The hierarchy of the top couple of QBs in the NFL Draft has seemed pretty clear for a while. Fernando Mendoza will be selected No. 1 overall by the Las Vegas Raiders, while Ty Simpson will be taken somewhere in the first or second round by a team that isn't as sold on him. But what about QB3? Could that be Miami star and national championship runner-up Carson Beck?
NFL insider Tom Pelissero certainly believes it could be. Appearing on The Rich Eisen Show, Pelissero argued that Beck is a quarterback he expects to see taken in the second round of the NFL Draft. But he is growing increasingly convinced that Beck could wind up being a late-first round pick depending on how things shake up.
“Quarterback-wise, the one guy I keep coming back to,” Pelissero said. “This may not be in round one but I can’t 100% rule it out. The quarterback who is going to go higher than every projection has had him in this process, I believe, is Carson Beck… There’s enough team that have a quarterback need… I believe he goes in the second round of this draft… I would not 100% rule out the idea of Carson Beck, somehow, finding his way into the back of round one."
Why Beck?
Pelissero believes that Beck has "impressed people" throughout the pre-draft process. He said that between the compliments Beck has been getting from coaches and scouts, and his conformity to the "Bill Parcell QB Rule," he should be a higher draft pick than people expect.
“Carson Beck has impressed people in the process. When he’s meeting with coaches, he comes across, as one scout put it to me, a beautiful mind in terms of his football IQ. He knows exactly what’s going on on the football field," Pelissero said.
“You remember the old Bill Parcels rules for drafting a quarterback. College graduate, senior… 30 starts, 23 wins, 60% completions, 2:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He’s above and beyond in all those metrics and he’s 6’5, has a good enough arm. Why is that guy not going high?”
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Beck has had a unique road to this point. It's rare enough that a player reaches the NFL after six years of college football like he had (five at Georgia, one at Miami) and was a three-years starter at two prestigious football programs. A simple glance at his stats puts him in the upper tier of college football QBs in the entire country, let alone this draft class.
With the right coaching, maybe Beck could surprise people. But with the way the mock drafts and projections have been coming out, it would really be more surprising if he heard his name any time before the second day of the draft.
