The 2017 NFL Combine gets started two weeks from today, and we are officially into the most prominent time of the year Mike Mayock. The NFL Media Draft analyst released his first round of position rankings on Tuesday. You can view them all, but I thought we would pull out some of the more pertinent positions.
Quarterback remains the most important position for the 49ers to figure out, and while it is possible they do not find their answer this year, they will be looking plenty close at the available candidates. Mayock’s first ranking includes some expected name, but in a slightly different order than many have suggested. Here are his top five quarterbacks:
1. DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame
2. Deshaun Watson, Clemson
3. Mitch Trubisky, North Carolina
4. Patrick Mahomes II, Texas Tech
5. Davis Webb, California
Mayock is on record as saying he would be scared to death to draft a quarterback in the top ten of this year’s draft. He sees talent among the top three quarterbacks, but they all raise serious questions for him. Mahomes is getting some love, with Ian Rapoport hearing some talent evaluators say they like him the best of this group.
Webb is an intriguing name for Bay Area fans. Given his time in Cal’s offense, he has a lot of development in front of him. But when you get past the first four quarterbacks, it seems like it is a grab-bag of players who have more weaknesses than strengths, and all would need even more development than a top of the class that is already fairly weak.