NFL draft: while Cam Ward is leading another QB transfer class, the future of Nico Iamaleava seems to be large open

When Tennessee football announced this weekend that it was Go ahead without starting the quarter nico iAmaleavaAn NFL talent assessor raised the eyebrows.

A program rejecting a quarter-back due to alleged financial requests?

“I understand the monetary aspect of things and I try to take advantage of your situation,” the AFC assessor told Yahoo Sports this week, “but at some point, the main objective must be to become the best player you can to prepare the NFL.

“This difference of a million dollars could cost him even more when the time comes from his evaluation with us.”

The evaluator focused on the risk that the Iamaleava composes. If he fights at his next stop, which would be trendy to the UCLANFL scouts may not give Tennessee starter in 2024 for having struggled to adapt to what seems to be a split of money.

And yet: if Iamaleava succeeds in its next judgment, as a crowd of transfer quarters written in the NFL recently, expect the assessors to ignore or even applaud its move. Because franchises that want to blame the college players for taking financial security into account in all security in their decision to learn more and more that they do not have much to win by taking a hard line.

Questioning the fidelity and competitive nature of a transfer player has become “a little outdated,” said an NFC talent assessor.

“When someone transferred may 5 to 10 years ago, (we would be) as” oh, he resigned in his team “”, said the assessor at Yahoo Sports. “And now it's like:” Oh, it's an opportunity for him to be able to help his family.

“Nile has obviously changed the quantum so much with the way you assess these guys.”

The rules of the NCAA and zero money transfer portal changed the NFL draft, according to coaches and leaders of the Front Office.

A year after nine draft selections in the first round played in several colleges, eight transfer players fell in love with Yahoo Sports last 2025 simulated draft. Many more followed in subsequent towers, such as FBS transfer numbers get up annually.

No position is immune to the trend. But a position was uniquely influenced: the quarter-arre.

Additional collegial experience increasing speech for QB in the draft of the NFL

When the Denver Broncos wrote Bo Nix 12th in the general classification of last year, skepticism followed the decision to select a sixth quarter in the 12 initial choices for the first time in the history of the NFL.

Nix was not unanimously considered as a hope of caliber in the first round and he did not have the athletic ceiling of classmates like the first overall choice Caleb Williams. But Broncos' head coach Sean Payton had a quarter vision that played 61 university games in five years in Auburn and Oregon.

“From the point of view of screening, this gives you more exposure to more people who know the player,” said Payton this spring during the League meetings. “In the case of BO, everything that is positive on the portal and a transfer (happened).

“It gave us several looks.”

Payton was concentrated on the extent of Nix of experience as well as on its depth. And the offense of Oregon which helped the percentage of completion of Nix to go from 59.4% to Auburn to 74.9% at Oregon?

“It helped us see him as a smuggler,” said Payton.

In other words: the more the mental representatives and the varied quarters of exposure are at the university, the more NFL data teams must project the adequacy of the players' scheme and the ability to adapt to the professional level.

Nix shocked the League by leading the Broncos to 10 victories while it launched 3,775 yards and 29 affected at 12 interceptions.

Nix then, and Iamaleava if he reaches the project one day, are no longer the exception but the rule.

Of the 11 -quarters selected in the NFL 2024 draft, eight transferred during their university career. Four of the six quarters selected in the first round in 2024 played several stops.

This year, five quarters on Big Bosses de Consensus by Yahoo Sports transferred.

The first overall choice expected, Cam Ward, began his career with the embodied word of FCS before playing two seasons at Washington State and his last year in Miami. If he had remained an embodied word, the assessors doubt that it would be a first round. An AFC assessor estimated that the teams would appreciate Ward's talent as his initial school as worthy of a team of team of choice of fifth round and practice.

“If he had stayed at Incarnate Word and dominated, is he going to no 1? We cannot bet (by NFL rules), but if I was in Vegas, I would bet the penny that he would be drafted later,” the Director General of the Rams, the SNEAD, told Yahoo Sports. “To see it adapt and play where the competition is getting closer to the NFL?”

“It's not the NFL, but it's closer.”

The transfer portal has changed the NFL screening process – mainly for assessors, say the evaluators

The clubs have changed the elements of the screening process in light of the exodus on the list.

The scouts of the region set up information on a player to guarantee that the substantive work draws with each stop of the player, even if it can extend to several areas such as the Ward trip from the South West Scouting Region of the NFL to the West Coast, then to the southeast.

Sometimes scouts find it difficult to find athletics employees with the knowledge they are looking for because the staff worked with a player for one to two years instead of the three to four historic. Other times, a player prosperous in a new environment and the NFL teams take note of growth.

“Sometimes these guys can reinvent themselves a little,” said Titans du Tennessee head coach Brian Callahan. “They may know what they were missing at the previous school and they can spread their wings in a different way when they arrive in a new place.”

When the character reports conflicts from two schools, scouts come together to determine why.

“If there is a clue, how do we read the lines, read between the lines?” An NFC talent assessor described the process. “How can we dive deep into this area?”

“There is a little game theory. You have to somehow play the odds and put yourself in the best situation for your guys to succeed.”

On the field, this means to follow how the players who transferred have taken a new offense and the understanding of the learning tools that have spoken to them the most. A player conquered his new locker room and quickly controlled an attack, an Arizona state at the LSU Jayden Daniels product last year and to break it? The teams will credit them – knowing that perhaps the change in alteration at the level of the college will strengthen their ability to navigate in the pros.

Some coaches and leaders believe that a variety of pre-professional experience helps explain the deep success of last year's quarters. The general skills and the sense of adjusted football required after the draft did not feel like new for them; Neither did money, for those who have been paid generously through Nile.

Overall, in particular in the quarter position, the assessors appreciate the way in which the transfer portal helps adapt players for a professional game that has no minor league option. Will careers last longer on this account? Maybe not. But will players be more successful during the period of their career because they are more readers when they leave school?

Trends projects suggest yes.

“”Maybe they play fewer years in the NFL because of this, but I think that years (experience) are very precious to be able to come and have success, “said Snead.” Learning a new system is not the simplest thing and that's what you need to do in the NFL. Thus, players who can bounce back and learn new systems and play always so fast or also free?

“A bonus for us.”

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