ACL in the offseason, then completely tore it at some point during Indiana’s magical 2024 run) turned him into a pocket-only QB. After averaging 7.5 yards per (non-sack) carry in 2021, that average fell in each of the next three seasons, and compared with 2021, his 2024 averages for scramble rate and sacks-per-pressure fell quite a bit. Even when he was healthy in that span, his tendencies shifted, and he’s much more of a one-note guy now.

The good news is, that one note is a pretty good one.

Why he might succeed: He’s still improving as a passer. Despite a relative upgrade in competition, Rourke’s 2024 numbers were as good as any he produced at Ohio, and they were vast improvements over where he started in 2021.

• Completion rate: 65.5% in 2021, 69.4% in 2024

• Yards per completion: 10.6 in 2021, 13.7 in 2024

• Interception rate: 2.7% in 2021, 1.6% in 2024

• Average time to throw: 3.06 in 2021, 2.54 in 2024

Injuries might have sapped his mobility, but they also forced him to become a sharper passer. And in the 2023-24 sample, almost no one was better against man coverage: He completed 61% of his passes at 16.0 yards per completion, averaging 8.8 yards per dropback (second) with an 87.2 QBR (third). And remember, those numbers were with different teams, neither of which had dramatic talent advantages at wide receiver.

Seth Henigan, Memphis Tigers

Raw 2023-24 stats: 26 starts, 627-for-953 passing, 7,385 yards, 66% completion rate, 57 TDs, 15 INTs, 4% sack rate, 45% success rate, 7.2 yards per dropback, 136 non-sack rushes for 672 yards and 6 TDs

Total QBR rank (out of 65): 31st (65.8)

Why he might succeed: Experience. In this 2023-24 sample, no one threw more passes than Henigan’s 953. He threw at least 393 passes in four seasons, and he was remarkably consistent throughout his 14,266-yard career. His passer rating finished between 141 and 154 all four seasons, and he turned into one of college football’s safest decision-makers, ranking eighth out of 65 in interception rate (1.6%) and 13th in sacks per pressure (13.1%). “Safe, experienced passer with a good frame who doesn’t make negative plays” (6-3, 215 pounds) is a good combination for landing on an NFL roster for a solid amount of time, isn’t it?

Why he might fail: He might have already peaked. Despite excellent continuity at receiver, Henigan’s numbers, though still solid, regressed in 2023. He had the worst success rate of his career (41.8%), and his average yards per dropback slipped from 7.6 in 2023 to 6.7. In fact, his average yards per completion fell every season, from 14.1 in 2021 to 11.3 in 2024. While he still had some brilliant games — 454 yards and four touchdowns against UTSA; 294 yards on 18 completions with two scores against West Virginia — he was almost safe to a fault at times. That has to be a concern in a league in which upside is mandatory.