There was an article in The Athletic that I don't have full access to, but someone pasted a copy for me. It was on the 49ers choice at QB, but it had some choice words about Kellen Mond.
Mond has a couple things that clearly need to be worked on and can be fixed. No. 1, he holds the ball way too high. He holds the ball right under his chin, and you can’t do anything athletically with your hands that high.
If you recall, that’s the whole Jeff Tedford thing. When Aaron Rodgers came out of Cal, that’s where he held his hands and that got changed the second he got to the NFL. Because what that does is that results in upper-body stiffness and a tight throwing motion. And Mond has a very robotic and mechanical feel to the way in which plays. Because it all starts in his ball carriage, and it’s way too high for him. It’s right under his chin.
This is a pretty big deal. I think if you take Kellen Mond and apply the same arm mechanic transformation that Aaron Rodgers got after leaving Cal, and you have a quarterback that looks 100% different. My impression is that people think Mond just looks weird. He might have one of the most reliable arms in the country, on top of some of the best dual threat talent in the draft, with some of the most experience in the draft, but they look at the way he throws it and think it won't work. When I see Mond throw, I see very crisp mechanics. It's tight and ugly in some ways, but it looks natural if not at least highly practiced. You can really tell that Mond is passionate.
So, I can't take the credit for this idea, but it would really relieve one of my biggest worries with him, which is the stiff upper body. Have him hold the ball lower, and it's a new ball game, no pun intended.
He goes on to say...
I did think Kellen Mond improved. I looked at his 2019 tape and his 2020 tape. And I thought that in 2020, he had much better command of his throws and that his ball placement was consistently more precise than it was in 2019. We’ll see about what he can do when that ball carriage is lower, because I think he was a strong short-to-intermediate thrower who did turn it loose, but I thought that because of the ball carriage that his deeper throws lost energy. Because he wasn’t a loose thrower. He was so stiff and mechanical. So maybe he’ll be able to drive the ball a little more and be less mechanical.
To me, he’s got the look and feel of a schemed quarterback who needs the pass game structure to work for him in defining things. But that’s what Kyle Shanahan is. He defines it for you.
I believe that I understand where he's coming from here, and at an NFL level, this is true of most quarterbacks anyway. I can't say I saw Mond completely take control of a passing attack, but I can say that he is able to throw with rhythm, precision, and decisiveness. I think those are some of the most important traits if you don't have an unbelievable ability to throw the ball and read the defense. Take what you can get, then play another down.
I also believe in Mond's character, and as I said, I think he's passionate about the game. You can hear it when he speaks.
To me, Lawrence is going #1 and Lance is going #3 (not widely accepted yet, but I'm 1000% a believer in Lance. I think he's the next great thing at QB, and I think Shanahan sees that too). That leaves Jones and Mond as worthy QBs and 11 picks between 4 and 15. I think we ought to get one of them if we're serious about getting a new QB, otherwise we should probably abandon the idea entirely for this year. Maybe revisit on day 3 for a high upside pick.