Log in or register to post comments No matter how any analyst ranks Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Trey Lance, and Zach Wilson, the overwhelming sentiment is that all four players have tantalizing arm talent, good-to-great athletic ability, and an exciting play style. They are all the kind of quarterback you create in Madden. Alabama's Mac Jones is nothing of the sort. Jones' arm talent does not pop off the screen, nor does he have the kind of athletic ability that Good And Bad Choices In The Outsiders fear in the hearts of a defense. Seldom does he do anything, for better or worse, that gets you to jump read more of your seat. Jones is strictly a pocket passer whose game revolves more around touch and finesse than "wow" plays. Arm strength is the natural starting point for any discussion about Jones.
His lackluster arm strength is particularly off-putting when juxtaposed against the other four first-round quarterbacks in this class. Wilson arguably has the worst arm of the top four quarterbacks this year, yet he should still rank comfortably in the top half of the league in that category the moment he becomes a pro. Jones' arm is not even in the same stratosphere. Jones' arm is weak enough that it is worth questioning whether or not it will have enough juice to work in the NFL. At times, Jones' arm strength looks functional in the same way Teddy Bridgewater or old-man Philip Rivers' arms do.
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Jones, like Rivers, can generate just enough velocity on his throws to complement the wonderful touch he displays. The catch is that Jones must throw on click, if not early, and has zero margin for error with respect to ball placement since his passes are not traveling too fast. To his credit, Jones regularly met that criteria at Alabama, like in the throw above. It is not like Jones' film is completely devoid of any throws requiring some degree of arm talent. Throws such as this one at least keep the door open on the possibility that Jones may have enough arm talent to survive in the NFL. He is not clearly below the NFL baseline, but it is hard to make the argument that he is comfortably above it.
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This is not a horrible pass. The ball flies about 45 yards granted, from the near hash from where Jones lets it go and still arrives in a decent spot for the receiver to work back for it. In the NFL, however, Jones is more often going to have to drive on this ball and place it more out in front of the wide receiver. There is plenty of space between where the receiver catches this on the inside of the painted numbers and the sideline.
A quarterback with good, NFL-level arm strength should be able to deliver this ball more towards the sideline without forcing the receiver to work back to it this way. While Jones has enough arm strength to get the ball in the general area of a first-round wide receiver with three steps over a linebacker, he does not have the power to deliver more of a line drive without the ball nose-diving 5 yards short of the target. Jones can only really deliver passes that hang. That worked out for him far more often than not at Alabama, but in the NFL, those windows will not be as Good And Bad Choices In The Outsiders and Jones will miss out on these explosive opportunities more regularly than he did in college.
Trying to gauge Jones' ceiling while knowing throws like this will become tougher for him in the NFL has to make you a little uneasy. To Jones' fortune, the Alabama offense regularly provided him with easier throws and a comfortable pocket to work with. His arm strength was not regularly put under a microscope like on the previous play. Jones' work when things break down can be shaky, which we will get to, but he is a smooth operator in structure—in Alabama's structure, at least.
His timing, anticipation, and accuracy when playing clean and on schedule is fantastic. This is a vertical throw, but it is not really a display of arm strength. Every single NFL starter can throw 35 yards to a slot fade, even from the far college hashes. This throw is instead a good look at how picture-perfect Jones' ball placement can be when throwing in rhythm.]
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