Week 1 Scouting notebook: Manning misfires, Mansoor Delane shines, and more

By Jack Brentnall

Welcome to the first of our weekly series of scouting notebooks, where we take a look at the past weekend of action and look at which NFL Draft prospects caught our eyes, for better or worse.

Saturday provided NFL scouts with their first major opportunity of the season to evaluate a group of prospects. Whether it is familiar faces, or transfers in new places, there were some noteworthy performances. Here are some players that caught our eye in Week 0.

Manning misses the mark

I can’t remember the last time that there was hype around a first-time starter like we’ve seen with Arch Manning. With his football lineage and recruiting pedigree I suppose it isn’t surprising, but the end result definitely fell way short of expectation.

This was always going to be a tough test, but what came as a surprise was the areas in which Manning struggled. His accuracy and poise looked like real strengths in limited reps last season, but in this game they were both glaring weaknesses.

The biggest problem was that he just couldn’t reliably find his receivers. Manning finished with an adjusted completion percentage of just 62.1%. He was particularly poor on short throws, completing just seven of his 12 yard passes in the 0-9 yard range.

This scattershot accuracy was accompanied by an outright lack of comfort in the pocket. His eyes routinely dropped to the rush and there were numerous occasions where he failed to spot wide open receivers. This panic evidenced by his 25% scramble rate under pressure.

Add in some incredibly messy mechanics and a handful of predetermined, ill-advised throws, and you have the recipe for a really poor game.

In truth, Manning had almost no chance of living up to the expectations some had set for him. Expecting him to be the best quarterback in college football right out of the gate was always unrealistic. That is even more true when you consider the fact he was working behind an almost entirely new offensive line, playing against the reigning national champions on their home turf.

Nevertheless, this was still a disappointment. Manning looked a very long way from the first round talent many expected to see, and it feels like he has a much longer way to go than most, including myself, had expected.

Contrasting quarterback fortunes in Death Valley

Outside of Ohio State vs Texas, the next biggest game of the weekend was LSU vs Clemson. There is NFL talent littered across both teams, but it was the contrasting fortunes of the two quarterbacks that really caught my eye.

Coming into the game, I was of the view that Cade Klubnik is the better NFL prospect. While that may still end up being the case, I now feel much less optimistic about that.

LSU came away victorious, and Garrett Nussmeier was a big reason why. His confident playstyle paired with some exceptional processing ability and poise under pressure stood out on Saturday.

Nussmeier’s tape wasn’t chocked full of beautiful deep balls – he didn’t actually have a single completion of 20+ air yards – but it didn’t matter. This was a quarterback that was consistently finding the right answers to the test and getting the ball where it needed to go.

LSU’s new-look offensive line struggled to contain Clemson’s talented front, and Nussmeier did an excellent job of mitigating that by getting the ball out fast. He finished with an average time to throw of 2.09 seconds, the quickest mark of his career.

I have had my doubts about Nussmeier, particularly in terms of his inconsistent accuracy and occasional post-snap processing issues, but this was a really strong performance against a very good defense.

That contrasted with Cade Klubnik’s performance on the other side. My biggest worry with Klubnik coming into the season was his tendency to drift and panic when the pocket gets murky. Those issues reared their head routinely against LSU.

Klubnik just didn’t look comfortable. There were too many forced throws and poor decisions that, whilst not turnover-worthy, were the kind of mistakes you don’t expect a third-year starter to make. His continued issues with standing in the pocket and working through his reads under pressure is a real worry when projecting to the NFL.

This may not have been an egregiously poor performance, but it was not close to the type of game you want to see from a player being discussed as a potential first rounder. Klubnik needs to show he can hold up more reliably under pressure. His Week 6 test against Bill Belichick’s North Carolina defense is one I’ve already got marked on my calendar.

A good week for centers

This year’s interior offensive line class looks a little underwhelming right now, but there are a couple of centers that I think have the potential to be impact players at the pro level. Both of them looked excellent in Week 1.

The first was Auburn’s Connor Lew. Lew was my top ranked center in summer scouting, and after watching him against Baylor I feel vindicated in that. Lew is a tremendous athlete for his size, and those movement skills were repeatedly on display. He looked very comfortable in pass protection, with clean hands and smooth feet to stay square and maintain the integrity of the pocket. He also had some excellent reps as a run blocker, sealing lanes and showing off his range as a climber.

I think Lew still has room to develop his functional strength, but with tape like this it is very easy to buy into his pro potential, especially as he didn’t turn 20 years old until the day after the game.

As for Brailsford, he looked very solid in a tough test. Before Week 1 I highlighted his matchup with Florida State’s mammoth defensive tackle Darrell Jackson Jr. as one of the most exciting trench battles of the weekend. Both players had their moments, but I thought Brailsford did an excellent job holding his own against a much bigger player.

Like Lew, he shone in pass protection. His active eyes paired with quick feet and hands make for a lethal combination, and he was routinely able to stall his opponents’ rush and maintain the integrity of the pocket. He even showed some nice flashes as a run blocker, and was one of the few bright spots on an otherwise gloomy day for the Crimson Tide.

Mansoor Delane's shutdown showing vs Clemson

If I am picking the most impressive player I watched this weekend, the answer would be pretty comfortably LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane. A transfer from Virginia Tech, Delane had a tough test in his first start for the Tigers, matching up against an exceptional Clemson receiver room.

He made the whole thing look very easy. The tape he put out in Week 1 was that of a first round prospect – that might sound hyperbolic, but it is true. Everything that you want to see from a top flight cornerback was there. LSU regularly trusted him in man coverage and he proved to be incredibly sticky and physical.

He played with the perfect blend of fluidity, physicality, and speed, barely allowing a step of separation all game. Cade Klubnik tested him eight times, with Delane allowing a single completion. He was feisty at the catch point too, coming away with a pick and two excellent pass breakups. Delane finished the game with a passer rating allowed of 0.0.

This year’s cornerback class is a wide open group, with the potential for a handful of names to put themselves in contention for the CB1 spot. Tennessee’s Jermod McCoy is my favourite for that title so far, but if Delane keeps playing like he did in Week 1, there is no reason why it couldn’t be him.

Kadyn Proctor struggles as Alabama fall flat

Offensive tackle is widely viewed as one of the strengths of the 2026 class, and Kadyn Proctor is one of the biggest names in that group. As things stand, the Alabama left tackle is OT1 on the consensus board, coming in at the No. 9 overall ranked prospect in the class.

You wouldn’t have guessed that if you were watching his tape against Florida State this weekend. Proctor had a really rough time against the Seminoles, most noticeably in pass protection. At 6’7” and 360 lbs he is never going to be the most fleet of foot, but his lacklustre foot speed saw him continually exposed in pass protection.

There were multiple reps where he lacked the quickness and depth to adequately mirror speed, presenting a weak outside shoulder that pass rushers could exploit. Clearly worried about being beaten around the outside, he then overcompensated by oversetting and giving opponents a soft inside shoulder to attack. Proctor finished the game with six pressures allowed, including one sack and two hits.

He was marginally better in the run game, where he did show some impressive flashes of power to uproot defenders, but it was still very much a mixed bag. His lack of quickness routinely hindered his ability to climb and engage at the second level, with him either losing balance and falling off blocks or failing to latch his man altogether.

I was noticeably lower than the consensus on Proctor over the summer, grading him as a late first/early second round pick. Even so, this performance was concerning and whilst I don’t think it would be wise to panic just yet, it is definitely something to watch over the coming weeks.

JACK BRENTNALL

HEAD OF NFL DRAFT CONTENT

Previously the founder of The Jet Sweep, Jack joined The Touchdown as head of Draft Content in 2024. A Scouting Academy alumnus, Jack has been Covering the NFL Draft since 2020. Follow him on Twitter @Jack_Brentnall.

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