Will Howard 2025 NFL Draft Profile

Will Howard 2025 NFL Draft Profile

Will Howard is a National Champion. Does that mean he will be a successful NFL quarterback? I have a pretty clear verdict on this one. It’s a matter of if you’re willing to listen to the truth or not…

Let’s get right into it because we have lots to talk about here. Here is your 2025 NFL Draft profile on the Ohio State quarterback.

NFL Draft Stock Report: Week 6, Week 7, Week 10, Week 13, Week 14, College Football Playoff First Round, Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, National Championship 

Howard gets to go out on top and genuinely did his part in the college football playoff. However, if you read a bunch of the stock notes from this past year, I thought he was pretty terrible in a lot of different regular season games. I’m not sure how to look at the Ohio State season any other way. When Howard simply did his job, Ohio State won with ease. When Howard played like an unplayable scrub, the Buckeyes were vulnerable and honestly lost more games than they should have.

Two important factors need to be discussed about Howard’s college career.

A: Kansas State didn’t want him (and it was the correct decision). Avery Johnson is clearly the better player with way more high end upside. If you can’t start at Kansas State, what makes you think he starts at the NFL level? I don’t know why that’s a hard concept to understand but there’s no question Johnson has more of a chance to be a real pro.

B: Ohio State had the best team. I’m not sure who needs to hear this but the impact a quarterback makes on the team is largely overstated by the media. The Eagles won the Super Bowl because of the talent they have in the trenches. Ohio State won because they easily had the best collection of talent on the roster across the sport. It’s not arguable.

In fact, the list of guys who won National Titles isn’t exactly pretty. JT Barrett and Cardale Jones both flamed out at the next level. Jake Coker is probably the best comparable to what Howard is as a player. I don’t think he’s even as good as a guy like Mac Jones who benefitted from the same thing at Alabama. Stetson Bennett won titles. How is he doing now?

I don’t know why this is the case but Howard clearly has the politics on his side. What NFL Network did with his Combine performance was totally corrupt. Speaking of the Combine, it was easily one of the worst quarterback performances I’ve ever seen and that’s not hyperbole. It was so bad I listed him as the single worst performer at the entire event. Guy couldn’t complete 50% of his throws at the Combine with nobody covering. It was next level bad accuracy and the pure arm strength is horrific.

It’s one thing that the touch accuracy just isn’t there. We’re talking about very poor arm strength. The moment he enters the NFL, he’s going to have one of the worst pure arms in the league. It’s Ryan Finley bad and maybe worse than that. If Blake Bortles was less athletic and less talented in the arm, it would look like Howard.

I can’t stress enough how much Ohio State helped him out. Played better with Chip Kelly getting him up tempo and not having to think while focusing to one side of the field. A lot of contested catch situations where his guys just won out of pure talent. Never made any big boy throws outside the numbers with juice behind it. Has some size and zone read queen to him but we’re not talking about zoom zoom juice in the lower half to run.

We can run through the stats if you want to but you will find serious red flags if you’re smart. Sure, the numbers are there as a guy who will turn 24 during the fall playing for easily the best roster in the Big 10. Chickster could have put up numbers with the situation at Ohio State. We’ve seen Justin Fields throw 41 touchdowns in a season at Ohio State and nobody thinks he’s a good enough passer at the next level. Howard’s numbers as a passer (with Chip Kelly and better players on his side) doesn’t come close to the numbers Fields put up as a passer. Even with the help, Howard’s 3.3% turnover worthy play mark on throws under 2.5 seconds to release the ball is 9th highest among all QBs in this draft class.

At Kansas State playing in a conference with no defense, it took him four years to cross the 60% completion mark. He’s not that different from Riley Leonard. Needs his legs to move the chains but not nearly athletic enough to do it at the NFL level with no real upside as a passer. Again, when you’re struggling to put up big numbers in the Big 12, we have problems.

Kurtis Rourke 2025 NFL Draft Profile

Will Howard sucks and I question your intelligence level if you have any other opinion here. I have an undrafted grade on the Ohio State quarterback and I wouldn’t be sprinting to the undrafted waiver wire to make sure he’s on my training camp roster either. I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that he has no real NFL future and if he does, it’s as a journeyman backup like Chase Daniel who never saw meaningful snaps but stayed around. By the way, I’d grade Daniel as the better player too when he came out.

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