Bryce Young: Is He Worthy Of A Top 32 Overall Selection?

First Round Mock NFL Draft Analyst Ken Becks breaks down Alabama’s Bryce Young and grades him lower than most everyone else after his magical five touchdown Sugar Bowl performance.

#9 Bryce Young

POSITION: Quarterback (QB)
SCHOOL: Alabama
HEIGHT: 6-0
WEIGHT: 194

Evaluated Games (click to view games watched to form this evaluation):

Utah State ’22

Texas ’22

Tennessee ’22

Strengths

Young displays a good command of the offense with the leadership looked for from the position. In pivotal situations, he is cool under pressure and instinctively grasps the next correct step.

He exhibits very active feet, which allows him a quick setup in the pocket in the throwing game.

What makes him so tough to defend is he is a very instinctual mover both within and outside the pocket due to his quick and efficient body movement.

Young’s ability to be light on his feet enables him to throw off numerous throwing platforms that other QBs would find difficult to accomplish

Young consistently keeps his focus downfield in the passing game when defenders are closing. He quickly reads his route progression and determines where to deliver the ball. Another thing that stands out is he shows strong QB/IQ traits.

Another strong area of his game is he shows no fear when throwing across the middle and completing passes inside the hashes where it can get crowded with defenders.

When Young decides to tuck the ball and run, he is a decisive runner, which projects well to the next level as an effective short-area runner.

He displays good toughness and physicality for the game. This shows up on game film when he exhibits the ability to take on oncoming contact from defenders.

Young always gets up for the next play, which stood out too because he has a thin (and not ideal) frame.

Weaknesses

This leads us right into the other side of the coin and addressing the elephant in the room – – his size.

With such a frail build it leaves Young susceptible to injury at the next level

Another concern is he lacks ideal arm strength, which will hamper him gaining hidden yardage through the air in the NFL. This will additionally keep defenses from consistently having to defend the entire field.

2023 NFL Draft Prospect Value

First-Round (20 & Down)

Scouting Report Summary

A MAJOR issue I have with Young is too often he doesn’t take what he wants versus defenses, but instead he settles for what’s there.

To be elite at the next level – – there are times you HAVE to take what you want – – and I just don’t see that.

There is no one area of his game that is outstanding that makes him special in my opinion.

Though he possesses all the QB intangible traits that teams look for, his lack of elite level athleticism, arm strength, and size is my reasoning for dropping him to the latter part of the first-round.

Young’s play on the field reminds me of a more athletic version of former Texas Longhorns’ QB Colt McCoy when he came out of the college ranks.

Ken Becks [TheScout] has been covering & scouting NFL prospects for over 30 years! Ken has worked with the Indoor Football Scouting Bureau and he’s been mentioned in publications such as Scout.com, ABCNews.com, and TheNewsStar.com. He covers the NFL Draft for FirstRoundMock.com and he is the founder and Director of 1stDownScouting.com. Follow him @1stdown_scout on Twitter.