Our read
The hamstring that ended his 2024 after week 9 is the one thing I keep coming back to, because it is the difference between the QB3 he was in 2023 and the QB31 he was a year later. Last season he answered it: 17 of 17, 309 points, QB6, and he beat the weekly median in 12 of those 17 starts. Our number has him at 274 with a middle range of 221 to 328, and the low end of the full tails comes from seasons cut short by injury, which is exactly the history here.
We expect 14 games, and that is where the draft call lives. Quarterbacks taken around pick 78 have averaged about 273.7 points with busts and injuries pooled in, and our number sits 0.6 points from that, so the draft is paying him like the availability risk he is rather than the QB5 our board says. If he gives you 17 again, the 328 end of the range is live and he beats every passer drafted in that stretch.
Nothing about the situation argues against it. Same head coach in Brian Schottenheimer, Klayton Adams still calling plays, and no other quarterback even listed on the September depth chart release. The 2024 to 2025 jump in points per game, 14.57 to 18.18, held over a full season, so I read it as real. My call: take him right at 77.5, or a round earlier if you want certainty at the position, and accept that a lost month is the scenario that sinks the pick.