It seems as though the only people who want to dispel the selection of Justin Fields point to the Ohio State quarterback issue. When was the last Ohio State quarterback to have success in the NFL? However, that is such flawed logic it almost has to be laughed off before taken seriously. Okay, now let’s dispel this pretty easily.
First, you should treat every person as their own individual, that is pretty obvious. Once you start there, you see pretty stark differences.
So, let’s list out the Ohio State quarterbacks that have been busts in the NFL that have some concerns: Cardale Jones, Braxton Miller, J.T. Barrett, Troy Smith, Terrelle Pryor, and Dwayne Haskins.
Here are the differences:
5. Recruiting
Recruiting is not everything, but there is a correlation to the top players in high school finding a way to get into the NFL. Beyond that, we are going to use this as a tool to measure the difference between these quarterbacks.
Cardale Jones was a three-star recruit according to 24/7. His making it as far as he did as a quarterback may have been impressive. Barrett, Troy Smith, and Dwayne Haskins were all 4-star recruits.
Justin Fields, Terrelle Pryor, and Braxton Miller were the only three to earn 5-star recruits. Miller and Pryor did because they were so athletic that they made the NFL at wide receiver. In the case of Pryor, he actually made 10 starts in the NFL at quarterback. His biggest issue was off of the field issues, and he was suspended for his last season at Ohio State causing him to go into the supplemental draft. That is a bit different than what happened with Justin Fields.
Even Miller was a 5-star but was graded 0.9847 according to 24/7 sports. Terrelle Pryor was 0.9997 which is special, but Fields was rated 0.9998 coming out of high school. That means that none of these players were even graded as high as Fields coming out of high school.
4. Justin Fields Draft Capital
We broke into it a bit in the last one because Pryor was the top recruit, but did not really get a chance. He surely was not a top 11 pick in the NFL draft. He had a chance to prove himself at Ohio State but got suspended and entered the draft as a huge question. If Pryor was a first-round pick he would have gotten more shots at QB. He was a supplemental draft pick and a third-rounder at value.
Look at the rest as well. Braxton Miller changed positions at Ohio State, not just for the NFL. He is no comparison. Barrett went undrafted, and even though Troy Smith won a Heisman he fell to round five because he was not on the same level of player as Justin Fields.
Cardale Jones was a fourth-round pick leaving Dwayne Haskins as the only potential comparable situation at all to Justin Fields. Haskins is still young but surely got off to a rocky start. Still, it is worth noting that Haskins is still young, Fields was a better high school recruit, and for reasons, we will show, Fields was better at OSU and has more upside as well. These players are not comparable.
3. Justin Fields Stats
Overall, there is a reason that only Haskins and Fields went high. When you look at the career completion rate for all of these Ohio State quarterbacks, you see a big gap from the bunch to Fields and Haskins.
Dwayne Haskins – 70%
Justin Fields – 68.4%
JT Barrett – 63.5%
Troy Smith- 62.7%
Cardale Jones – 61.7%
Terrelle Pryor – 60.9%
Braxton Miller- 59.4%
You can see why Pryor was not taken as seriously despite his prospect pedigree. Also, while Haskins had a higher completion rate, PFF had him down 8.4 air yards per attempt. They have Fields at 10.4. They are completing at a similar rate, but Fields is testing downfield much more.
Below you can see their yards per attempt.
Justin Fields – 9.3
Dwayne Haskins – 9.1
Cardale Jones – 8.6
Troy Smith- 8.5
Terrelle Pryor – 7.9
Braxton Miller- 7.9
JT Barrett – 7.8
This time we see Fields stand over Haskins. Still, we see that none of the other QBs had over 9 yards per attempt. Haskins is completing more passes, but Fields is getting more yards out of his completions. Lastly, let’s look at TD-INT
Justin Fields – 63-9
Dwayne Haskins – 54-9
Cardale Jones – 15-7
Troy Smith- 54-13
Terrelle Pryor – 57-26
Braxton Miller- 52-17
JT Barrett – 104-30
Cardale Jones had 15 touchdowns to seven interceptions and we want to compare him to Justin Fields. He threw nine more touchdowns than Haskins with the same number of picks. He threw 7 TDs for every pick while J.T. Barrett threw 3.5 TDs for every pick. None of these players are even close statistically to the player that Fields is.
Haskins comes close, but in the stats, we see Fields is better in most areas but also has 867 yards rushing on 218 rushes at OSU to Haskins who had 103 rushes for 194 yards. These players are not the same.
2. Size and Athleticism
Justin Fields stands at 6’2″ and 227 pounds. From a size perspective, Braxton Miller, JT Barrett, and Troy Smith are not on his level. None of them are that big.
Cardale Jones is 6’5″, 253 pounds. He was almost too big for the NFL. Beyond that, this is a player who ran a 4.81 40-yard dash. He is not athletic. We showed you that Haskins does not have the rushing ability and that is because he is much slower. They are similarly sized, but Haskins ran a 5.04 40-yard dash. He cannot move. Fields ran a 4.44. One has a true rushing threat while being just as good, if not better as a passer.
Once again we see that only Pryor can matchup as a high school recruit, and as a player who physically matches Justin Fields. However, the suspension, the lack of draft capital, and the stats show that these two are not the same as prospects. Even as players Fields was shining much higher, and he seems to have much less baggage.
It is very hard to take any of these other players seriously as prospects when they are being compared to Justin Fields. None of them were as good of prospects, none player as well at Ohio State, none are as big, and none are as fast. Lastly, Fields got drafted the highest. Why are we comparing them?
1. Name one QB from this school is flawed
Playing name one great quarterback from this school is a really bad argument. Let me stress this more, it is an awful argument. So, the idea is that you should only draft Michigan quarterbacks because of Tom Brady? Or wait, only Tennessee quarterbacks because of Peyton Manning? Wake me up when Tyler Bray and Shea Patterson square off.
If you waited until Texas Tech was a quarterback factory in the NFL then you missed out on Patrick Mahomes. Graham Harrell, Kliff Kingsbury, Sonny Cumbie, and BJ Symons are good reasons for Mahomes to fail. Imagine saying that.
Tahj Boyd failed so Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence are in trouble. Brian Brohm is clearly the same as Lamar Jackson. Cal has had miss after miss until Aaron Rodgers. What are we doing here?
None of these quarterbacks are comparable to the quarterbacks in the NFL. Just like Troy Smith and Justin Fields are not close to each other as NFL prospects.
How about this for comparison, QBs who transfer and win the Big 10 work out, look at Russell Wilson. It is so easy to play a mindless game of what about when you do not have the attention span to decipher Fields from other players. If you watch the games or at least follow stats you can see that there is no comparison to any QB Ohio State has had and Justin Fields.