NFL Insider Tom Pelissero: Carson Beck Could be a 1st-Round Draft Pick

Tom Pelissero starts running the names of players the league keeps whispering about, the ones who are going to come off the board higher than the boards say they should. Dylan Thieneman, the Oregon safety, was a fringe first rounder a few weeks ago. Pelissero now has him as a top twenty pick. Caleb Banks just got the cleanest possible medical update. His doctor sent letters to teams saying he will be cleared in time for training camp, after a foot injury that he then re-aggravated cast a shadow over the spring. Pelissero now believes Banks ends up inside the top twenty too.

Then he turns to the position that always drives the conversation. Quarterback. The one name he keeps circling back to is Carson Beck. He does not promise round one, but he will not rule it out either. The teams had a lot of homework to do on Beck. The Georgia exit, the social media noise, the celebrity stuff, the reports about him and Kirby Smart not getting along. Beck heard the criticism after he transferred to Miami and cleaned things up. The meetings have gone well. One scout told Pelissero that Beck has a beautiful mind for the game.

Pelissero pulls out the old Bill Parcells quarterback rules. College graduate. Senior, in this case a super senior. Thirty starts. Twenty three wins. Sixty percent completions. Two to one touchdown to interception ratio. Beck checks every box. Six foot five. Good enough arm. There are enough teams with a quarterback need that Pelissero would not be shocked if Beck slips into the bottom of round one. Rich's eyebrows go up. Before Ty Simpson? That would be something.

The two quarterbacks fit different shells. Beck profiles for a Frank Reich style Jets offense, a tall pocket passer who can process at the line. Simpson has Brock Purdy comps. Not the biggest arm, no elite trait, just a guy who operates. The existential question Pelissero floats is whether the league has finally come around on the late round Purdy and Kirk Cousins archetype. Maybe Purdy, coming out today, goes in round one. He puts Simpson's floor in the top half of round two and leans toward round one because Arizona at sixteen is the obvious landing spot and somebody could leapfrog them.

The Jets at thirty three are not the Simpson team. Beck at thirty three, maybe. The Rams are the futures team to watch. They have done more work on Simpson than almost anyone, and they do it their way. No combine. No thirty visits. Lots of phone calls. At thirteen they could go receiver too. Matthew Golden. Omarion Hampton. Or move back and still get their guy. Sean and Les like to be aggressive in either direction.