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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The first day of prospect interviews at the NFL Combine brought a few pieces of legitimate news. Let’s hit on them with some thoughts.
Liberty QB Malik Willis announced he won’t test athletically at the NFL Combine.
But Willis said he’ll throw. Honestly, I was surprised by both developments. If Willis was going to sit out one or the other, I would have bet that he would have sat out the throwing. He was the Senior Bowl’s best thrower by margin — in individual drills, in team drills, in the pocket and out of it — and he also shattered the Senior Bowl’s record for mph ball-velocity tracking. The NFL knows he’ll have top-10 arm strength immediately at the next level. Willis has nothing more to prove in this area. His athleticism hasn’t been quantified in cold data recently. Everyone understands that Willis is very athletic… but I don’t think they realize the extent of the physical package we’re talking about here. The comparison I see most often is Jalen Hurts — as the country’s foremost comp connoisseur, let me say for the record that I hate this comp! They do not play like each other, their college situations were nothing alike (Hurts played with some of the most talent of any quarterback entering the NFL of the past 25 years, Willis some of the least, Hurts was an intermediate timing thrower, Willis was a deep-ball hunter), Hurts’ arm does not compare to Willis, and Hurts is not the legitimate super-freak of an athlete that Willis is. They have similar-ish…
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