Pros- Has good size, good arm strength and zip on his passes and flashes good accuracy and touch. He is an incredible leader with off the chart intangibles as well as a great work ethic, and that makes him hard to doubt in the NFL for me. He has good mobility to buy time outside of the pocket as well as pick up yardage with his legs. He also flashes the ability to go through more than just one or two progressions at times, not to mention he shows the ability to change plays and make adjustments to blitz pick-ups at the line of scrimmage.
Cons- He started for three years in a spread offense, worked almost exclusively out of the shotgun and when he was at the Senior Bowl he struggled taking snaps from under center during the week. He needs work on his 3, 5 and 7 step drops from under center as well as some footwork improvement when he is in shotgun, though his footwork isn’t as bad as I feared it would be. His throwing motion, however, is. He has made significant improvements to this, but I am always wary of players changing their throwing motion they have been using their whole lives and had great success with in the college ranks like Tebow did. It is often a recipe for disaster or disappointment. He has pretty good accuracy, but I question his pocket awareness as well as how he deals with pressure at times. He will throw off his back foot occasionally and at times will take a sack instead of throwing the ball away. He also needs to learn how to read a NFL defense because he will often go through one or two of his progressions and tuck the ball and look to run if there is no-where for him to throw.
Overall- I have been a very big Tebow critic for a long time, but I find myself believing that he can be a NFL QB after exclusively scouting him at long last. Obviously he has a lot to overcome such as significantly altering his throwing motion, learning to operate smoothly from under center, learning to read defenses from under center as well as from shotgun and then simply adjusting to the speed of the game in the NFL like all rookies have to do. For the longest time I didn’t think he could overcome all that, like I don’t think a lot of spread offense QB’s can. However, I think Tebow can do it. I don’t know if he will ever be an effective starter, but I can’t doubt that he will make a team and work hard as a back-up for two or three years to clean up his mechanics, learn to read defenses better and adjust to the pro game. If he can land in a situation like that where he has significant time to develop he could turn out to be a quality back-up and maybe even get a shot at being a solid starter down the line. But he can’t be drafted and expected to play within the first year or two, because he will struggle mightily in my opinion. But with his intangibles, his work ethic and his desire to prove everyone who has doubted him wrong… I find myself believing that he will be at worst a backup QB in the NFL and at best a solid starter who could give a team a spark at the QB position because of his leadership capability.
Projection: Late 2nd, early 3rd round- Someone could very well take him earlier, but I think in the 2nd round teams will start to look at him more seriously. Jacksonville, New England, Indianapolis, Washington and Miami are all teams I could see spending a 2nd or 3rd round pick on Tebow, and if I had to guess I’d say one of those five teams will end up with him on draft day.
SKILLS
1-poor, 2-weak, 3-above average, 4-very good, 5-elite
ARM STRENGTH: 4.0
ACCURACY: 2.0
MOBILITY: 3.5
DECISION MAKING: 2.5
MECHANICS: 2.0
POCKET AWARENESS: 2.0
INTANGIBLES: 5.0