There was a time when quarterbacks coming out of Air Raid systems in college football were a joke in the NFL. Now, they’re primed to take over the league.
There were 177 players selected before Gardner Minshew in the 2019 NFL Draft. He may not have had ideal size or preferred athletic traits but, after throwing for 4,776 yards and 38 touchdowns in his final college football season, there was one major reason he slipped: Minshew came from under Mike Leach at Washington State, a product of the Air Raid offense.
Though the past two No. 1 picks in the NFL Draft, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, have also been products of Air Raid systems, as was Jared Goff in 2016, the stigma of quarterbacks that played in a system designed to level the playing field against opposing teams with more talent remains. It still takes a special talent for NFL teams to be willing to go all-in on such a player.
No further evidence is needed in that regard than Patrick Mahomes, who may very well be the best quarterback in the NFL in his third season, falling to the No. 10 pick in 2017. Even with exceptional arm strength, creativity and all the physical boxes checked, the Texas Tech product was still barely a top-10 pick.
At the same time, though, that a player like Minshew was taken in the sixth round or that player like Mason Rudolph in Pittsburgh or Kyle Allen in Carolina were given chances to start in relief as a backup represents a stark change. The NFL is changing in a way that is becoming at least slightly more embracing of Air Raid quarterbacks.
Even if the draft stigma has fully dissipated or not, the NFL is being taken over by Air Raid quarterbacks. In Week 3 of the 2019 season, nine of the 32 starting quarterbacks throughout the league, including Minshew, Mayfield, Murray and Goff, were products of the Air Raid, as pointed out by Ted Nguyen of The Athletic on Twitter:
That number remained at eight starting quarterbacks in Week 4 and would’ve been nine had Luke Falk and the New York Jets not been on their bye week. That’s over 25 percent of the league’s starting quarterbacks that are products of a system that many franchises were completely wary of for many years.
Of course, it’s worth noting that Minshew, Falk, Rudolph and Allen were only starters due to injury. Meanwhile, Case Keenum was simply a placeholder for rookie Dwayne Haskins in Washington. Nonetheless, the point stands that teams are much more inclined to actually give products of the Air Raid opportunities than they once were.
And in many cases, it’s paying off. This offseason, the Jaguars signed Nick Foles to a lucrative free-agent contract to help spark the offense. But after one quarter, it was Minshew that was under center. Yet, despite being a sixth-round rookie, the Air Raid disciple has indeed sparked the Jacksonville offense.
Minshew threw for 275 yards (on 22-of-25 passing), two touchdowns and one interception as he relieved an injured Foles in Week 1. Since then, he’s thrown for at least 200 yards in each game, has five touchdown passes and no interceptions and the Jaguars are 2-1 with him as the starter, their one loss coming by just a point on the road against Houston.
Now the conversation has become if the Jags should hand the reins back to Foles once he returns to injury. Minshew has stepped into the driver’s seat in Jacksonville and, though he’s no superstar, he’s been steady, successful and overall impressive — in addition to his exponential rise to fame, due in no small part to his mustache and persona.
Looking back at the past 20 years of the NFL amidst the rise of the Air Raid in college football, it’s not hard to discern why quarterbacks coming out of such systems have had a stigma attached to them.
Guys like Johnny Manziel and Tim Couch served as warnings for NFL teams looking to take Air Raid quarterbacks and try to make them franchise quarterbacks. They thrived at the collegiate level but, when faced with running an NFL offense and picking apart pro defenses, they simply did not have what it took to get it done.
And while you could certainly make the argument that players Goff, Mayfield and Murray are becoming the No. 1 pick and players like Minshew and Rudolph are getting opportunities because NFL teams have more faith in Air Raid products, it’s not just about the players. The simple truth is that the NFL as a whole has embraced elements of the system in modern offenses, thus opening the door for these players to have avenues for success at the next level.
Kliff Kingsbury bringing the full Air Raid arsenal to the Arizona Cardinals is the extreme of this, to be sure. And, for what it’s worth, it remains to be seen how effective the full institution of the system will be. The Cards are 0-3-1 through the first four weeks of the season and it’s been a mixed bag of results for Murray and the offense. But then again, this is a team still in the midst of a large rebuild, so it’s impossible to give a verdict on that just yet.
Elsewhere in the league, though, it’s been sprinklings of the Air Raid to adapt to the way the NFL has changed.
As has been said on a broken record to this point, the passing boom in the NFL is real. Teams are much more reliant (and successful) moving the ball through the air in 2019 than they have ever been before. So, naturally, it makes sense that head coaches and offensive coordinators would institute philosophies that make passing the ball easier and does so with a high success rate — you know, the crux of what the Air Raid is supposed to do at the college level.
The result has been quarterbacks coming from these systems being able to get their shot because they can at least be marginally competent. Players like Goff, Mahomes, Mayfield and Murray have elite talent that allows (or should eventually allow) them to succeed beyond the college offense that they came from. However, others like Minshew, Rudolph and Allen have been able to be thrown into the fire and perform at least respectably when they previously may have not been on an NFL roster because of where they played college football.
No one is going to mistake these backup quarterbacks to be MVP-caliber players like Mahomes. However, they can come into NFL action and keep offenses moving speaks to the fact of how prevalent the Air Raid has quickly become in the league. Coaches know that, on a baseline level, these players can run quick, one-read offenses that spread out opposing defenses and simply move the ball more effectively than they would in a traditional pro-style offense.
This isn’t to say that every product of the Air Raid is now going to have success in the NFL. While his offensive line did him no favors, Luke Falk looked quite bad when thrust into action due to Sam Darnold having mono and Trevor Siemian getting injured. And Case Keenum has put up numbers but not in any meaningful capacity for an 0-4 Washington team (he was also benched in Week 4 for Haskins).
But even still, the Air Raid takeover in the NFL is happening. It may not be as dramatic as seeing every team throw the ball 50 times per game in a few years. Furthermore, three of the next four No. 1 overall picks may not be quarterbacks coming out of the Air Raid and this might just be an anomaly.
At the same time, though, the fact that elements of the offense are being implemented league-wide does increase the value of Air Raid quarterbacks. Players like Minshew, Allen and Rudolph will hold draft value even as just backups because, as that trio has, they can step up if called upon and help an offense stay afloat by utilizing the concepts that made them highly productive in college.
There is never going to be a 100 percent success rate with quarterbacks coming out of this college system. But that’s not a change from any prospect at any position coming out of any system in college. No team in the NFL or in college has a perfect track record when it comes to either drafting or producing high-quality pro players.
What’s important, though, is that the NFL is embracing the Air Raid in a way that we’ve never seen before. As a result, the door is opened for quarterbacks in a way that it never was before. Just 10 years ago, Minshew Mania almost surely wouldn’t have been a possibility because the Wazzu star may never have made an NFL roster.
In 2019, though, he’s raising questions about whether he, a sixth-round rookie, should be the quarterback over an $88 million free-agent signing. And that’s playing with Doug Marrone’s Jaguars, the last team you would think of incorporating Air Raid ideologies into the offense. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
And in the modern NFL, it’s happening everywhere. How shocking that a highly successful passing offensive scheme would be useful amidst the passing boom at the pro level.