Another voice has weighed in on the state of the 2017 quarterback draft class.
Former Redskins quarterback and 1983 NFL MVP Joe Theismann is the latest to deliver the message that this isn’t the best year to draft a quarterback.
“I don’t think there’s a quarterback in this draft that’s a first-round pick,” Theismann said at the REAL Services’ Age of Excellence Awards Luncheon at Notre Dame’s Century Club via ND Insider. “They all have things that need to be developed and worked on. The best thing that can happen to every quarterback in this draft is that they don’t play this year, that they get a chance to learn professional football.”
Theismann is a College Football Hall of Famer who played at Notre Dame from 1968-1970. Among the group of quarterbacks he was referring to is another Notre Dame quarterback, DeShone Kizer. He said Kizer shouldn’t have characterized himself as a combination of Tom Brady’s intellect and Cam Newton’s body.
“The thing is you want to aspire to be someone like Tom. And because you’re sort of built like Cam and you run like him, you’d like to be able to accomplish the things he’s done,” Theismann said.
Cynics might say this is coming from a guy who changed the pronunciation of his name so it would rhyme with “Heisman,” but according to this story that was at the urging of Notre Dame’s sports information director.
Theismann finished second in the Heisman voting in 1970. He led the Redskins to a victory over the Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII, but not before talking to Joe Gibbs and convincing him that he was the guy to lead the Redskins’ offense.
“If I had just relied on my athletic skills and relied on playing football, I would have never had a 12-year career with the Washington Redskins.”
Theismann’s message is that there’s a lot more that goes into being a quarterback than throwing the ball. There’s a lot of communication involved, and if he’s right about the quarterbacks drafted this year, there will be a lot of watching and learning involved.
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