Mike Mayock Joins Silliness Parade, Has Josh Allen Ahead of Josh Rosen and Baker Mayfield

Mike Mayock has released his early rankings before the Combine, and he also is a big fan of Josh Allen. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise if you listened to him during Senior Bowl practices, but Mayock joins Mel Kiper in projecting Allen to go early in the draft.

And now is when I remind you that at this time last year, Mayock had DeShone Kizer as the top quarterback. In 2011, he had Blaine Gabbert and Jake Locker ahead of Cam Newton. In  2014, he had Teddy Bridgewater and Johnny Manziel #1 and #2. Over the last seven years, the guy Mayock has had first in his pre-Combine rankings ended up being the first QB drafted just twice (Andrew Luck and Jameis Winston).

Josh Allen fits the bill of so many past quarterbacks who make scouts drool, in terms of size and strength. In fact, it’s probably fitting that Gabbert’s name comes up. So it’s not surprising that former scouts like Mayock might be on the same wavelength as current ones. I think you can expect Josh Allen to be drafted highly.

And as I pointed out already, while stats and scouting should co-exist, there should be major cause for concern when the stats do not reflect productivity in college. “Stats” in this case reflect real events that happened on a football field like incompletions and not getting big yards. During his Senior Bowl week, Allen showed all the arm strength attributes that scouts love, but sometimes struggled greatly with short and intermediate accuracy and touch. Those things are important in modern offense where the short pass is an extension of the run.