What should Chicago Bears fans be looking for in the Senior Bowl quarterbacks?
As the Chicago Bears head to Mobile for the start of the practice sessions at the Senior Bowl, there will be plenty of buzz around the quarterback prospects. While Ryan Pace committed to Mitch Trubisky as his starter next year, the rest of the quarterback room is currently empty.
The Bears will roll with Trubisky but will keep him on a much shorter leash. This means looking for a competent backup, as well as a third-string quarterback with more upside.
The Senior Bowl will present a great chance for the team to meet some of the more experienced prospects in college football.
Remember, the most important aspects of the Senior Bowl are the practice sessions. How these players can adjust to gameplans and show resolve by getting better day by day is most important. That is what the Bears staff will be looking at.
For this article, we will not be looking into Justin Herbert, either. Of the six quarterbacks in Mobile, he appears least likely to fall out of the top ten, let alone the first round.
With that in mind, the other five quarterbacks should be under the magnifying glass all week long. What are things that Bears fans should be reading and looking to see from the Senior Bowl quarterbacks?
5. Steven Montez
Projected Draft Slot: Day 3
Montez is an intriguing prospect. A three-year starter at Colorado, Montez has plenty of experience. His 1,321 pass attempts are about 800 more than Mitch Trubisky had when he was drafted. Montez has similar physical characteristics as he is a player with good size, arm strength, and enough mobility to be considered a threat.
Of course, Montez never had a year like Trubisky did at UNC, though. Over three years his TD-INT ratio was 18-9, 19-9 and 17-10. He is not the most dynamic playmaker and can turn the ball over.
Montez has a great arm but struggles to real it in. His accuracy comes and goes, and that is to all areas of the field. His mechanics are spotty, and his pocket movement can be sporadic.
What evaluators are going to want to see is his mental makeup. Can he process information quick enough for the NFL? Are the physical tools enough to where you can forgive some brain farts and mold this potential ball of clay? At best, Montez could be a late-round pick who steps in as a third quarterback but is hungry to compete with the two ahead of him.
4. Shea Patterson
Projected Draft Slot: Day 3
Shea Patterson is a well-known prospect who has hype in the college realm for a while now. However, he has never lived up the mystique around his name and will head to the NFL with a bit of a disappointing college football career.
Patterson is another player who looks the part with typical size, as well as arm strength and athleticism to make plays on the ground. Patterson is arguably at his best when he can scramble off of broken plays.
However, with that came a propensity to play off-script. Patterson struggled to stay on schedule. He would often miss quick reads and pull down passes that could have been completed to open receivers. He holds the ball in the pocket far too long and struggles to progress through reads. This can lead to added pressure and sacks.
Similar to Montez, Bears scouts do not need to see Patterson spin it. He has a strong arm. What they need to see is a player who can command an offense, stand in the pocket, and get accurate passes out on time. Quick passing and mental makeup will be watched closely from Patterson.
3. Anthony Gordon
Projected Draft Slot: Mid Day 2
Gordon is starting to become a very popular quarterback in draft circles. To start, he is a transfer one-year starter who put up big numbers in Mike Leach’s air raid offense. Having similar stats to Gardner Minshew in the same offense that Minshew was in the year after Minshew did it should open some people’s minds to the prospects of drafting Gordon.
On top of that, it is easy to use Patrick Mahomes as a similar playing style comparison to Gordon. Gordon makes throws off-platform and looks to fit passes into tight windows that some will not try. His off-schedule playmaker ability has to be praised in a year where Mahomes has made a Super Bowl run.
Physically he is nowhere close to Mahomes and is almost like the combination of Minshew and Mahomes. Still, that presents an interesting prospect.
With Gordon, there just is not much tape out there. The Leach offense is QB-friendly which is why someone like Minshew fell through the cracks.
Gordon can make off-platform throws but has just as many interceptions when creating out of structure. For Gordon, scouts will want to see where his physical limitations lie, and if his playing style can transfer. He also needs to answer questions about whether he can pick up an NFL offense.
2. Jalen Hurts
Projected Draft Slot: Day 2
Nobody is going to knock the professional demeanor of Jalen Hurts. Hurts has played in SEC Championships, Big 12 Championships, National Championships, and Sem-Final games. He transferred, picked up a new offense and succeeded.
Hurts also handled being demoted with grace and stayed one year at Alabama as a backup who came in on the fly to lead them to an SEC Championship. His character is unrivaled and Bears fans may want his presence to not only compete with Trubisky but also support him. That is the type of quarterback who would be great for the room.
However, he did lose his starting job in the SEC, so it is fair to question if he is an NFL starter. Hurts has mobility and an arm, but he lacks the processing ability to get through reads quickly and hit players in stride.
Hurts breaks the pocket looking to run, while great NFL quarterbacks scramble to set up passes down the field. He also has issues protecting the football.
Hurts will need to show off of the ability to process fast, pick up blitzed, and create with his arm off-script. He may be functional in the NFL as a perfect backup, but that may be something that Bears fans will want to see.
1. Jordan Love
Projected Draft Slot: Early Day 2-or Day 1
Herbert will definitely be off of the board when the Chicago Bears pick and there is a very real chance that Jordan Love will too. However, as we have written, Love brings a lot of questions that make it worth wondering how high of a draft slot he is worth.
Love is naturally an impressive thrower who is equally if not more athletic than Patterson and Montez and has better accuracy as well as arm strength. However, Love was not benefitted much by his teammates and was forced to make plays.
At times, it looked like Love would press and force himself to make plays. He made questionable decisions and threw too many turnover worthy passes to trust him as a first-year starter in the NFL.
How he plays in a more sophisticated offense with better skill players will be worth watching. While his hype may be high for round one, he is a player who could fall into round two, and his upside at that point becomes intriguing. This why Bears fans need to see everything that Love can do.