NFL Draft Profile: QB Kyle Trask
Could Florida’s Kyle Trask be an option for Washington on day two of the draft?
One quarterback Washington has been linked to regularly throughout the pre-draft process is Florida’s Kyle Trask. ESPN’s John Keim, among others, has consistently stated he knows Washington likes Trask as a potential option on day two of the draft, meaning the second or third round. Trask was extremely productive, completing 68.9% of his passes for 4283 yards, 43 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Stats, however, never tell the full story, so let’s take a closer look.
The 6-foot-5, 236 pound quarterback is a throwback in terms of style. He’s not overly athletic with the ability to scramble around and extend plays, instead relying on working from the pocket and getting the ball out on time and accurately. When given the opportunity to work favorable matchups, Trask is aggressive in mindset and quick to pull the trigger. He can throw some beautiful passes down the field.
This is one of the best throws you’ll see from any quarterback in the draft in terms of touch and accuracy. Receiver Kadarius Toney runs a fade from the slot in a one-on-one matchup. Trask knows Toney will likely win that matchup so all he needs to do is check there is no safety help. With no safety in the deep middle of the field, Trask immediately works to his left where he finds Toney with a beautiful throw, dropping it over the shoulder and hitting Toney in stride for a huge touchdown.
He’s willing to give his playmakers plenty of opportunities to make plays. As we saw there he’s quick to attack one-on-one matchups and will often put up opportunity balls for players like Toney or Kyle Pitts to go make a play on.
This play comes from that same game against Alabama. It’s a very similar concept, this time with Kyle Pitts running the fade from the slot. The difference here, however, is how the defense reacts. The defender over Pitts sinks back and stays on top of the route, while the outside corner peels off the underneath route and sinks back too. Trask isn’t worried about those two defenders though, knowing he has one of the best receiving threats in football in Kyle Pitts. He puts the ball up, deliberately placing it higher up where Pitts can get up and make a play on the ball over the top of the defenders. That’s exactly what Pitts does and the play results in a touchdown.
Trask consistently showed a willingness to give guys like Toney and Pitts the opportunity to make big plays for him. Often, it worked out well, because those two are excellent players and Florida had some good schemes to create winning matchups for them. However, there were often plays where Trask was reckless in trying to force the big play when it wasn’t there, allowing those 50-50 balls to become more heavily in favor of the defenders than the receivers.
Here against Texas A&M, Trask has a slot receiver running a deep post with Toney inside running a basic cross. The hope is that the deep safety to that side of the field bites up on Toney’s route and leaves the post wide open. However, the safety stays deep, taking away the post option, but Trask throws it anyway. The ball should have been intercepted by the safety, and the corner wasn’t far off of the play either. Fortunately for Trask, the receiver manages to do just enough to put off the safety from securing the interception.
In that same game, Trask made one of the worst throws I’ve seen from one of the top quarterback prospects in this draft.
On this play, Florida attempts one of the best concepts in football: leak. The play is designed to look like a typical play-action bootleg with the quarterback rolling out and initially looking to hit a receiver in the flat. However, a tight end leaks out of the other side of the play and sneaks down the field. Often that tight end is left completely uncovered for a huge play. However, on this occasion one linebacker spots Pitts leaking to his side and sinks back into coverage with him. Trask either doesn’t see the defender or thinks he can beat him with the throw, and I’m not sure which is worse. He rushes to try and make the throw to Pitts, failing to reset his feet as he makes an awkward jumping throw back across his body and across the middle of the field. He’s extremely fortunate this throw landed incomplete and not intercepted, especially in the red zone where an interception takes points off the board.
These types of reckless decisions to take shots occur too often when watching Trask. In that Texas A&M game alone, there were three plays he could easily have been intercepted on trying to force the ball down the field. Against Alabama, there were a couple more. It happened at least once in every game I watched and while it’s good for a quarterback to be aggressive, they can’t be reckless.
An area of his game I’ve seen people praise is his pocket awareness and mobility. He’s not a mobile guy that can scramble around and outrun defenders to the edge, so he needs to be comfortable in operating from the pocket and moving within the pocket to avoid pressure. For me, he’s hit and miss on this. If he has a clear lane to step up in the pocket, he will.
Here, Florida has a corner-flat concept to the right with a basic cross from Toney on the back side. Trask initially works to his right, but feels his right tackle struggling to contain his block on the edge. He begins to slide left, but then spots a lane emerging up the middle of the pocket. He climbs the pocket using that lane and gets back on track with his reads, finding Toney across the middle for a first down.
However, if that clear and obvious lane doesn’t emerge for Trask up the middle, then I saw some panic in his game.
This time, Alabama rushes just three defensive lineman and brings the fourth rusher from the defender in the slot. The defender is cheating towards the line of scrimmage the whole time and the deep safety aligns over Pitts in the slot, which should be a good pre-snap indicator to Trask of a blitz from the slot. Pitts appears to read the blitz too, running what looks to be a sight adjustment, breaking off his route quickly and making himself available for a hot throw. Trask, however, panics. He spots the free rusher and tries to climb up in the pocket to avoid him, but there’s no clear lane to do so. Instead, he ends up running into the back of his own offensive lineman before eventually being brought down for the sack.
Overall, Trask is a quarterback capable of taking advantage of matchups created by the offense. Florida did a great job getting Pitts and Toney into favorable one-on-one looks and Trask did a good job taking advantage of those matchups and the talents of his receiving group. For Washington, offensive coordinator Scott Turner loves to move his best playmakers around to generate good matchups, so Trask would fit in with that. However, quarterbacks can’t win on that alone and I’m not sure Trask does enough to help elevate those around him. He’s often reckless with the football which could lead to a spike in turnovers at the next level. He doesn’t have the athletic ability to create when plays go south and his pocket management and poise needs work if he’s to survive purely in the pocket. Of the day two quarterback options, I personally much prefer Stanford’s Davis Mills to Trask.
I'd much prefer to draft Trask in the 3rd or 4th over trading up to draft Lance in the 1st. Would you agree?