Did Deshaun Watson boost NFL draft stock with memorable game vs. Alabama?

Football fans, be it hardcore college watchers or casual observers, likely woke up Tuesday morning after Monday night’s classic title game wondering about the NFL future of Clemson QB Deshaun Watson.

As in, how high will he go?

The 2017 NFL draft is three-plus months away, and NFL teams still have work to do on the 6-foot-2, 211-pound Watson before their final grades start to harden, even if many started the scouting process on him sooner than normal for an underclassman once it became clear that the junior had no intentions of returning to college next season.

Even with that, it’s hard not to wonder how much his NFL stock has grown overnight.

Watson and the Tigers got off to a slow start against an Alabama defense that might feature 15 future NFL players, but they got their rhythm going and engineered a performance for the ages. In the final two drives against a worn-down defense — they were on the field 99 plays — Watson completed 9 of 10 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown pass with :01 showing on the clock.

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Watson, too, had to be tired; the ball was in his hands 71 of those plays, with 56 of them passes. If he was fatigued, he certainly didn’t look it. Despite taking four sacks, getting hit on several more throws and running the ball 21 times, bouncing off several would-be tacklers in the process, he saved his best for last. From the moment prior to the final drive when he implored his receivers to deliver their very best (“Let’s be legendary,” he said), Watson helped will his team to a stunning 35-31 victory.

Not all game tape is the same. NFL evaluators certainly will pick apart all of Watson’s games, and they’ll note his eight multi-interception games (one vs. Troy) over the past two seasons, plus his missed throws in the title game. Yes, there were some, including a few potential interceptions that Alabama couldn’t come down with.

But this is now the second straight season in which Watson has shined brightest against the best college has to offer, including a 405-yard, four-TD line in the championship loss one year ago against Bama (a defense that featured four top-60 draft picks). How does that factor not enter NFL evaluators’ minds when they break him down?

When they watch Monday night’s game and compare it to others, they’ll see some of the same issues they came into the game with. NFL scouts are paid to be picky and meticulous, just as the coaches and general managers they work for tend to be. For the most part, they do a good job. But is there a worry of the scouting process spending too much time picking apart what Watson can’t do and not enough on what he’s really, really good at? It happens every year, especially for quarterbacks.

On the whole, the NFL for too long has viewed prospects and asked how they’ll adapt to the pro game. In some degrees, this is fine because without some rare skills, even heroic college football players can have trouble finding themselves in the league. But teams only now are starting to change their methods — again, quarterbacks especially — of implementing unique talents and building their systems around those.

If you’re asking Deshaun Watson to run the New England Patriots or Green Bay Packers offense, you’re probably not deploying him in the best way possible. But if you look at what the Dallas Cowboys have done with (and for) Dak Prescott, how the Tennessee Titans have built things around Marcus Mariota, or even how the Miami Dolphins utilized Ryan Tannehill well before he got hurt, you can see how a forward-thinking NFL team could spend a high draft pick on Watson and get the most out of his enticing (but perhaps incomplete) skills.

So it’s less about how high he’ll go and maybe more about whether a team is willing to reshape their thinking and play-calling to maximize him. That could be the Cleveland Browns at No. 1. It could be the Buffalo Bills at No. 10, as he was mocked in our 3.0 draft last week. Or Watson could fall farther — late first round? — and be the victim of rigid thinking, bad scheme fits and trigger-shy teams not wanting to remake their system for fear that Watson could fail or that they aren’t diverse enough to pull it off.

Is Watson an elite NFL prospect? First, let’s diffuse a bit of the post-hysteria hype.

According to Pro Football Focus, 232 of Watson’s 420 yards on Monday came on throws that traveled 9 yards or fewer, including those caught behind the line of scrimmage. He was 26-of-32 passing on those attempts. On the rest of his passes, Watson was 10-of-24 for 188 yards, and he had more success throwing deeper passes to the left — mostly to Mike Williams — than he did to the right side of the field.

This is in line with what scouts told us throughout the season: Much of Clemson’s offense was designed to get the ball in playmakers’ hands on high-percentage throws. One scout said you might see only “five or six throws a game” that match what many NFL offenses could ask Watson to do every series. Clemson’s O-line also did a mostly remarkable job this season and Monday of creating nice pockets from which to throw.

Even Alabama head coach Nick Saban — a man steeped in hardened NFL principles — couldn’t help but give Watson a strong endorsement along with a bit of a underhanded compliment in doing so leading up to the game.

“The quarterback,” Saban said, via the Kansas City Star. “Their entire system, their entire scheme, but Deshaun Watson, I’ve said this all week long, is probably the most dynamic player in college football, maybe the best player in college football relative to what he does for his team.

“A combination of his ability to pass the ball accurately, execute their offense in the passing game, as well as his physical ability to run the ball and add quarterback runs to their whole system of very good players, whether it’s running backs or wide receivers, and he can utilize all the talent on their team because of his skill set.”

Throw in the fact that Clemson has a great, diverse run game outside of Watson with running back Wayne Gallman and that the Tigers consistently are ahead of the sticks, it creates favorable down-and-distance situations and fewer daunting coverages and pressure packages. Most college teams not named Alabama play predominantly zone coverage against Clemson on much of the field for fear of Watson gashing them with designed runs and scrambles. At least with zone, the DBs’ eyes are in the backfield; with man coverage, they’re glued to the receivers. Most teams, including Alabama, committed a single defender to Watson for that reason in a “spy” or “robber” look, which is also limiting in some respects.

Interceptions were a problem this season for Watson, as he tended to trust his arm and his receivers’ ability to win individual matchups perhaps a bit too much. He also took unnecessary risks, throwing into tight windows and locking on primary reads when the second or third options were running more free. This happened at least half a dozen times Monday night, including in the brilliant second half when Watson forced a pass from inside his own 20-yard line that should have been picked.

Of course, Jameis Winston had that kind of final season — interception-heavy, replete with risky, head-scratching throws — and he was the No. 1 pick, over Mariota who went second. Chip Kelly went all out to land Mariota via trade, but the Titans valued Mariota’s athletic gifts, ability to throw on the move, rare poise (which is different than pocket poise, mind you) and touch on his passes. How different Kelly’s time in Philadelphia might have been had that trade come through.

Doesn’t Watson possess those same Mariota-like skills, even if there are variations in their games? For all the physical traits the NFL seeks in their quarterbacks, shouldn’t the ability to lead a team back against all odds — and the desire to be in those big moments — count for something?

But this is a league where Jay Cutler can be the 11th pick and Russell Wilson can last until No. 75, so your guess is as good as ours.

When you get down to brass tacks, the discussion we had prior to the title game about North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky as a top-three possibility is the same launching point for Watson. The first three teams in the NFL draft — the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears — all need quarterbacks. Badly. They’ll all be looking hard at the entire crop, including the other possible first-rounders such as Trubisky, Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer and Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes.

Right now, our information is way too incomplete to say how it will stack up. The Browns need a new QB coach. The 49ers need a head coach, a general manager, plus entire coaching and scouting staffs. The Bears, along with the Browns, will be coaching the Senior Bowl in a few weeks, and even though Watson has been offered a spot there and appeared interested at one point, it would be shocking if he came to Mobile, Ala. after Monday’s masterpiece.

That means that the Browns or Bears could fall for one of the other quarterbacks there, and any of those three teams — plus the other QB-needy franchises in the league — could secure a veteran via trade or free agency prior to the draft in April. There are forces that will work against Watson or the other quarterbacks going in the top three picks, but they’re too difficult to forecast right now.

However, dismissing Watson as a top-three possibility this early feels foolish. Vince Young and Blake Bortles proved that putting up monster final games in college can easily make that happen. Two far less accomplished quarterbacks, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, went 1-2 in the draft a mere nine months ago. Never underestimate the team desperate for a quarterback to take one that high, sure … but also never dismiss the nitpicky NFL team talking themselves out of special football players who aren’t similar to the kinds of players they so desperately seek to replace.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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