NFL scouts are too obsessed with 'the look'

While we're still two months away from the official start of NFL draft season, the dreaded Anonymous Scouts, the internet trolls of the draft process, are out in full force, offering blistering takes on the latest class of prospects.

Here's a sampling from Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson:

"Who's the kid with the big windup?" one longtime NFL evaluator asked, settling among a group of friends and focusing on a reddish blonde camp counselor with a zippy arm and ideal frame.

"That's [Sam] Darnold," an NFC personnel man answered…

"You can have him," the NFC personnel man concluded within the group. "Loopy motion. Bad face. Overrated."

"Bad face."

If scouts are saying stuff like that about Darnold, who is your prototypical quarterback prospect, imagine what these scouts are saying about the other prospects who don't have The Look. The Look being tall and white, of course.

Baker Mayfield isn't very tall, so, of course, he's too short, has character questions and played in a spread system. Lamar Jackson isn't white or tall, so he's raw, too skinny and can't operate in a pro style offense. His future is probably at the receiver position, says Bill Polian.

Those two are this year's polarizing prospects. Wyoming's Josh Allen should be in that group, but he's tall, white and has a cannon for an arm; instead, he's a sure-fire first-round pick and will probably go in the Top 10. Just ignore the mediocre production against mediocre competition. Allen completed just 56.2% of his passes and threw for 13 touchdowns. He averaged only 6.61 yards per attempt. The best team he played all season was Boise State.

So what do the scouts have to say about Paxton Lynch 2.0 Allen?

According to Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, "not much has changed" after a terrible junior season, as far as scouts are concerned. He's still seen as a first-round pick and a "raw mountain of ability," though he does lack "polish."

What about Jackson, who not only managed to improve on the stats he put up during his Heisman campaign in 2016 but took significant strides as a pocket passer in 2017?

Breer writes…

"The evaluators I've spoken with have questions about his instincts and anticipation in the passing game, and his ability to process within the context of a pro offense, and still believe he's more thrower than passer… He was seen as raw as a quarterback going into 2016, and the feeling on that remains the same."

So, basically, what these quarterbacks did on the field in 2017 - you know, while actually playing the game of football - does not matter to these scouts. They care only about their "traits." And we wonder how guys like Tom Brady fell to the sixth round.

I find it hard to believe that if Jackson looked a certain way, these questions about his "ability to process within the context of a pro offense" would still persist. One simple reason for my skepticism: BOBBY PETRINO RUNS A PRO-STYLE OFFENSE AT LOUISVILLE. And there are plenty of examples of Jackson operating out of the pocket and going through his progressions like an NFL quarterback.

Here's one…

And another…

And, oh look, here's another one…

Oh, man, they just keep coming…

All right, just one more…

Look, there are legitimate concerns about Jackson as a prospect. Is he accurate? No. Does he have ideal size? Probably not. But saying "he's more of a thrower than a passer" and questioning his ability to process information sounds a lot like code. Code for "He doesn't look the way we think a quarterback should look."

Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes heard these same criticisms last year, while Mitchell Trubisky, for some reason, did not.

Dak Prescott fell to the third round because "He played in a spread offense at Mississippi State and completed just 62.8% of his passes in his four years in Starkville, Miss.," but Allen's miserable 55.9% completion rate in Laramie, Wyo., doesn't seem to be scaring scouts off. We should also point out that Dan Mullen's system at Mississippi State employs a lot of pro concepts. Scouts see what they want to see.

We're hardly breaking new ground here. Drew Brees, Russell Wilson and Tom Brady have proven the league undervalues guys who don't meet certain physical requirements, and other outlets like The Undefeated and Huffington Post have extensively covered how racial bias greatly affects a quarterback's prospects before and after the draft. But even with the light shining brightly on these flaws in the evaluation process, nothing seems to change.

Until NFL teams stop valuing The Look as much as they do, they will remain terrible at drafting quarterbacks.

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