Joe Burrow's High School Scouting Report

[CJD]

I was googling around Joe Burrow's highlights and articles, and I found an ESPN recruiting page for him.

http://insider.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/player/evaluation/_/id/187109/joe-burrow

Since it is now 5 years old, I don't think I need to feel bad about copying and pasting "insider" information, so this is what the scouting report said:



I like this because it basically verifies that he is the player he was projected to be.
You can see that in quotes such as:

Quote:Is still developing in this area. He so athletic and moves quite a bit within the pocket and he isn't always balanced and set to accurately deliver the ball on a consistent basis. Does a really nice job of changing ball speeds and can drop the ball in over the top of coverage. Must do a better job of consistently hitting the strikes zone when leading wide receivers to ease the transition upfield. This is all a matter of feet. Areas of his game that lead to inaccuracy are coachable.

He was always a creator on the run with the ability to change ball speed and angles (also called "touch") to drop the ball into the void of coverage. As it says, his inaccuracies are coachable...which is obviously true as we saw with Joe Brady.

Another interesting bit:

Quote:Possesses a strong, live arm. He can be a bit erratic at times and methods are slightly tense, but he can drive the ball with authority and has power behind his throws.

Now, I get that having a strong arm for college is different than having a strong arm for the NFL. But they didn't seem to have any concerns about his arm strength in 2015. Makes me think maybe this "weak arm" critique is just looking for a problem when there is none. I know I haven't seen a weak arm when I watch him play, so it's always been odd when I see that criticism of him.

From his mental make up to his bottom line, they keep repeating how well he does when the play breaks down or as a runner.

I am very confident that his past year wasn't fool's gold or some one year wonder aberration. Based on his high school scouting profile, this is the player he's been his entire career. He just honed those skills in an NFL style offense at LSU.

In case you were curious when people say he came out of nowhere, he was the 298th ranked player out of high school that year, with a grade of 80 overall. Sam Darnold had a rating of 83...so it's not like he was some nobody coming into college either. Was the 8th overall ranked player coming out of Ohio too (#1 QB).