Barring something unforeseen happening, Joe Burrow will be the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft on Thursday, and former LSU quarterback Josh Booty believes it’s a slam-dunk selection – as slam-dunk as it’s been in quite some time for the No. 1 pick.
“I think he’s a prototypical NFL quarterback,” Booty told JR SportBrief. “He’s 6-4, 215. If you’d have looked at him [in the] ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s – before the RPO – he would have been your guy. And yet, going into his senior year, people were talking about him being a fifth-, sixth-, seventh-round pick.”
Then Joe Brady happened. Playing in a pro-style offense, Burrow completed 76.3 percent of his passes for 5,671 yards, 60 touchdowns and six interceptions. He won the Heisman Trophy and led LSU to a perfect 15-0 season and national championship.
“You’re talking about a guy that has elite accuracy, efficiency was off-the-charts, his anticipation, knowledge of the game – his dad was a defensive coordinator in college football for a long, long time,” Booty said. “This kid, he has the it factor. He’s got the confidence that helped him win seven top-10 games last year in college football, which I’ve never seen done before. He is the best quarterback in this draft. It’s going to be hard if he gets drafted by the Bengals – small-market club, tough place to win – but I think he’s as ready as anybody could be.”
Burrow wasn’t dinking-and-dunking his way down the field at LSU, either. He was throwing the ball deep against SEC defenses. Between Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa, SEC quarterbacks will be well-represented in the draft on Thursday.
“I think these two guys, because of the way that they were able to practice through the years against great defenses, gets them as ready as anybody that there is in the draft,” Booty said. “So I would take Tua or Burrow before any of these other quarterbacks, that’s for sure.”