"You'd Be Crazy To Have It Be Mac Jones Over Trey Lance" - NFL Draft Analyst Mike Renner Talks About The Third Overall Pick
The talk leading up to Thursday's draft is that the draft really starts with the 3rd pick to San Francisco assuming that it'll likely be chalk with Lawrence #1 and Wilson #2.
So, what happens at #3?
Reports from Peter King on Monday say that Shannahan has it down to Mac Jones and...Trey Lance for the third overall pick. I had PFF's lead draft analyst Mike Renner on this morning to first and foremost ask just that: who will it be at 3? Mac Jones or Trey Lance?
"I think it's going to be Trey Lance" Renner said confidently. "I just cannot fathom giving up three first round picks for Mac Jones. Fine quarterback don't get me wrong. But you look around the elite quarterbacks in the NFL and they just have more physical talent than Mac Jones. They look like Trey Lance, they don't look like Mac Jones the guys who are playing at an MVP level year in and year out."
"If you really want to transform your offense and transform your team, it's the guys with the cannons, the guys who can make plays outside the pocket, the guys that can run, and none of that is Mac Jones and all of that is Trey Lance so if you're going to buy in at one of those guys at 3, I think it'd be crazy to have it be Mac Jones over Trey Lance."
Pretty emphatic opinion there. I was a little surprised just because everywhere I look all I see is Mac Jones to San Francisco. So because of that I followed up with whether or not Mac Jones, who statistically basically had the same season as Joe Burrow last year, is being unfairly graded and criticized.
"The statistics are off the charts, and he operated that offense at Alabama higher than anyone's operated a college offense before, but it's also what we're doing is projecting forward. If you look throw for throw what he had to do in that offense and it's just not a lot of difficult stuff. He obviously plays with timing really well, really good in the pocket, fairly accurate with the football underneath and intermediate range, but a lot of guys if they were put in that offense would put up monster numbers…I think Burrow had three times as many throws into tight windows per our charts than Mac Jones did."
