NFL Draft: Standout offensive players from the 2017 Senior Bowl
By Dan Dahlke
Ralph’s Standout Quarterback
Davis Webb, California: As mentioned in the intro, the quarterback position wasn’t one that was chock full of future franchise signal callers, which explains why only six were invited instead of the customary eight.
Webb looked to possess the biggest upside mainly due to his quick delivery and big arm capable of executing outside-the-numbers throws. The Pac-12 product’s most glaring bugaboo is his lack of consistency in completing accurate downfield passes.
In fact, he missed quite a few during the week. Although he improved in many areas as the week progressed, including taking snaps from center, he still misfired on a couple of deliveries on game day.
However, Webb was also named The Most Outstanding Player of Saturday’s competition for all the successful plays he authored where he identified single coverage or, in other instances, dropped the ball in between the safety and corner.
His best play of the contest was a late second-quarter downfield offering in which Davis looked off the safety covering Evan Engram in the middle of the end zone as long as possible to ensure that his real target, Josh Reynolds, would get the single coverage he was looking for on the 39-yard touchdown.
That one sequence demonstrated that Davis takes well to coaching and may have vaulted himself to being a second-round pick in April.
And while he’s already been compared to longtime backup Derek Anderson, I would like to simply think of him as a bigger and stronger version of Jared Goff.
Dan’s Standout Quarterback
Nate Peterman, Pitt: After a solid week of practice, Peterman made several nice throws during the Senior Bowl game on Saturday. He led the North squad in passing with 153 yards and a touchdown and completed 16 passes on 23 attempts.
Peterman showed good pocket awareness to avoid pressure. Midway through the first quarter on 2nd-and-7, Peterman did a nice job sidestepping Carlos Watkins to avoid the sack and then he showed good decisiveness by tucking in the ball and running for the first down.
He also threw a nice back shoulder pass to Amara Darboh for 11 yards near the end of the first quarter. His solid day was capped off with a six-yard touchdown pass to Zay Jones near the end of the fourth quarter to bring the North squad back in the game.
While Peterman’s Senior Bowl performance was far from perfect, the former Pittsburgh quarterback showed the tools, arm strength, and poise in the pocket to be an NFL quarterback.