The Texans HAVE to draft Bryce Young

zeeshan2 · Mar 3, 2023

zeeshan2 · Mar 3, 2023

ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay reported that a scout has Young at 195 pounds and around 5-foot-10 and a half.

If all of this sounds utterly ridiculous, don’t worry, it is. Ridiculous—but not useless. While it may feel like there’s no functional difference between being 6-foot and 5-foot-10-and-a-half, that’s just the dating-app-fueled insecurity talking. For football, Young’s height matters quite a bit.

Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, 172 quarterbacks have started at least 50 games—only 11 of them were 6-foot or shorter. Among those players are Kyler Murray, Michael Vick, Russell Wilson, and Drew Brees. That’s not bad company to be in, but remember—these are the quarterbacks who hit, as they accumulated 50 or more starts over the course of their careers. If we instead look at just quarterbacks drafted since 1970, just 30 of the 522 quarterbacks selected (5.7 percent) have been 6 feet tall or shorter.

If we look at just picks in the first three rounds? Seven of 241 quarterbacks. And if we look just at Round 1? Three of 127: Vick, Murray, and Johnny Manziel.

Height is only half of the equation for Young. Here’s all of those first-round quarterbacks, graphed by height (in inches) and weight.

That dot way on the left is Murray, who measured in at just over 5-foot-10—but critically, Murray also weighed in at 207 pounds, well above his expected weight based on that trendline. If we assume that Young will come in at McShay’s expected measurements—195 pounds at 5-foot-10 ½—here’s where he’d land on this chart of first-round quarterbacks.

Now, that’s pretty lonely territory, but it doesn’t look too bad. But many of the other sub-200-pounders on this chart were drafted a long time ago. If we look just at first-round quarterbacks in the 2000s, we see that Young will likely be the only quarterback selected in the first round who weighs less than 200 pounds.

While the group of short quarterbacks certainly has its respectable players, the group of short and slight quarterbacks doesn’t—mostly because it doesn’t have any players at all. Since 1970, only eight quarterbacks (out of 302) have been drafted at 200 pounds or under. Last year, South Dakota State QB Chris Oladokun became the eighth; before him, the most recent was Pat White, a second-round selection in 2009 by the Miami Dolphins. White is also the only one of the eight to go before the sixth round. Looking back at our first-round quarterbacks, we see only one below 210 pounds—that’s Murray. At 210 pounds are Manziel, Vick, Cade McNown, Joey Harrington, and Rick Mirer. Not exactly elite company.

Young isn’t just small—he is as small a quarterback prospect as we have ever seen, and certainly the smallest quarterback prospect to ever have been considered at the top of the first round. For as talented as Young is, to select him with a first-round pick is to make him, from Day 1, an outlier flying in the face of expected builds for NFL players.

That’s the thing about outliers: they exist. We can look at some of those successful outliers—Brees, Wilson, Murray, Vick—to generate narratives for Young’s positive outcomes. We can see what it might look like, and in doing so, maybe talk ourselves into Young overcoming the odds.

Immediately, we find some common connections. Three of the four—Wilson, Murray, and Vick—were highly mobile quarterbacks. Wilson, perhaps the least dangerous runner of the three, had at least 90 carries in five of his first six seasons as a pro. His 4,966 rushing yards is third among quarterbacks in league history (Vick is first). By rushing yards per game, Vick is fourth, Murray is eighth, and Wilson is all the way down at 23rd.

Young is a quick athlete with good escapability, but a high-quality runner, he is not. While Young’s mobility will help him in the NFL, it is challenging to see Young becoming such an effective runner that he can follow the path blazed by a Vick or a Murray. His weight makes this possibility doubly unlikely: Because Young doesn’t have much body armor by way of mass or bulk, NFL teams will consider Young more liable to be injured when hit. It makes sense: Bigger guys hurt smaller guys when they hit them.

So Young won’t go the way of a running quarterback—that leaves the way of Brees. We run into another issue here, and that issue is that Drew Brees is … well, he’s Drew Brees. Even among the short quarterbacks who have been successful, Brees is an outlier; he is an outlier among outliers. Other short quarterbacks struggle to throw to the middle of the field, as they either can’t see over the big offensive linemen in front of them, or can’t successfully deliver the ball up and over all of those bodies—this was never the case with Brees, who remains one of the most accurate quarterbacks the league has ever seen (second all time in career completion percentage).

Brees’s accuracy was long attributed to the grip afforded by his weirdly huge hands (10.25 inches, a number that Young almost certainly will not match), as well as his obsession with consistent mechanics. That robotic approach is not the style to which Young adheres—and rightfully so. With his mobility and playmaking instincts, as well as a quarterbacking landscaping that is moving rapidly in the direction of off-platform throws and adjusted arm angles, Young shouldn’t play with the mechanical obsession and perfection of Brees.

The issue is apparent. All of the short quarterbacks who were successful are some of the most astounding and unbelievable stories that we have at quarterback. We didn’t even touch on the absurd accuracy of Wilson’s deep moon shots, long the calling card of his passing game; or the truly singular electricity of Vick’s rushing ability; or the fact that, while Murray has started more than 50 games and signed a huge second contract, it may be a bridge too far to call him a success story for short quarterbacks as the top overall pick.

For Young to be successful, he has to compensate for his smaller and slighter frame with truly superlative skills in other areas. And there is an argument for that.
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl-draft/2023/3/3/23623742/bryce-young-height-short-nfl-combine-outlier

Caesar · Mar 3, 2023

coachbadlee said: ↑

If you draft Bryce Young you might as well start showing previews for the third season of the "Davis Mills Show" starring Davis Mills.
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I feel that way no matter what. I don't want to ruin whoever we take by throwing him out to the wolves on this team that still needs too much work.

raining threes · Mar 4, 2023

ROXRAN said: ↑

A great kid so complete different from Watson you can just tell he’s real , …I’m hoping for him so badly when is April 26 going to get here
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You never know for sure.

Rudyc281 · Mar 4, 2023

whag00 · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 · Mar 4, 2023

whag00 said: ↑

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Curious if he’s going to run

whag00 · Mar 4, 2023

Two Sandwiches · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 said: ↑

Curious if he’s going to run
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He probably can't while wearing those lifts. Also, that huge buffet meal from last night needs to settle.

red5rocket · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 · Mar 4, 2023

red5rocket said: ↑

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Not exactly a good comp to have, Murray is the butt of short jokes. And Bryce isn’t anywhere near the athlete that Murray is.

red5rocket · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 said: ↑

Not exactly a good comp to have, Murray is the butt of short jokes. And Bryce isn’t anywhere near the athlete that Murray is.
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I don’t think the comp was ability but only physicality.

cmoak1982 · Mar 4, 2023

red5rocket said: ↑

I don’t think the comp was ability but only physicality.
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Yeah, and I don’t think it’s a good one lol.
Murray is the butt of all memes for being short.

Omihall23 · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 said: ↑

Yeah, and I don’t think it’s a good one lol.
Murray is the butt of all memes for being short.
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Not sure what the obsession is with whether our qb is being made fun of for height. I could care less what height a qb is if he plays well. That’s the only thing that matters.

cmoak1982 · Mar 4, 2023

Omihall23 said: ↑

Not sure what the obsession is with whether our qb is being made fun of for height. I could care less what height a qb is if he plays well. That’s the only thing that matters.
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Not an obsession, he’s going to be made fun of like Kyler is. Just stating the obvious

TEXNIFICENT · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 said: ↑

Not exactly a good comp to have, Murray is the butt of short jokes. And Bryce isn’t anywhere near the athlete that Murray is.
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I think we’re getting Jimmy G anyways. Probably looking at a QB in round 3 or 4.

El_Conquistador · Mar 4, 2023

Bryce Young is short but with a 73.5" wingspan at least he has a +3" Ape Index. Kyler Murray only had a 69" wingspan at the same height, which gave him a -1" Ape Index. Murray has not been a successful NFL quarterback relative to where in the draft he was selected (#1 overall).

Denny varghese · Mar 4, 2023

TEXNIFICENT said: ↑

I think we’re getting Jimmy G anyways. Probably looking at a QB in round 3

Boy do I hope you are wrong
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J.R. · Mar 4, 2023

gucci888 · Mar 4, 2023

cmoak1982 said: ↑

Not exactly a good comp to have, Murray is the butt of short jokes. And Bryce isn’t anywhere near the athlete that Murray is.
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Obviously the point is that Young isn’t an unprecedentedly sized QB that a lot of people thought he’d be. Probably doesn’t change much with those that are concerned with that aspect though.

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