Sometimes the best studies come from curiosity about a stance someone wants to hold out of conviction, but with no proof. This study stems from a firmly held belief/hypothesis that pocket passers considered NFL-level talents were the best bets to hold (this was a Dante Moore debate). I didn’t trust that hypothesis, as someone who’s been saying since last December that he needs to be traded in C2C while his value was high. After asking the fellow college enthusiast in this debate how he wants this study broken down, I set it up like this.
Conditions
- QBs drafted Day 1 or 2
- Years 2004-2023 draft classes (included 24 & 25 yrs)
- QBs sorted by rush PPG to create 3 tiers (Konami, Mobile, Pocket)
- “Success” for NFL QBs is measured by the years they hit three or more top-10 fantasy finishes with 4-point pass TDs.
Pocket vs. Mobile vs. Konami
The argument developed that the NFL has always made the most of pocket passers, with the best chances of success, rather than risking holding guys who were only athletes playing QB with tendencies to run, as he stressed, was more the path of KaMario Taylor and others. Once he set the conditions for draft capital, draft years, and what counted as success in the NFL, I created a sample broken down by rushing PPG across our three tiers to further support the argument.
The Konami QB group averaged 5+ PPG, Mobile averaged 2-4 PPG, and Pocket averaged below 2 PPG. I chose these years to show some earlier-century trends and how I believe the modern NFL has shifted to require more athletic QBs across the board.
Once I set the years, I used our draft-pick history to create the sample below of names to sort into the three groups. Since it went back so far, I used College Sports Reference to keep the playing field even when considering rushing PPG, with only a few exceptions, like Trey Lance, who needed me to use his college stats on the team website. That gave me 40 Konami QBs with 25 first-round QBs. Mobile had 25 first-round QBs with 33 total. Pocket had 17 first-round QBs with 43 total.
Once I created and sorted the quarterback sample into tiers, I used FantasyPros stat leaders to review 2004-2025 and determine how many times the names above finished top 10.
RESULTS
Because the initial list included guys who couldn’t have three years of top-10 finishes yet due to not enough NFL experience, I excluded the 2024 and 2025 classes from the initial results.
With 2004-2023 classes being the focus, here was how many finished with three or more top 10 finishes:
8/34 Konami QBs (23.5%)
5/28 Mobile QBs (17.9%)
5/43 Pocket QBs (11.6%)
If we cut the odds down to just Round 1 but keep the same criteria:
6/20 Konami (30.0%)
5/22 Mobile (22.7%)
5/17 Pocket (29.4%)
I intentionally include the percentages because it is important to see how close these categories are. While the pocket and Konami categories for Round 1 seem basically even, their names suggest my initial premise that the landscape has changed.
For the five success names of first-round pocket passers, the players are Matt Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning, and Jared Goff- only Goff is the only post-2010 draft-class QB to succeed from this group in a new NFL landscape.
Meanwhile, the first-round mobile QBs are Phillip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Joe Burrow, and Justin Herbert; the Konami group is Cam Newton, Kyler Murray, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, & Russell Wilson. Only two of those names in Rivers and Rodgers were prior to 2010.
If we focus on the guys outside the first round, the names above show that only Konami has two hits of their group of 14 Day 2 names, while Mobile went 0/6 and Pocket went 0/26.
EXPANDED RESULTS
If we expand the lists to the full lists, including the 2024 and 2025 classes, we can re-examine the data I pulled quickly.
Starting with the full lists of names for all categories, these were the results of QBs hitting at least one top-10 finish in the NFL:
21/43 Konami (48.8%)
15/33 Mobile (45.5%)
9/43 Pocket (20.9%)
If we take this same category and filter down to the first round only:
17/25 Konami (68.0%)
15/25 Mobile (60.0%)
6/17 Pocket (35.3%)
We’re seeing some crazy upward shifts in both categories, suggesting that, further down, pocket passers don’t carry as much upside, even at the NFL level, when the talent pool is narrower. Some modern names for each category in the first round that still currently have zero top-ten finishes:
Konami: Jaxson Dart, Anthony Richardson, Trey Lance (Willis day 2)
Mobile: Fernando Mendoza, Cam Ward, Michael Penix, JJ McCarthy (Shough & Allar day 2)
Pocket: Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Ty Simpson, Mac Jones (Carson Beck Day 2)
FINAL THOUGHTS & APPLICATIONS
While the NFL has had staying power in the past with guys like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees, the current landscape has shifted dramatically toward needing athletes who can play QB well to maintain the upside of being big NFL talents. Many of the top names in the NFL right now are in the first two tiers of the first graphic.
Be hesitant if people are pushing the safe NFL archetype of pocket passers like Julian Sayin, CJ Carr, Drake Lindsay, Josh Hoover, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, Darian Mensah, Dante Moore, and Dylan Raiola. They need to fall into a Jared Goff/Matt Ryan/Matthew Stafford type outcome to hit at this level of talent, where defenses can swarm the QB faster and create tighter windows for downfield throws.
While not every mobile QB in college will be a success in the NFL, they have higher impacts on your college rosters now and more upside if they do make it to the pros at a relevant level for NFL fantasy too, so be willing to pivot when it makes sense or at least take occasional shots in supplemental drafts for some athletic names from time to time.
