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Riley Leonard did not appear to get a lot of QB development until came under the tutelage of Guidugli and Denbrock. He missed spring ball, but nonetheless, his improvement in the his passing game and comfort level went up markedly as the season went on.
Leonard's statistics in yr #1 under Denbrock as a passer mirror Jayden Daniels. He appears to have been making a similar improvement such that one has to wonder what he could have done with the second year of development that Daniels got under Denbrock. Denbrock even said this himself at the ND Pro Day.
His physical measurables are great.
He threw well at the Pro Day including some beautiful long and intermediate balls. He showed a strong arm.
His ability to sense pressure in the pocket and to escape is eiite.
He is deceptively fast.
He is tough and durable.
He is very smart.
He is a great leader.
He is very likeable, and brings a lot to the locker room. All of the players like him, and he won over the locker room quickly even as a transfer who was injured.
Beyond Ward and Sanders, the QB class is "meh" already.

I predict Leonard will go in the second round and make some team very happy that they took him.

So…grain of salt.

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You're really high in comparing Leonard to Daniels

Leonard was a solid college qb who played hard. His best "asset" is that he is a good runner, not a good passer and the pros don't draft a qb, much less draft him on day two because he is a good runner.

And no matter how you crop his numbers, he has never shown he can be an elite passer at the pro level. We all watched him last year and anyone who thinks this guy is a pro level passer is clearly under the influence.

Leonard is, at best, as day 3 pick. Outside of the top 2, the guys who will clearly get picked ahead of him are Dart, Slough, Milroe, Ewers, Howard, and McCord. A team may take a flyer on him, but you don't take flyers on an iffy qb, destined for the development squad, during the 1st two days. He might play in a pro camp and perhaps hang around a bit, longer than Rees less than Book, but he is not, and never will be, a pro qb.

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You're absolutely correct, though, that this is a weak QB class for the draft, which helps his stock a good bit.

Any other year, he'd probably be looking at being a priority UFA.

He's a very good athlete, and has the leadership qualities, but the pros want to see someone who has the ability to throw the ball with consistency and accuracy when it comes to the intermediate and long routes.

He'd be a longer term project, and not someone who could help out at QB right away, unless there were some horrible disaster with the QB depth chart.

Sometimes, a quarterback is an absolutely outstanding athlete, that a team will take their chances on him early on, hoping that all he needed was better QB coaching.

As good of an athlete as Leonard is, though, that's not going to be enough to warrant an early draft pick on him. The kind of QB who has the athleticism I'm thinking of would resemble someone like Michael Vick or Anthony Richardson (eye popping athleticism).

To put it this way, the other "wild card" quarterback in this draft would be Jalen Milroe, and he's looking at being around a 3rd round pick, even with his being the best long ball thrower in the class.

Leaf? Some stupid people debated whether he or Peyton Manning would be the first pick.

Leaf was immature, and Manning had the coolest head, for sure. Leaf was primarily responsible for his own undoing.

However, the Colts as an organization had their act together very nicely.

Indianapolis had a much better framework in place, while San Diego kept pissing away high draft picks.

When you have supporting cast the likes of Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, and later, Reggie Wayne, your QB is going to have a much better time of things.

San Diego didn't have nearly the same offensive weapons. The only area where I'd even say they were comparable was at the TE position, where Freddie Jones was a very good TE for them. Natrone Means was hobbled, and in the twilight of his fading career.

The fiasco with Mikhael Ricks was probably the worst. They gave up a future 1st round pick to select him in the 2nd round of that draft, and he never became that big time WR1 they were hoping he'd be. He finally hit his stride after being converted to TE, though, but that was after he left the Chargers

I don't dispute that Manning was the better player overall, but I do sometimes wonder what would have happened, if Leaf had gone to the Colts instead, where they had superior QB coaching, better talent, etc.

a factor. However, I don't think that is true in this case.

He gained 20 pounds between the Rose Bowl and the Combine (when you'd think he'd be working maniacally to prove himself). He missed his team interview with the Colts during the lead-up to the draft. He left the rookie symposium several days early, and then filed a grievance when he got a $10K fine for not finishing it. He had a college reputation as a party animal and his work ethic was already questioned before he was selected. And he had no interest in any of the strength and conditioning or O.T.A.'s in his rookie and 2nd years with the Chargers.

He was just lazy and wanted to party, and once he had the $11MM signing bonus, his only motivation was not to be humiliated (which he couldn't seem to avoid on or off the field). I agree with you that the Colts had better offensive players, but Leaf would've been dreadful no matter what.

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