Gridiron Seasonal

Late round/UDFA Quarterback prospects who could become the GUY –

(Leaving out Jalen Hurts, Jake Fromm, Anthony Gordon as likely already drafted passers)

Arizona, Khalil Tate – Dual threat, high ceiling quarterback out of Arizona. Tate’s best work came in his sophomore year, rushing for over a thousand yards and getting 10+ passing TD’s and 10+ rushing TD’s. Tate has arm strength, athleticism, and has shown he CAN perform at a high level. I feel he would best fit somewhere he can learn fundamentals, Seattle behind Russell Wilson, Philly with Doug Pederson and Carson Wentz, or San Francisco with Kyle Shanahan. Tate did not get an invite to the combine so he may go undrafted as teams are struggling to meet with players and run physicals at this time.

Iowa, Nate Stanley – Stanley received some early round draft hype coming out of the 2018 college season, but he returned to school for his senior year, and didn’t repeat at the same level. Stanley’s got desirable height at 6’4″, so a more old school GM like Giants GM Dave Gettleman or Bengals GM Mike Brown might appreciate what Stanley brings as a “pocket passer” as opposed to Tate who competes as a dual threat passer. Stanley, by and large, showed he can keep his turnovers low while maximizing his “deep ball accuracy” (Zierlein) throughout his career at Iowa. Parcells has worked with Cleveland in recent years, and Stanley’s alignment with the “Parcells rules” for drafting QBs (Senior, 30 starts, 23 wins, graduated, 2-1 TD/INT ratio) might influence Cleveland to look at Stanley as a late round passer.

North Texas, Mason Fine – Fine reminds me a lot of Case Keenum, a super prolific passer with ALL of the starts, and is a little shorter (5’11”) than many GMs like. Fine started his first game at North Texas when Obama was still in office. Fine’s YPA never flew off the board (avg. 7.6), but he was consistently an accurate passer and is used to a pass-heavy workload. A team like Arizona (already used to a below 6ft. passer) who passes at a high volume could see Fine as a fit for their offense (as a backup). The Texans could also fit, who’ve collected a group of reliable quick pass receivers (Duke Johnson, David Johnson, Darren Fells Randall Cobb, Kenny Stills) that could help local passer Fine adjust to an NFL offense.

Utah, Tyler Huntley – Huntley’s body of work at Utah showed a very low volume, ultra-efficient passer. Huntley led the Utes to an 11-3 campaign losing out to Oregon narrowly missing out on the CFB Playoffs. Huntley completed over 70 percent of his passes, 10+ yards per attempt with only 4 interceptions against 19 passing TDs (5 rushing). Huntley only thew 301 passes in 2019, suggesting he may be a good fit for a run first offense like Tennessee or Buffalo. I see traces of Alex Smith in Huntley: very risk averse, athletic, and takes what the defense gives him.

Hawaii, Cole McDonald – I don’t typically love system guys like McDonald, but Mahomes went to Texas Tech, the ultimate ‘system’ school, so I’m trying to work around my own biases. McDonald has a big arm, he’s pretty accurate, and he even had an impressive 40 time of 4.58 at the combine. McDonald is definitely used to a pass heavy system like the Chiefs, Rams, or Eagles have, 3+ receiver set offenses would tailor to his comfort zone more than a traditional NFL offense would. McDonald struggled mightily against pressure so he would likely need an already great offensive line/quick pass scheme to be effective.

The Patriot Way can’t be copied 

New Eagle corner Darius Slay said he lost respect of Lions coach Matt Patricia when Patricia told Slay he was “good, not elite.” I can certainly appreciate that the competitive nature of a professional athlete will cause them to bristle at the notion that they are “good” instead of “elite.” Patricia comes from an environment where the head coach (Belichick) routinely shreds their Hall of Fame, actual G.O.A.T. QB on a regular basis, and in front of everyone. So his calling Slay ‘good’ is pretty tame by comparison. Belichick has the leverage to continue to coach like this because Brady has simply put up with it for so long, and the leader of the Patriot way continues to win Super Bowls, and is himself the GOAT of coaches. Patricia and Texans coach B.O.B. are not the GOAT of coaches. They have won zero superbowls as head coaches. And their quarterbacks are younger men who are not used to/wont put up with the old-school hyper critical borderline toxic/actually toxic treatment that football coaches have been shouting out to their athletes for decades all across the country at every level of play. Some people (including myself some times) criticize this younger generation of players for being soft, but a lot of problems that went unaddressed in society are linked to unquestioned facets of society like “the football coach just yells all the time, that’s the way it is.” This change may show us young athletes who don’t respond to criticism with as thick skin as maybe fans are used to, but maybe we’ll be healthier as a society if we acknowledge how this type of behavior gets into the subconscious and try to be a little more human. Like most changes in society, it seems to be more of a trade off rather than an “only good” or an “only bad” change. In my millennial brain, I see it as a “more good than bad” change. Not that I know anything, I just had too much caffeine and needed to write something.

Song of the blog post is G-Eazy’s “Everything will be okay“