ChiefsPlanet - NFL Draft Connor Cook have what it takes to be big-time NFL QB?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...024-story.html

Jay Cutler is the Bears quarterback of the present, but his future in Chicago is up in the air.

He is 32, and whether he has a career revival this season — his seventh with the Bears — the organization needs a long-term plan for the position.

The new regime thought long and hard about Cutler's status when it took over in January, and while he is off to a solid start with offensive coordinator Adam Gase, he had strong beginnings with Marc Trestman, Mike Martz and Ron Turner. The Bears can't ignore the quarterback landscape. And they haven't.

The Bears have been scouting quarterbacks for the 2016 draft. General manager Ryan Pace attended the Michigan State-Michigan game Oct. 17 in Ann Arbor to watch the Spartans' Connor Cook. In September, Pace and his top personnel men saw Cal's Jared Goff play against Washington.

Both are projected to be the top quarterbacks selected in the draft. Will either be available when the Bears — 2-4 as they take this week off — are on the clock? Time will tell, but the Bears are doing their homework.

The Tribune's Brad Biggs offers an extensive look at Cook and Goff, having traveled to watch both play and talking with more than a dozen key decision makers around the league about the quarterback prospects.

•••

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — An hour before kickoff Oct. 17 at Michigan Stadium, before one of the most fantastically wild finishes you'll ever witness, Bears general manager Ryan Pace stood in the south end zone, his gaze fixed on Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook.

Other talented Spartans will be draft-eligible, but there's little doubt Pace traveled two days ahead of the Bears-Lions game with interest in watching Cook, the senior whose record as a starter improved to 30-3 thanks to a bobbled snap and fumble by Michigan punter Blake O'Neill on the game's final play.

Evaluating quarterbacks for the draft is a laborious process that extends far beyond countless hours of film study. No one has mastered the art. Quarterbacks drafted in the first round turn out to be busts every year. Even the Packers, who have been blessed with Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre since 1992, aren't impervious. They wasted a 2008 second-round pick on Brian Brohm three years after drafting Rodgers.

There are numerous on-field assessments for prospects and a time or measurement for all of them. There are psychological and personality and intelligence tests. But the one thing that matters most, the one thing a quarterback better possess for a team to pull the trigger on a first-round pick, is the most difficult to quantify. Does the quarterback have IT?

The definition of it varies depending on whom you talk to, but it encompasses leadership, moxie, charisma, toughness and more. Talent evaluators admit it's more feel than anything else. You know it when you see it. Is there any question that is the guy you want leading your team with the ball on your 30, down two with 90 seconds to play? Is there any question that is the guy you want leading your team during a spring workout when no one is watching?

So with Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" blaring during warmups, Pace stood alongside Bears national scout Ryan Kessenich, surely in search of clues as to whether Cook has it.

Look in my eyes, what do you see?

The whole package?

At 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, Cook has a good frame that will fill out in the NFL. His arm is plenty strong and he takes care of the football, evidenced by 64 career touchdown passes and only 17 interceptions after the Spartans' 52-26 victory Saturday against Indiana.

But there's a burning question NFL teams are wondering: Why isn't a fifth-year senior in his third year as the starting quarterback one of the Spartans' three captains?

"We all want that one answered," an assistant general manager said. "Add that one up for me."

An NFC scout checked a lot of boxes on Cook. Good, not great arm, athletic for his size, strong, experienced. But?

"I don't know if he is the gunslinger that can wear the holsters," he said.

Spartans players voted for captains in August, and two months later, it's a non-issue for offensive coordinator Dave Warner.

"Connor has done a great job," Warner said as jubilant players made their way through a sea of green to a row of buses outside the stadium. "He doesn't have the title, but he acts and he leads like a captain. You can't have too many leaders on a football team, and even though he's not a captain, he's continued to lead. There are captains out there that have the title and don't lead."

When the team came together during warmups, Cook was on the outskirts of the group. During the game, he communicated on the headset and talked to offensive coaches on the sideline but didn't spend a lot of time with teammates until a moment early in the fourth quarter.

The Spartans were trailing 20-14 when they faced fourth-and-10 on the Michigan 32-yard line. From the shotgun, Cook held the ball until Macgarrett Kings Jr. broke his route inside to spring open. Cook delivered a good ball while taking hits from linebacker Desmond Morgan and safety Jabrill Peppers only to have Kings drop what would have been close to a 15-yard gain.

Four minutes later, Cook walked over to Kings, sitting on the edge of the bench, and leaned in to talk to him.

"You try to talk to your teammates, talk them up and get their minds right to go out there and finish the game," Cook said afterward. "I really don't know what I said verbatim, but I think I said, 'Hey, we've got to win this. We've got to make some plays.' "

Kings wound up with another critical drop on third-and-10 with 6:48 remaining after Cook stood tall in the pocket with Morgan bearing down on him to deliver a pretty throw against cornerback Channing Stribling. It would have been a nice catch, but again it went off Kings.

Skills, resume are solid

Cook completed 18 of 39 passes against the Wolverines for 328 yards and one touchdown with no picks. He put balls in tight windows against a talented defense that entered with three straight shutouts. If there weren't at least four drops, his numbers would have been enhanced, and that's important because some scouts question his accuracy. Through Saturday, Cook is completing 57.5 percent this season and 58.1 percent for his career.

"He's improved his footwork, sitting in the pocket," Warner said. "He was a little jittery early on, but he settled down and sat in the pocket well in the face of some pretty good pressure Michigan was putting on. That's one of the big things he has improved on from last year, his poise in the pocket."

Even with occasional free runners coming at him, Cook knew where to go with the ball. At midfield in the third quarter off a play fake from the shotgun, he used his eyes to move Peppers to the left, opening just enough room for a slant to his favorite target, Aaron Burbridge, for a 13-yard gain. With Peppers blitzing in the fourth quarter, Cook maintained his focus downfield and hit Burbridge with a perfect back-shoulder throw for 26 yards against cornerback Jourdan Lewis.

The tape against a very good defense on the road will stand up nicely for Cook. But one AFC scout cautioned that Cook will be overvalued because he fits the mold for a pro-style quarterback and the Spartans have him play under center at times.

His point is Cook isn't skilled throwing off three- and five-step drops, and when he's under center, the passing game is predicated on play action and bootlegs. Those are predetermined reads. Of Cook's 39 passes in the Michigan game, only five came on plays when he started under center, and four of those involved a bootleg or rollout. His one five-step throw from the pocket was incomplete.

"They run the ball to set up the pass, not the other way around," the AFC scout said.

Cook has won a long list of big games, including rallying the Spartans from 20 down in the fourth quarter with two touchdown passes to stun Baylor 42-41 in the Cotton Bowl last season. He helped lead a Rose Bowl win over Stanford. The Spartans are 8-0 and ranked No. 4 in the coaches poll and No. 7 in the AP Top 25.

"On the field, can Connor Cook take it and put it on his shoulders?" an NFC scout said. "Yeah, against Baylor he did last year. Can he make an average team pretty decent? Yeah, because I've got to be honest with you, that's an average football team. That is not the fourth-best team in the country."

The scout went on to wonder out loud if Cook reminds him a little of Eli Manning when he was at Ole Miss.

"Because Eli wasn't that guy either that when he walked in the room, everyone said, 'Oh, (heck), he's the quarterback!' There's not that presence," the scout said. "If you are going to hand over the keys, make sure he is the right driver."

A college scouting director called Cook a "very polished passer" and said his team will continue to see if there's fire where there's smoke. Back in August, Cook told reporters he was disappointed not to be selected as a captain. He's in a position of assumed leadership, but the NFL scouting process takes nothing for granted.