Ryan Mallett gets rave reviews for Combine effort

Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett bounced back from a rough Saturday afternoon by doing what he does best: Spinning the football.

Mallett received uniformly rave reviews for his throwing performance on Sunday.  PFT talked to Tony Pauline of SI.com and TFYDraft.com, who called the performance the best quarterback effort at the Combine of the last ten years.

(The bad news: Joey Harrington was the last effort Pauline recalls that was this good.)

Pauline said Mallett’s accuracy was “pinpoint.”  He always led his receivers with perfect timing. No one doubted Mallett’s arm strength or ability to throw well in shorts, but he may have exceeded expectations.

Rob Rang of CBSSports.com agreed with Pauline’s assessment, saying Mallett was the “unquestioned star” of the first group of quarterbacks.  (Cam Newton is in the next group.)

Mallett’s draft stock has been a hot topic here over the last 24 hours.  Some teams reportedly don’t have Mallett on their draft board.  Other scouts see him as a late second round pick.

As we’ve learned over the years, you only need one team to fall in love with your potential.   Mallett’s performance on Sunday should only help.

28 responses to “Ryan Mallett gets rave reviews for Combine effort

  1. i’m not surprised by the reviews but i am surprised that there is a post about it. i guess that’s why my comment got deleted on the other thread….

  2. I really think this guy is the best qb in this draft,i know there are questions about his attitude but the guy can flat out throw the ball,he will need a solid o-line as he is slow as hell.I would love for my team (the lowley bengals) to take this guy if capt. no heart really is going to retire .

  3. He looks like a meth head.

    Doubt that he will succeed, all the mechanics, but neither the head nor the heart to be good at the next level.

  4. A lot of teams should be looking at this kid he has more upside than downside and as rough as pft and the rest of the media wants to paint his interview as a negative I think it was professional of him not speak about certain issues with the media, liking him more and more.
    And he avoids speaking of himself like an @ss in 3rd person

  5. Interesting how a 21 year old kid is supposed to have the maturity of an older, wiser person.

    I was in college once and thought I had the world by the balls. If he’s got the football skills and football smarts, my guess is the personal maturity issues will eventually come around.

  6. “Pauline said Mallett’s accuracy was “pinpoint.” He always led his receivers with perfect timing. ”

    Everyone knows he looks good with a clear passing lane, nobody in his face, and no decision to make. Jamarcus Russell looked fantastic at this sort of thing too, as did kyle Boller. He still won’t get picked in the first round.

  7. Mallett has that rare combination of Drew Bledsoe’s arm and mobility combined with the personality and character of Matt Jones. If some GM drafts this guy in the 1st round they will be out of a job in three years.

  8. I said it from the beginning, if you give this kid the right team/HC/Off Coord. he will succeed everyones expectations!

  9. OK, crucify me for this but I like him as much as I did Bradford and I don’t have to keep reminding people that Sam’s injury was fluky and he had the same surgery as Drew Brees and Drew hasn’t fallen apart. Complain all you want about a couple of games but let’s face facts: he hit his receivers on the hands time and time again against Ohio State and if they catch those passes, he’s not passing in desperation in the last few minutes and there are plenty of QBs that looked bad in that situation and they still went on to have great careers.

  10. i find it funny how bengals fans want him, when history tells us that they WILL take him!

    an decent football player with HUGE character concerns??? that has Cincinnati written all over it

  11. gbfanforever- are you as big of a retard as your comments make you out to be? Geez dude, pull your head out of your arse!

    Last time i looked peyton manning or tom brady werent speed burners either. jamarcus russell didnt want to practice to get better at all. he didnt know passing routes, didnt want to learn a thing. Thus, he’s out.

    Mallet came from Petrino’s system. Which Petrino widely known as the best playcaller in college game as well as most in the nfl. Mallet did nothing but digest every bit of Petrinos 3” thick playbook and flourished in the pro-style that petrino runs.

    Mallet may not have much escabability but he has a cannon , is pinpoint accurate on short, medium and long bombs. Out of the gate he will have one of the top 2 strongests arms in the NFL and will be able to make passes only a few QBs in the NFL can make right now.

    He needs to be drafted by a team that has a vet Oline but he will have a better career than smiley face $cam newton. If you want to compare anyone to Jamarcus russel then there you go. cept’ $cam didnt throw or run as good as russel did. haha.. yet he’s all the rage. yeah let’s see how his 4.6 speed gets him around a DE or LB that is just as SLOW as he is. Or lets see how $cam does trying to go thru an NFL LB. I look forward to seeing the first time he takes off trying to run someone over. $cam will be out of the league faster than Jamarcus Russel was!

  12. tinytim- what character concerns are you referring too about Mallet? Last time i checked the only thing that he ever had against him was a Pub Intox 3yrs ago. What other crap are you referring too? Other than the blog dude who had an unknown source who had a brothers cousins sister’s ex-boyfriends mothers’s grandfather’s uncle’s son who said they saw Mallet doing so and so.. Give me a break dude. Mallet will be the first QB taken!

  13. ryan mallett played in the toughest league in college football the SEC for the past 2 years and have impressive stats as well as taking the Hogs to their first BCS game against Ohio State. If ryan receivers had done him some justice against Ohio State the Hogs would hav pulled the comback and maybe some the mainstream media types would not be coming down so hard. Mallett has been named team captain for the past 2 years (he was named team captain of the squad prior to being named the starter in 2009). However pass up on mallett will be regreting it (aka dez bryant-last year’s draft). Ryan when it said and done will be THE QB out of this draft and the team who had the guts to draft him will be supporting several lombardi trohies, when his career is over.

  14. damn thing erased..

    ok redo..

    compare rapsheets facts.
    $cam newton- kicked out of UF for knowingly buying a stolen laptop. Then throwing it out the window when authorities come to get him.

    stealing a term paper from someone then putting his name on it and turning it in.

    Not even going to get into how dirty of a player he is with the whole pay for play deal with auburn.

    Ryan Mallet – Pub Intox from over 3 yrs ago.

    Ok.. how do you even compare those facts? What college student hasnt drank alcohol? Yet thats all that is factually linked to Mallet.

    Talent wise – Mallet has NFL talent. $cam has playground talent. No comparison there!

    Anything negative that is being reported about Mallet is pure heresay. Not ONE valid factual statement has come out negatively about this dude. Not ONE! Mallet gave the only ones who matter the answers to any questions they wanted to hear. Last time i looked the coaches, gm’s, owners are the ones who make the selections and pay the players. NOT the media , who he doesnt need to answer one damn question too.

    BTW, $cam will be out of the NFL faster than J. Russell. scrambling QB’s with no passing talent whose only ability is to try to basically run over or thru defensive studs don’t last in this league. Maybe in high school, JUCO, or college but not in the NFL. I cant wait to see $cam try to do that in the NFL! =-)

    Oh, and how is it that no one asked $cam a single thing about his shady documented past? I did make a statement where he wasnt going to comment on the past, only future (ala mark mcgwire) yet no one gave him any flack over that??? come on!

  15. I can definitely see a bunch of teams not having him on the draft boards (since he’s projected in the top 2 rounds). With that said, the only teams who shouldn’t are teams who already have franchise QB’s: Rams, Saints, Colts, Patriots, Jets, Falcons, Ravens, Steelers, Packers, Texans, Chargers, Giants, Bears, and Lions.

    There are also teams who are on a maybe list though.
    Browns: I think Colt McCoy is good enough to be the man in Cleveland, personally.

    Chiefs: Cassel did get that huge pay day when he was traded and played well last season, but did he do enough to keep his job?)
    Broncos: Tebow was drafted as the future at QB here.. but it’s Tebow.
    Eagles: Vick IS going to be their franchise QB, but will he stay healthy? will they draft another “Kolb” style player to groom in the 2nd round?
    Cowboys: I think they have a franchise QB, but reports are that they’re looking at Newton, so I have to include them in my maybe list.

    that alone, if all these teams are satisfied with their QBs, eliminate more than half the teams in the league. Of course if he slips somewhere near the 5th or 6th round, you’ll see some of these teams eventually drafting him. But, I’m pretty sure he’ll be gone mid-way through the second round.

  16. I can see him in purple with harvin smoking purp lol but in all seriousness if he available at #12 we should draft him ironically harvin wear #12 so it would a great tandem lol

  17. And why knock on Joey Harrington? He had to go to Detroit for chrissakes! What if New England had drafted him?

    Let’s see what happens with Mallet’s crappy team next year if he has to start right away. 2-16 if he’s lucky. Especially after he gets sacked 40 times.

    It’s rarely the quarterback that sucks royally out of the draft, its the team around him.

  18. luckynumberlucas says: Feb 27, 2011 1:44 PM

    He looks like a meth head.

    for some reason, people seem to have forgotten that the Miami Dolphins, Steelers, Cowboys and Raiders were renown drug use teams during the 70s. The naivete of people is obscene. How would you know what a “meth head” looks like, pray tell?

  19. A point that someone made is a valid one: the team that drafts these guys is important. Jim Plunkett was a can’t miss QB out of Stanford and he spent his early years on some truly putrid teams in New England and San Francisco. Archie Manning was a stud out of Mississippi and he spent nearly all of his career with the God awful New Orleans Saints. The difference between their careers is that Plunkett eventually spent time with the Oakland Raiders and Manning didn’t escape the Saints until it was too late. It was harder back then for really bad teams to improve themselves consistently because all they really had was the draft and picking up other people’s castoffs and any trade they made would almost certainly drain them of their best picks so if they missed there, they would lose two ways and bad organizations missed a lot.

    This year’s crop has potential but more than any that I’ve seen in a few years, they need teams that will hire top notch QB coaches to get them ready for the game. Too many teams think of this position as an after thought (See Oakland Raiders and the boob that they hired to teach JaMarcus Russell). Mallet is the most NFL ready of them and Gabbert is a distant second and they all need more work with their mechanics because of all the time they spent in the spread. Also, Newton needs to get his bell rung early in practice so he understands that the guys that will hit him from now on are going to hurt him a lot worse, so stay in the pocket (I’d say the same thing about Locker).

  20. I saw the interview. Reporters are ankle-biters who keep nipping until they draw blood. Then they run it up in their stories so they have something to write about.

    Mallett handled himself okay. He doesn’t answer to reporters. Like Miranda rights, whatever you say will be held against you.

    Play well, stay out of trouble, it will go away.

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