There was a point during the 2015 college football season that anytime the No. 1 pick was discussed, former University of Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch’s name was brought up.
Draft scouts raved about his 6-foot-7, 245-pound frame, precision accuracy and he had been coached for three years by perceived quarterback guru, Justin Fuente.
Lynch was seemingly battling during the season with the University of California’s Jared Goff for who would be the first quarterback selected in the 2016 NFL Draft.
Now, more than two months away from the draft that will take place between April 28-30, Lynch finds himself all over mock drafts and as the consensus third-ranked quarterback, firmly behind Goff and North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz.
NFL.com’s four draft analysists have Lynch pegged at No. 7, No, 15 and the other two have him not going in the first round.
That tends to be the nature of draft prognosticators – they rarely agree.
But Lynch’s drop from potential No.1 overall pick to the possibility of falling out of the first round isn’t unexpected.
Lynch and the Memphis Tigers were riding an incredible wave of momentum during the regular season. Through Memphis’ first eight games, the team was undefeated, ranked in the top 25 and Lynch, who had thrown 18 touchdowns and one interception up to that point, had become a household college football name.
The Tigers then proceeded to lose four of their last five games, including a 31-10 defeat against Auburn in the Birmingham Bowl. Lynch’s touchdown-to-interception ratio during those five games was 10-3, but if you take out his seven touchdown game against SMU, his numbers look far less impressive.
The Tigers quickly dropped out of the top 25, and Lynch, who some thought had gotten exposed during the Auburn game in which he failed to throw a touchdown pass and completed just 43.2 percent of his passes, began to slide down mock drafts.
Fair or not, that’s how the pre-draft process tends to work. Recency bias arguably plays a role in how players are projected, and had Lynch and the Tigers finished the season like they started it, there’s a chance Lynch is still being mentioned as a potential top-5 pick.
Luckily for Lynch, the 2016 NFL Scouting Combine is currently taking place in Indianapolis and will continue to run through Feb. 29. This is an opportunity for Lynch, who will have some of the most impressive physical measurements of any quarterback there, to show NFL scouts and front office personnel that he’s the quarterback they saw the first eight games of the season.
The players at the combine will be put through a series of athletic tests, and Lynch should score well for someone that plays his position and is his size. Additionally, Lynch has, according to reports, committed to throwing at the combine – something that top-tier quarterback prospects don’t always do. So he will have the opportunity to put to rest any questions about throwing mechanics or ability.
One thing that will work in Lynch’s favor come draft night is this: He’s a quarterback; teams, often times, are willing to reach for, or overdraft, a quarterback with the hopes that he can one day become their franchise quarterback.
University of Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch projects to go from the top of the first round to the second round in the 2016 NFL Draft. He threw for 28 touchdowns and four interceptions last season.
