2023 Senior Bowl Risers & Fallers: Jake Haener

The competitive fires were on display at Senior Bowl all week. Players were giving it their all with dreams of the NFL Draft swirling in their heads. Thor Nystrom, Derek Brown, Crissy Froyd and Mike Maher were on-site in Mobile, AL to cover all of the practices, press conferences and interviews. Here are some final takeaways about QB Jake Haener.

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Senior Bowl Riser: Fresno State QB Jake Haener

Haener’s trophy case became a little more crowded after this past week – he was named the Senior Bowl game MVP, as well as the National Team’s QB Practice Player-of-Week by the National DB group.

Haener stood out head-and-shoulders above the other quarterbacks in Mobile. He showed up to Mobile and was exactly as advertised. Haener is small, he’s an average athlete, and his arm strength is mediocre.

But Haener makes the correct decision almost every single rep – steady, consistent, no surprises. He gets the ball out on time and on the hands, a zippy rhythm-thrower. Haener clearly has a strong command of any huddle he steps into, including ones filled with new faces as was the case at the Senior Bowl.

The biggest knock on Haener is something that isn’t going to change – he doesn’t have a howitzer for an arm. But Haener’s arm is stronger than advertised. It’s not a howitzer – but it’s not a wet noodle, either.

Reminded me in some ways of Bailey Zappe from last year’s Senior Bowl. We could tell from the first practice session that Zappe’s arm had more zip than we’d been led to believe. Same case with Haener – perhaps not to the same degree, but notable nonetheless.

Haener’s balls have juice within 20 yards of the line. His deep passes are max-effort rainbows – but he does an admirable job directing them, dropping high-percentage looks into buckets and sailing low-percentage shots towards the sideline, where the defender has much-lower odds of making a play on it.

Haener’s advanced footwork in particular shined in comparison to the undisciplined bases of other signal-callers at the event. His tape is strong — he’s one of this classes’ most decorated signal-callers. In this process – one where more quarterbacks returned to school due to NIL incentives – Haener could ultimately soar higher on the draft board than currently anticipated.

Somebody is going to have to fill in that Tier 3 behind consensus top-4 QBs Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Will Levis, and Anthony Richardson. Haener is making a strong argument to be included in the shortlist behind those guys.

If you can work around arm strength limitations, Haener is going to run your system like clockwork. People want Stetson Bennett to be this class’ Brock Purdy. I think it’s Haener.