Joel Klatt shares high praise for USC quarterback Caleb Williams ahead of NFL Draft

College Football analyst Joel Klatt spends all season watching and discussing the best college football players in the nation. He also covers the NFL Draft with the NFL Network and has begun voicing his thoughts on the quarterbacks — the position he played at Colorado — in the 2024 NFL Draft. He spoke specifically about his top five players at the position, and where USC’s Caleb Williams ranks, on his Joel Klatt Show podcast this week.

Klatt is very high on this year’s quarterback draft class, calling it potentially the best group since the legendary 1983 draft.

“It’s very deep,” Klatt said. “There is a mixture of the traditional, talented, three-years-and-done player. And then you’ve also got some of these guys that have played a ton of football, transferred around, had a COVID year, and they’re very experienced and old players.”

Klatt has given first-round draft grades to six quarterbacks this year. And the one sporting cardinal and gold sits at the top of the list.

“Let’s start with number one, and I don’t think it’s any surprise, is Caleb Williams,” Klatt said, adding that he would try to explain his feeling as to why Williams is “a generational talent at the quarterback position.”

Klatt said he looks at quarterbacks in five categories and he has Williams as “excellent” in all five.

1. Controlling the game from the pocket

“Do you have the ability from the pocket to just stand there, receive the snap in a post snap read control the game from the pocket?” Klatt said. “Do you have that ability? I always start with that. Because generally speaking, that’s the thing that always holds everybody back in the National Football League–post-snap making decisions controlling the game from the pocket? Do you have the ability to do that? Williams does and he’s and he showed amazing ability to do that at times.”

2. Arm talent

“This guy’s arm talent is off the charts,” Klatt said of Williams. “In particular when he’s out of the pocket…He makes every single throw. It’s strong down the field, he’s accurate in the intermediate zone, he can change angles. He’s got an incredibly talented arm.”

3. Movement and creating

Klatt said he likes to look at how quarterbacks can move in and out of the pocket, create space for themselves keep their eyes downfield and hurt the defense with their arm outside of the pocket.

“I don’t know if anybody has ever done that — at least that I’ve evaluated — better than Caleb Williams,” Klatt said. “This is his superpower right here.”

4. A threat just with your legs

“This guy is top-end,” Klatt said. “There’s not many that were better than him.”

5. Your mind

“Do you have the schematic ability in your mind to understand what’s going on on the football field,” Klatt said. “And he does. He has that. I’ve talked to him at length about schematics. I’ve talked to his coaches about what he understands about schematics. The guy understands what’s going on. He gets the game of football.”

Klatt called it “one of the most rare things in this position and profession” to be an NFL Draft prospect who rates as “excellent” in all five of these categories.

Klatt acknowledged that Williams “didn’t play his greatest football” this past season. But he urged anybody discussing the quarterbacks in this upcoming draft and any NFL decision makers to not “get bored with the fact that we’ve known” for years that Williams will or should be the No. 1 overall pick in this draft.

“Generally speaking, our society gets bored with greatness” Klatt said. “You know, we don’t like it when, you know, people win back-to-back titles. You know, Michael Jordan didn’t win MVP every year. Why? Because people got bored. Was he the best player? Yes, of course, of course. And I think people got bored with Caleb Williams, and we expected so much out of him. And when their season didn’t go well at USC, we all just kind of like, well, you know, maybe he’s not the best quarterback. No, no, no. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Don’t get bored with our initial thoughts.”

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