New York Giants Off-Season review: 2020 NFL Draft

Route 5: Giants take Joe Burrow with the No. 1 pick

Round 1, Pick No. 1 — Joe Burrow (PR=7.07), Quarterback, LSU

Why?! To keep it simple, Joe Burrow could be the guy. At the worst he’ll be a top 10 quarterback in the NFL. I think Daniel Jones at best will be in the top 10. This kid Burrow is a winner, played against top competition and had probably THE BEST YEAR OF ALL TIME at the college level at the quarterback position.

Here are his numbers:15-0 record. 5,671 yards (378 per game!). 60 TDs! (4 per game!), only 6 interceptions, 76.3% completion, 202.0 QB rating (for the year! Not a game, the year), 34 sacks. He also ran 115 times for 368 yards and 5 TDs. That’s 65 TDs total for the year!

Burrow absolutely crushed it last year. Let’s compare Jones to Burrow, shall we? Using Daniel Jones’s three collegiate years in college I will take all of his best stats and put them into a 15 game schedule.

Here’s what that would look like: 9-6 record. 3,645 yards (243 per game). 30 TDs. 11 interceptions. 32 sacks. 62.8% completion.

There is NOTHING that Daniel Jones did better than Joe Burrow except for taking two fewer sacks. Remember, this is me taking all of Daniel Jones’s best stats from ALL THREE of his collegiate seasons and Frankensteining them into one super year for him.

Now you might say, “Joe Burrow had a better team around him. So of course his stats were better and he was able to win.”

Yeah, true but Burrow also played MUCH tougher competition. Duke is in the ACC which, according to USA Today D1 football division power rankings is ranked as sixth out of 10.

LSU is in the SEC which is ranked second. Duke only played one ranked team that year, Clemson. Clemson was ranked No. 2 at the time and blew Duke out 35-6.

LSU on the other hand, played SEVEN games against ranked opponents: Texas (9), Florida (7), Auburn (9), Alabama (2), Georgia (4), Oklahoma (4), and Clemson (3). The same team that manhandled Jones’s Blue Devils, got clobbered by Joe Burrow. LSU won over Clemson 42-25 with Burrow throwing for 463 yards, 5 TDs and 0 INTs.

Then you might say, “Joe Burrow had Ceedee Lamb, who was the highest-rated WR in the draft this year, so of course he had great passing stats.”

Fair enough, so are Joe Montana and Steve Young not two of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history because they had Jerry Rice? C’mon!

Finally, you might argue: “Daniel Jones has terrible receivers and everyone knows they dropped a lot of passes.”

According to another USA Today article Jones’s receivers supposedly dropped 9.2% of the passes. I will admit, that is a lot. Let’s give them the benefit and now make all of those completed passes. Now his completion percentage for the year will be (62.8+9.2) 72%. That is STILL lower than Joe Burrow’s 76.3%.

I feel that the intangibles here are also a huge factor. I think Jones is a competitor, is brave in the pocket, and has his pride (he has a strong will during game time). Those are all great traits, I’m good with all of that.

On the other side, I feel Burrow is a better leader, works harder at his craft, oozes of confidence, and has that winner’s mentality. I think if Burrow was on Duke that year they would have faired better because instead of just putting the team on his back, he would have worked with all of his receivers, had a better relationship with them, and made a better game plan with each of them to make the entire squad better as a whole.

For the next and final chapter I will dive into the off-season free agency.