Now that Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett has won two straight national championships, he’s ready to see what the NFL has for him — and what he can offer the NFL.
It is a more complicated question for Bennett than it is for most of the quarterbacks in the 2023 draft class. Each class is tiered pretty obviously at each position, and the general impression of Bennett is that if you take him on tape alone, he’s going to be a third-day pick, or a priority free agent. This despite a two-year stretch as the Bulldogs’ full-time starter in which he completed 495 of 742 passes (66.7%) for 6,989 yards (9.4 YPA), 56 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions. In 2022, Bennett also had 10 rushing touchdowns and 205 yards on 56 attempts.
Kirby Smart, Bennett’s head coach, said after Georgia’s 65-7 thrashing of TCU in the College Football Championship that Bennett deserves a real shot in the NFL.
“When you have a quarterback that can do the protections and check things and know what the defense is doing, yet still beat you with your feet, you’ve got a high-level quarterback,” Smart said. “And people have slept on Stetson Bennett for too long. He needs an opportunity to play for a long time at the next level.”
You’d expect Smart to say nothing less. However, there are issues to deal with here. Bennett’s pre-combine measurements (5-foot-11, 190 pounds) puts him in unfortunately rare air when it comes to NFL quarterbacks. Even if we bump the measurables up to 6-foot-0 and 200 pounds, there have been just five quarterbacks in the new millennium — Kellen Moore, Thaddeus Lewis, Armanti Edwards, Henry Burris, and Tim Rattay — who have played at all in the league with those heights and weights. The Carolina Panthers selected Edwards in the third round of the 2010 draft and made him a return man, and the San Francisco 49ers selected Rattay in the seventh round of the 2000 draft — he became a decent backup for a few seasons.
None of the other quarterbacks on this list were drafted, and none of the others did much in the pros.
Now, Alabama quarterback Bryce Young’s pre-combine measurements are 6-foot-0 and 194 pounds, and there are undoubtedly NFL teams that will be put off by that particular outlier, no matter how great Young has been. Young is also seen as the consensus first-overall pick in the 2023 draft. This might actually help Bennett; you just never know.
Then, there’s the age issue. Bennett will turn 26 on October 28, and while NFL quarterbacks are playing at All-Pro levels much longer than they ever have before, this will be another debit in the minds of NFL decision-makers. The thought of a drafted quarterback getting his second contract in his late twenties or early thirties does give one pause, though as we said, trends in the NFL tend to make this less of an issue than it ever has been before.
In Bennett’s case, you have a situation in which all the tangibles will scare teams away, and all the intangibles (leadership, toughness, and an icy calm in the game’s most provocative moments) are off the charts. All you can do that that point is to review the tape and the metrics to get the best possible sense of Stetson Bennett’s NFL potential.
Let’s do just that.
Arm strength vs. arm talent.
In his 2022 season, per Pro Football Focus, Bennett completed 28 of 68 passes of 20 or more air yards for 998 yards, eight touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 90.9. Most of those successful deep passes came with one or both of the following favorable factors: A clean pocket from which to operate, and receivers rolling wide open downfield.
Finding instances in which Bennett stood and delivered in the pocket to make deep throws to receivers in tight windows? That takes a while, though this 30-yard completion to Kearis Jackson against Mississippi State in Week 11 does qualify. Bennett had pressure up the middle, and still made an excellent timed throw to Jackson over the middle.
And this 22-yard touchdown pass to tight end Brock Bowers against TCU was a nice example of feathering a throw to a target capable of winning one-on-one battles with just about any defender.
Bennett does not have a laser rocket arm by any means, but he has enough velocity to make most throws in comfortable situations. Where things get weird is when Bennett is rocked off his spot, and he tries to make hero throws he just can’t make. This arm punt against Mississippi State was a sub-optimal example.
And because Bennett doesn’t have a top-tier fastball, he has to be exact with the timing and placement of his throws. If he isn’t, collegiate defenders have been able to track his passes quite easily, and converge to the ball. This will be more of an issue in the NFL, where the margins for error are wafer-thin.
Throwing over the middle.
Any quarterback with Bennett’s height deficiency is going to face questions about his ability to stick in the pocket and make throws over the middle. In 2022, per Sports Info Solutions, he completed 66 of 91 passes from the pocket over the middle for 874 yards, 338 air yards, six touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 115.4. On throws of 20 or more air yards, Bennett had just four of those completions on 10 attempts for 127 yards, 112 air yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a passer rating of 81.3.
We’re not dealing with Philip Rivers here. If you want a quarterback who can manufacture big throws over the middle, he’s probably not your guy. That said, there are times when he will stand and deliver, even under pressure. We saw this against Ohio State in the CFP semifinal, when he hit Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint over the middle, with defensive tackle Tyleik Williams bearing down on him out of a stunt.
Here’s another play from the Ohio State game — a 35-yard pass to Kearis Jackson with 1:49 left in the fourth quarter. This is a total upper-body feather throw, and it’s the kind of throw that makes me wonder if Bennett can increase his velocity when he gets in an NFL training program.
This interception against Kentucky in Week 12, though, makes you wonder if he’s even able to see downfield with all the monsters in front of him.
That’s an issue that’s not going to go away. Shorter quarterbacks must develop adaptive strategies to see enough of the field to stick and stay in the NFL, which we’ll get to next.
Winning outside the pocket.
Bennett does have some second-reaction ability, which allows him to make plays when the original play breaks down. He would also likely thrive in a heavy boot and boot-action offense, which he did at Georgia. In 2022, when using play-action and throwing outside the pocket, Bennett completed 25 of 34 passes for 403 yards, 222 air yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 132.4.
This 20-yard completion to receiver Dillon Bell against Missouri in Week 5 is a pretty tough throw. Bennett had to roll to his left as the pocket fell apart, and throwing against his own momentum (he didn’t have time to re-set), he got the ball right in there. Was it a perfect laser throw? No; it wobbled a lot. But it also got where it needed to go.
And on this 37-yard touchdown pass to Ladd McConkey against Tennessee in Week 10. Bennett’s boot-action and roll to the right had the Vols’ defense sitting on everything, which made that deep throw a lot easier.
Another factor to consider when evaluating Bennett’s NFL potential is his threat as a runner; he is the very definition of the “sneaky-fast” cliché. So, we’ll conclude with that.
He's on the move!
It may surprise you to know that Bennett had six runs of 10 or more yards in the 2022 season. He’s not just effectively mobile; this guy can scoot in the right circumstances. Bennett’s longest run in 2022 was this 64-yard touchdown against Auburn in Week 5. If he sees an open lane, and there isn’t an obvious shot play in the passing game, he’ll go for it.
Bennett has a nice, easy acceleration when on the move, and as he showed against Kent State in Week 4, he can throw a jump cut at a defender to gain extra yards. He’s also smart enough to know when to slide.
And you’ve probably seen his 21-yard touchdown scoot against TCU. Bennett is indeed deceptively fast.
Bennett isn't Buddy Garrity.
We have all seen the memes proclaiming that Bennett’s next step in life is how he’d love to get you into a brand new (or gently used) car.
I'm sorry but he's loyal and KIA has an assembly plant right there in beautiful hard working West Point, GA, it's the Korean killers till we die at Stetson Bennett KIA of Waycross and Blackshear https://t.co/qLc8fXiL3r
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) January 10, 2023
They’re funny, especially when Spencer Hall authors them, but there can be more to Bennett’s future than car sales at Waycross and Blackshear, and chicken fingers at Raising Cane’s.
In the end, Bennett’s physical limitations will likely have him going as a third-day pick, even after he wows NFL teams in interviews. That’s not a professional death sentence by any means. In the right system — something that allows him to throw on the move and use his mobility to threaten defenses — he could be a spot starter or career backup. I’d love to see him under the tutelage of an Andy Reid, Doug Pederson, or Brian Daboll; a creative playcaller should be able to open Bennett’s head and throw all kinds of cool stuff in there.
Optimally, Bennett has a future career path not unlike the one Colt McCoy has blazed. The Cleveland Browns took McCoy in the third round of the 2010 draft despite his own size issues (6-foot-1, 212 pounds), and the fact that his arm wasn’t going to blow anybody away. McCoy has been in the league ever since (he had three spot starts for the Arizona Cardinals this season) because he’s smart, he’s adaptable, and he’s managed to maximize the attributes he was given. Was he an overdraft in the third round? Probably, but again — he’s still in the NFL.
Is Stetson Bennett a future pro star? I doubt it, but you can be just fine at the next level without getting to the Pantheon. The larger point is that Bennett has earned that opportunity, and he’s got enough on the ball to make it interesting along the way.
