No player has ascended further up NFL draft boards this off-season than Jimmy Garoppolo. Despite his prolific stats this past season, most people considered Jimmy Garoppolo to be a 3rd-4th round talent. In the past few weeks I've seen him projected as high as the late first round. Garoppolo is an especially intriguing prospect because he attended such a small school. The football program at Eastern Illinois is probably most famous for producing Dallas Cowboys' Quarterback, Tony Romo. Naturally there have been quite a few comparisons made between the two. And there are definitely some similarities between the two passers. But before I get into that let's examine Garoppolo's collegiate performance.
Garoppolo played in 45 games during his 4 years at Eastern Illinois. During that time he passed for 13,156 yards, 118 TDs, 51 INTs and a 62.8% completion percentage. Garoppolo put up the best numbers of his career this past season as a senior. Garoppolo passed for 5,050 yards, 53 TDs, 9 INTs and a completion percentage of 66.0%. With a TD/INT ratio of nearly six to one, Garoppolo ranked 3rd among my top 10 quarterbacks in touchdown to interception ratio. But Garopppolo's statistical dominance comes with a caveat. Eastern Illinois is an FCS team, so Garopppolo didn't face the same caliber of opponent that the other top quarterbacks in this draft class faced during their careers. That being said, Garoppolo lead the FCS in passing yards as a senior. Regardless of the level of competition that Garoppolo faced, he made the best of it.
Strengths:
Reading Coverage/Using Eyes and Pump Fakes- The part of Garoppolo's game that impresses me the most is his ability to manipulate defensive backs and linebackers with his eyes and pump fakes. In fact, this is one of the similarities between Garoppolo and Tony Romo. Romo uses the pump fake more than any other QB in the NFL. But back to Garoppolo. At the collegiate level you don't see a lot of QBs use the pump fake because most quarterbacks have a hard enough time using their eyes to look off the defense. The way I like to judge a QB's ability to read/manipulate the defense is by answering a couple of questions. First, can the QB read the defense once the ball is snapped? Second, can a QB read the defense pre-snap? Third, can the QB use his eyes to manipulate the defense. And finally, does the QB use the pump fake to manipulate the defense? With Garoppolo it's easy for me to answer yes to every question. At this point in his career, Jimmy Garoppolo has already exhibited an elite ability to read and manipulate defenses. The video below is a compilation of plays in which Garoppolo displays this ability. Keep an eye on the reactions that linebackers and safeties have to his pump fakes. Also keep an eye on the position of the safeties once the ball is delivered.
Touch- Jimmy Garoppolo has repeatedly shown the ability to deliver passes with touch. He does a great job of putting just enough air on his deep passes to allow the receiver to run under the ball and catch it in stride. He also excels at dropping passes in between zone coverage. Watch the video below to see examples of the touch that i'm talking about.
Quick Release- Another similarity between Garoppolo and Romo is that they both have a very compact release. The ball stays high throughout the throwing motion which reduces both unnecessary movement and the amount of time that it takes the ball to get out of the hands. In addition to his compact throwing motion, Garoppolo's quick decision making helps get the ball out of his hands quickly. You can watch examples of this in the video below.
Weaknesses:
Inexperienced Against Elite Competition- Garoppolo just hasn't played enough against top tier athletes to know how he'll handle the speed. Every QB making the transition from college to the pros has to adjust to the increased speed of the game.There will just just be a larger adjustment for Garoppolo than most.
Footwork- Out of the 180 throws that I watched Garoppolo make from the 2013 season, 166 (92.2%) of the snaps were taken from the shotgun. Garoppolo will have to learn to take snaps from under center and work on the footwork that comes with it. The other thing that Garoppolo will have to learn is to make post-snap reads while taking his drop. Like I said above, Garoppolo excels at reading the defense. But he has always read the defense from the shotgun. The change in perspective may take some time to adjust to. But there is no indication that Garoppolo should have trouble making the adjustment.
Overview:
Jimmy Garoppolo will continue to ascend draft board up until draft day. His ability to read and manipulate defenses is extremely developed for a college QB. The biggest question surrounding Garoppolo will continue to be whether or not he can continue to succeed against NFL caliber talent? I think that he will.
Draft Projection- Late 1st Round- Jimmy Garoppolo is a first round talent and team are beginning to realize that. I think that the Jaguars, Browns and Vikings re all candidates. The Vikings and Jaguars would have to either trade up from the second round or trade back from the first. The Browns are sitting in the perfect position to select Garoppolo if they are interested. Regardless of which team selects him, we should see Jimmy Garoppolo come off of the board in the late first round.
Thanks as always to the guys at draftbreakdown.com for all of the work you do compiling prospect video.
I'll be back soon with QB #3.
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