Joe DeLeone and Ryan Roberts discuss the strengths and weaknesses for Ohio State QB Will Howard, a top prospect for the 2025 NFL Draft
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Will Howard's college success will not translate to the NFL.
00:03Here's why Ryan will Howard had a prolific finish to his college
00:11career, but we need to pump the brakes.
00:15Why do we need to change our perspective on this guy?
00:19Well, I mean, cause it's, it's a lack of traits conversation and we'll
00:22talk about the strengths and weaknesses obviously on this, on this show,
00:24but we need to be able to separate Joe.
00:27What is a good, it's a very good college quarterback with what is
00:30a legitimate NFL draft prospect.
00:32And me saying that is not saying, well, Howard will not get drafted
00:36and be a serviceable to good backup in the NFL, but if we're trying
00:40to hype this guy up as a potential starter in the NFL, the savior of
00:43this draft class, the riser, the sleep or whatever those things are.
00:46I think that we really need to take a step back, isolate the talents
00:50and start to have a very real conversation about Will Howard.
00:53Well, Howard's the perfect example of if you watched Ohio state
00:57throughout the season, which they had a ton of primetime games,
00:59they won a national championship.
01:00We had so much exposure to him and he played phenomenally during
01:03the college football playoff.
01:05If you don't watch the film and you just go off of the games, it's
01:08so easy to believe, wow, this guy was great.
01:11He was consistently accurate.
01:13His completion percentage was amazing in the national championship game.
01:17He was doing everything right.
01:18But when we peel back the curtain and we actually analyze and we look
01:22at the film of how he performed, you start to wince.
01:26You start to like pause a lot more and go, oh, oh, maybe this wasn't
01:30as good as I thought it was.
01:32My biggest thing with Will Howard, before we dig into the weaknesses
01:37of his traits, we need to remind ourselves who is orchestrating this
01:41whole thing, Chip Kelly, the greatest, one of the greatest play callers
01:45in college football history was orchestrating this offense and knew
01:49how to set him up for success.
01:51It opened up a lot of rushing lanes.
01:52When the run game was working times for Ohio state, it allowed for Will
01:56Howard to play a lot more freely.
01:58He had a lot of wide open receivers and despite him having wide open
02:01receivers, his accuracy was still inconsistent and his arm strength is
02:07not that that we look for in a starting quarterback, it is below average
02:10per requisite strength that we, we seek out in quarterback prospects.
02:16I think that people are going to see his size, obviously being
02:19six foot four, 230 pounds.
02:21They're going to have this false assumption over him, right?
02:23They're going to say that's a big guy.
02:25He's probably got a strong arm.
02:26And when we talk about our comp later, I think it makes a lot of sense.
02:29I just, I don't see those requisites tools that give you
02:33starter upside in the NFL.
02:35Like that's just what I, what I don't see.
02:37And ultimately I'm not going to hold it against him that he played with a
02:40lot of talent at Ohio state show.
02:42But let's be honest, man, things were pretty easy this past year, man.
02:47Like I understand that there was some shuffling on the offensive line
02:49when Josh Simmons and Seth McLaughlin got hurt, but you still
02:51had Donovan Jackson up front.
02:53You still had two NFL running backs behind you.
02:55Your wide receiver room is a wide receiver room that a lot of NFL
02:59teams would trade for at this point.
03:01Like the Tennessee Titans in a heartbeat would be like, I want that
03:03Ohio state wide receiver core.
03:05You can have our wide receiver core and we'll call it even at this point.
03:07Right?
03:08So he had a lot of talent.
03:09He wasn't asked to do too much outside of structure outside of chaos.
03:14He is a good college quarterback and he did a lot of great things on their
03:18way to a national championship.
03:19But if we, again, we isolate the athleticism, the arm strength, everything
03:24is at best league average, but below average in a lot of capacities, which
03:28I think limits is upside on the NFL level.
03:31Yeah.
03:31The ball just doesn't fly off his hand.
03:33Like a guy that we already talked about.
03:34Tyler Schuck, that thing zips out of shock's hand.
03:37So you can see the path for him to maybe becoming an NFL starter
03:41because he can stress defenses.
03:43But will Howard, some of his worst throws are the factor of the ball.
03:46Just doesn't get there in a hurry.
03:48I don't know about you.
03:49I feel like he's also not a very like natural thrower.
03:53I feel like there's a lot of times on film where I'm watching him.
03:55It just, it either looks like he's, he's putting a lot of force into it.
03:59His follow through through sometimes just feels a little bit awkward.
04:04I'm not trying to like completely knock him here, but it just doesn't feel
04:07like a guy that, that I, I would feel super comfortable of developing
04:12and becoming a starting quarterback.
04:15If he sat for a couple of seasons, because he doesn't flash to me smooth
04:20the way that he plays the position.
04:22He doesn't have a lot of natural arm talent, right?
04:24Like there's some guys in this class that the ball just looks so different
04:27coming off their hand comparative to will Howard and also Joe, like another
04:31weakness that I would say is that when I watch him on film, I don't think
04:35he's a bad processor per se, but there isn't a one or two plays per game.
04:39We're just like, that's a little bit of a doofus moment, man.
04:42Like, I don't know if you saw the field very clearly on those reps.
04:45So, I mean, like you even go back to like the Michigan game, that was a couple
04:48where it was just like a couple of the throws, a couple of decisions he made.
04:50We're just like, brother, what are you doing?
04:53And it even happened in a couple of games early in the season as
04:55well against lesser competition.
04:57So he had a great end of the year.
05:00There's no doubt about it.
05:01He has some, he has some people that like him around the
05:03league to a certain capacity.
05:05But again, if we're projecting him to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, I
05:08just, I just don't see that don't see it at all to at least give him a little bit
05:12of hype where there's still like a possibility that he and our comp actually
05:17kind of plays into this, that we're going to give at the end, there is a
05:20possibility where he gets on a roster.
05:22And I think that he is high character enough and smart enough
05:27to stick around as a backup.
05:28And he could be a spot starter that we talk about and go, Oh, wow.
05:32Like look great for Will Howard.
05:33He's out there, but he'll never be a guy that is, is sought out as a
05:37long-term answer starting for a team.
05:40Just some of the strong points though.
05:41You mentioned the big frame.
05:42He's a pretty good athlete for his size, uh, being six with four over 230 pounds.
05:48And I think that this is, this is a little bit of a backhanded compliment,
05:52but when he's on, he's on, when he is in rhythm, his accuracy is phenomenal.
05:58Like he's flowing, everything's going in the right direction.
06:01He's connecting and leading his guys.
06:02He's willing to take risks into tight windows, but when he's off, like we
06:07saw the NFL combine, he is all over the place.
06:11Well, you know what I think it was down the stretch, obviously
06:13Ohio state was playing at a great level, but I also think that he
06:16kind of had a general understanding of what he's good at and what he's not good
06:20at.
06:20I think that that's like one big thing for players just in general, but
06:22especially backup quarterback, potentially in the NFL level, you can't kill your
06:26team, right?
06:26Like you have to make the easy decision.
06:28And I do think that the best part of him is that down the stretch, he
06:32understood when to go big game hunting, but he also understood when to hit the
06:35check down, when to hit the short, you know, intermediate route rather
06:38than taking the deeper shot.
06:39I think that those things go into his body of work in a pretty good level.
06:44And we saw production at two different schools.
06:46We see the big frame.
06:47So yes, he has a solid enough of a floor where if he was a backup quarterback
06:52for X amount of years on the NFL level, I wouldn't be shocked at all.
06:54Cause I do think he does enough.
06:55Well, I just don't think he does anything exceedingly well, if that
06:58makes sense, jumping into his background.
07:01This is a guy who was a former three-star recruit in the 2020 class.
07:06So a little bit on the older side, but not crazy old, uh, per two, four, seven
07:10sports, he was the 882nd ranked prospect 30th pro style quarterback and the
07:16seventh highest rated recruit in the state of Pennsylvania coming from
07:20Downington West.
07:21And if you remember, he referenced during the regular season, the, uh, the
07:25grudge he held against Penn state for, for not getting recruited by them.
07:29Yep.
07:30He actually is a pretty local kid to me.
07:32He's only played his high school football about like 45 minutes or so over the
07:35bridge and he, that is Penn state country.
07:38There's no doubt about it.
07:39And he obviously did not get an offer.
07:41He ended up picking Kansas state, but his offer was outside of that
07:44Joe, from a power for perspective.
07:45He had Cincinnati who was obviously a G five team at that point.
07:48He had Kansas, he had Minnesota and he had Rutgers man.
07:51He should've went over the bridge and played for the Scarlet Knights, but
07:53that's a different conversation for another day, obviously saying this in
07:58but not a lot of crazy options for Will Howard.
08:00He's one of those guys that Kansas state found is a little bit of a perceived
08:04diamond in the rough was able to develop in that system and eventually
08:08make his way to Ohio state.
08:09So it's a, it's a pretty good story of like perseverance.
08:12And he got the best of Penn state, obviously this year in the best of the
08:16big 10 and well, not, they didn't win the big 10 championship, but they got
08:19the best of college football.
08:20And it ended up being a really good story from Will Howard from under
08:23recruited kid to national champion.
08:26Uh, the pro cop that we're going with Mason Rudolph, who was great at Oklahoma
08:29state, he has been an awesome backup in the NFL, which is why this is like
08:33a great favorable projection.
08:35A lot of times when we do these, it sounds like we're being just overall,
08:38when we do these reports and we're not gung ho about a guy, it sounds
08:40like we're being super negative.
08:42We're trying to temper expectations here, especially when there are some
08:45narratives that some people think that.
08:47Well, Howard could be a starter.
08:49Mason Rudolph got to start for the Steelers and got opportunities
08:53to start in playoff games.
08:54And he did a good job in some games and he did very poorly in others
08:57because there were limitations.
08:59And this works super well too, because both guys were awesome in college
09:03and super productive in college.
09:05They're also big frame guys that you would assume have these crazy, this
09:09crazy amount of velocity in their arms, but they don't, Mason Rudolph was a
09:12good deep ball thrower at Oklahoma state.
09:14Similarly to how will Howard is a good deep ball thrower at Ohio
09:17states this past year, right?
09:18So they throw good, good, they throw good deep balls, but their frames would
09:23suggest that they have the ability to rip it into tight windows in the
09:25immediate part of the field.
09:27And that's just not really their game overall.
09:28So bigger bodied kids who have a general lack of arm strength, but do
09:33enough well to be able to be a really good backup potentially in the NFL.
09:37Like I think that fits will Howard perfectly like it did for Mason
09:40Rudolph coming out of Oklahoma state.
09:42Folks drop us a comment below.
09:44Do you agree or disagree with us?
09:46Do you think will Howard could start in the NFL?
09:47And also if you enjoyed the video, please hit the like button and
09:50subscribe and we'll be back with more.