QB Corner: A final look at Quinn Ewers' Weighted On-Target Percentage profile
The five-star's college career didn't go as it was forecasted, but what is his outlook at the next level?
While Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers did not live up to the hype as the highest-rated high school recruit ever as he heads to the 2025 NFL Draft.
This is not to say that Ewers did not experience a nice career with the Longhorns over his three years in Austin. He closed out his college career with statistical highs in touchdown passes while throwing for about 3,500 yards for his second straight season while winning a total of 27 games at the helm.
We know, however, that there is much more to what makes a quarterback prospect tick than what appears in the box score. Just as I’ve done for another handful of quarterbacks in this class, it’s time to lift the hood and see what kind of prospect Ewers is.
So let’s take a look at his accuracy and ball placement profile and see where his Weighted On-Target Percentage checks in at:
Looking closely at the charting profile of Quinn Ewers
It’s ugly.
The Texas quarterback and former five-star recruit has displayed above-average accuracy to only the shorter levels of the field. Once Ewers starts throwing the ball over the middle, toward the boundaries, or deep down the field, his efficiency takes a steep hit.
There are a few reasons for this, starting with his arm talent. While Ewers shows off the Aaron Rodgers-like throwing motion and whip-like upper body mechanics, he simply cannot drive the football.
Throughout his three years as the starting quarterback at Texas, Ewers sustained a clavicle injury, a shoulder injury, and a core injury. All of these injuries have a direct result on a quarterback’s ability to pull power through the hips and shoulder. Then add in another ankle injury as well and there is a real reason to question whether the slender build of Ewers is built to sustain consistent contact.
It’s tough to watch Ewers try to drive a football toward the boundaries. He was on-target on just 46% of these looks, the lowest number I’ve ever charted to that level of the field. He’s also on-target on a sub-50% clip throwing the ball deep down the field as well. He was on-target on just 45% there as well. While he was a bit more accurate over the middle at 65%, this number is still a massive 5% below average historically.
Ewers has the worst accuracy and ball placement profile of any quarterback I have charted in the last three years and there is a real reason to wonder whether or not he actively held the Longhorns back from competing for a national title.
What quarterbacks closely align from a WOT% perspective?
Ewers enters the 2025 NFL Draft with a similar profile as Tennessee Titans’ second round pick Will Levis. And this is a quarterback with obvious accuracy concerns coming into the NFL and highly debatable decision-making ability while at Kentucky.
These are both concerns with Ewers as well, but there is a significant difference: Levis has an A+ arm and plus-athleticism while Ewers does not.
The same can be said about former Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton, drafted late in the 2024 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots. But again, Milton has an A+ arm and plus-athleticism to the point where many were directing him to play tight end at the NFL level.
This means that Ewers is just highly inaccurate without the tools to compensate.
Honestly, the player that profiles the closest over the last three years from both a tools and accuracy perspective is Philadelphia Eagles’ third-string quarterback Tanner McKee.
McKee also charted as below average at every level of the field coming out of Stanford before he was selected in the sixth round by the Eagles in 2023. Lankier, McKee is not a mobile threat with his legs and his arm is just average-to-average-plus for a guy of his stature.
Take in this information as you will.
Let’s wrap it up
The only thing Ewers has going for him now is name value as the highest-rated recruit ever.
Ewers should not even be considered until the middle of Day 3. His deep balls hit an invisible barrier before falling off and his ability to drive the football has faded by the year. And then at that point, a team has to question how much value an average-at-best athlete with dwindling arm talent and subpar accuracy brings to their football team.
Ewers scored above average in ball placement and accuracy only in the short game. He is among the worst in the class when throwing the ball deep, is at the bottom of the class when throwing the ball outside the numbers, and is below average even throwing over the middle (and this gets significantly condensed at the NFL level).
There is just not much about his overall profile to instill confidence in the prospect as he heads from Texas to the NFL. If I were an NFL general manager I wouldn’t even use draft capital on this type of profile.