Which Quarterback From the 2017 Draft Class Is Statistically Superior?

1. Brad Kaaya, Miami

Games Played: 38 | Passer Efficiency Rating: 150.3 | AY/A: 8.9

Top Statistical Comp: Byron Leftwich

Brad Kaaya's reputation with scouts doesn't seem to be overly rosy as Kiper listed him fifth among these players. But when it comes to statistics, he's the closest we've got to fitting the blueprint.

The big thing working in Kaaya's favor is his number of games played. As you'll recall, we're looking for guys with around 36 games played, and he's the only guy in this class who exceeds that number. In this department, Kaaya is solid. His efficiency, though, leaves something to be desired.

Kaaya's passer efficiency rating ranks fourth of our five quarterbacks. If we combine this group of five with the 55 other first-round pick quarterbacks since 1995, Kaaya ranks just 39th. It's also right in the range where we saw busts in the previous slide.

His AY/A is a bit more favorable, sitting 31st in this group of 60 and third among the incoming quarterbacks. However, it still falls a bit short of what we're looking for. You can see why this draft class presents a dilemma: the only guy with the requisite level of experience had mediocre efficiency. It's hard to get too excited about any of the crop.

There is a bit of a saving grace, though, for Kaaya in that he plays in the ACC. This is the same conference as both Trubisky and Watson, meaning we can check out how they each fared when facing common opponents. Kaaya and Trubisky faced seven common teams this year, and here's how they performed in those contests.

And here's how Kaaya compared against five common opponents to Watson.

If you're looking at raw yardage, you're not going to be Kaaya's biggest fan. However, he did get more bang for his buck thanks to a higher yards per attempt and AY/A while successfully avoiding interceptions. He had higher efficiency than both of these guys while facing the same defenses, and he tops both in games played. That's a glimmer of hope.

Kaaya's basic draft profile is this: gobs of experience without overwhelming efficiency. How does that fit into the mold? We can take a peak by looking at quarterbacks with a similar profile coming out.

Of the past 55 quarterbacks selected in the first round, 23 of them had started between 34 and 42 games (four games in each direction from Kaaya). Two of those had an AY/A near Kaaya's. Here's a look at Kaaya's profile side by side with theirs.

This is why Leftwich wound up being Kaaya's top comp as they're relatively close across the board. Blake Bortles is far from being a flattering second choice, never finishing higher than 19th in Total NEP in his three qualified seasons, including a 28th-place finish this year.

The positive of Kaaya is that his questions will likely come at a discount. Because he's held in much lower regard, he'll likely wind up being available on either the second or third day of the draft, so the costs of potential shortcomings are less extreme. He has the experience you want, and his efficiency was above that of both Trubisky and Watson against common opponents. That should be enough to justify a gamble later on, even if he's far from being a surefire stud.