Much of the buzz around this month’s draft has been generated, not surprisingly, by the quarterback class. One prospect at the position who has received less attention than the likes of Kenny Pickett and Malik Willis is Ole Miss alum Matt Corral. That may change over the coming week, given the team visits he has scheduled. 
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports (on Twitter) that Corral will meet with the Panthers, Eagles, Steelers, Saints and Falcons. Four of the teams on that list have been regularly linked with a number of the top QB options in this year’s class, and have question marks surrounding their long-term future at the position.
The outlier among those listed is the Eagles. The team has publicly committed to Jalen Hurts as their starter of the present, though they have left the door open to his status as the No. 1 changing in the near future. Many thought Philadelphia would have been active during the QB trade market last month; instead, they tried (unsuccessfully) to trade for a number of high-profile receivers. Then, they traded away one of their 2022 first-round picks to the Saints, adding an extra one next year.
In his final two years at Mississippi, Corral’s production jumped considerably. In 23 games since the 2020 campaign started, he threw for 6,686 yards and 49 touchdowns. He added an additional 1,120 yards and 15 scores on the ground. After leading the Rebels to a 10-3 season in 2021, he finished seventh in Heisman voting. That production is contrasted by many with his frame (six-foot-one, 205 pounds) and subsequent questions relating to whether he can withstand NFL physicality.
As the draft draws closer, it may be become clearer how the QB board will shake out this year. That will include where interested teams – including those five – slot Corral in amongst the other first-round-caliber prospects at the position.
100%, he is the Steelers Plan B.
Dear God, I hope not. They already have Rudolph
Corral will be the best QB from this draft. You’ll mock me now, but watch and see. Rudolph is a bum for sure, I will give you that.
I see this guy slipping into the 3rd round for a team like Pittsburgh or Philly.
could even fall as far as round 5.
you got Malik as an athletic runner , Howell with the big arm, and Pickett with the decision making/high football iQ.
Ridder on the rise too.
Corral just doesn’t have any attributes that jump out, but tops the list of day 3 QBs
No way he slips to round 3 and beyond, some team will nab him in the 2nd if he starts falling.
well those teams aren’t going to take him if they already have Malik or Howell or Pickett or Ridder, right?
yes Corral is 2nd round talent, but there needs to be a team who’s wants him over those other guys for them to be willing to take him top 64…
ie if you’re the Saints or Eagles and all the QB needy teams already have their QBs selected in r1 & r2,
why wouldn’t you just wait until r3 knowing he’ll likely still be there sans the 0% chance one of those teams takes 2 QBs in the top 64
Keep trying to convince yourself of that. You made the ridiculous claim of him falling until the 5th round, there is zero chance of that and very slim chance he’s there in rounds 3-4.
not that many teams need a QB and he’s arguably rated the worst of the group after Malik, Kenny, Howell & Ridder
Maybe not as a 1st round plug and play starter, but more than 4 teams will target a QB high. Philly took Hurts (2nd round) right after signing Wentz to a humongous contract. Teams that you may not think will draft a QB will draft one at the right spot, sit him and groom.
In 1989 the cowboys used the #1 on Troy Aikman and then they took Steve Walsh #1 in the supplemental draft the same year. Never say never.
Washington with RG3 and Cousins in the same draft.
no way, as in yes way?
Giants should pick him up so the eagles can’t get him let him sit behind Taylor and Jones. Maybe he could beat Jones out behind Taylor
Drafting to spite an opponent is a good way to ruin your own team. You draft for your own needs, not to prevent others.
Drafting someone who will likely be a career backup is a wasted pick.
Is acquiring Baker Mayfield a good option for the Steelers; just asking as this draft class is not known to be strong at the QB position
RIP Dwayne – condolences to the family. So sad.
Is Mayfield that much better than Trubisky?
It’s quite clear that, despite peoples’ opinions of him, Mayfield is a good deal better than Trubisky. A year of rehabbing his reputation as a backup seems to grossly inflated Trubisky’s career production. I don’t think that he is beyond redemption or useless-not at all-but Trubisky’s proven ceiling hasn’t been established as being nearly as productive as Mayfield’s.
We’ve seen Mayfield put up great stats (two years ago, and in his rookie season, that is), though he hasn’t done so back to back and needs to be consistently productive in order to establish himself as a QB. Trubisky has yet to even offer that level of production. It all remains potential for him at this point, and nothing very tangible.
Have we really seen Trubisky’s ceiling? He was a backup for one year on a good team. Before that, he was a deer in headlights thanks to a lack of coaching (evidence now shows that Nagy was not a good head coach and that his offensive system was mediocre at best).
Teams saw raw talent in him during the draft. He will never be Mahomes or that other guy (who should be locked up), but he very well may be a solid system QB in a productive ‘Burgh offense.
every qb in this class projects to be a better pro than Baker..
and it’s not a good class
I’m not even joking either.
Baker is small, no arm strength, terrible decision making, terrible leadership skills, very minimal mobility…
what is attractive about this guy?
trubisky has arm strength, size and mobility… that alone gives your OC 3 more tools than Bakers playbook.
guys in this draft have arm strength and mobility…
what does Baker give you? literally nothing… he’s just a smaller version of Mason Rudolph
There is just so much that is wrong with this comment that I cannot even begin to point it all out. And I don’t even consider Mayfield to be THAT good. But this is all evidently driven by opinions of the player himself rather than analysis of his qualities. I’m just going to say that you need to watch some film or read some scouting reports. Mayfield has his faults, no question, but his arm strength and mobility, when healthy, are not two of them.
As for louwhitakerisahofer’s comment-yes, that’s sort of my point. If we see nothing else from either Mayfield or Trubisky, the evidence all points to Mayfield’s being better. Trubisky has a career high in both passing yards and touchdowns in 2018, with 3300 passing yards and 24 touchdowns (against 12 INTs). That is the only season that he has thrown 20 or more touchdowns. Mayfield, in his slightly shorter career, has done so twice, with 3500+ yards to go with it. It is sort of a bare minimum that your starter can produce 20+ touchdowns in a season, especially with as offensively oriented as the league is.
Trubisky may eventually get there, as you’ve said, but any positive feelings we have about him are purely based on potential. We haven’t seen him really be very productive, aside from 2018, where his numbers were towards the bare minimum bar for a successful starter. We’ve seen Mayfield do it, though not consistently. So there is a lot more to go on with Mayfirld than there is with Trubisky right now in terms of results.
I’ve watched baker enough to know that throwing over the top to OBJ was not an option…
I’ve watched baker make piss poor decisions late in games on the reg.
we all saw how his small body did not hold up last year.
and now we’re looking at a scenario where the Browns are going to have to give up a pick just to get him off their books because other teams don’t see him as carrying any real value.
so maybe it’s you who should look into Baker Mayfield
Okay, I’ll give it a shot. None of those things have anything to do with a lack of mobility or arm strength. Mayfield, in fact, threw what possibly is the longest pass observed in an NFL game in its history in a Hail Mary attempt two years ago. His mph test at the Combine was tied for second amongst recorded participants all time (Josh Allen is first). He has a strong arm.
Mayfield also frequently rolls out on both designed plays and during improvisational attempts to elude the blitz. He actually injured himself last year attempting to make a tackle after throwing an interception against the Arizona Cardinals. Lack of mobility is not a concern for him.
He is not particularly big, you are correct, but he’s not as small as you make him seem. He’s almost 6’1”, and is somewhere around 215. He’s built pretty stocky. He plays as if he’s 6’5” at times, attempting (stupidly) to make contact or holding the ball in an attempt to make a Roethlisberger-esque schoolyard throw in the face of pressure. That is one example of his poor decision-making.
If Mayfield is able to hit his reads early, he’s normally fine. However, a combination of poor receiver play, Mayfield’s poor defensive reads, and his insistence on not giving up on plays are what stops him from producing consistently. Some of this is due, I think personally, to his uneven start under a poor coaching regime. It stunted his growth by feeding his instinct that he needs to save the team every play. It’s happened to other QBs, but combined with Mayfield’s documented machismo, it probably was exacerbated. When the Cleveland offense was humming along, the run game worked and Mayfield did not have to read the field. The receivers were also where they were supposed to be, instead of being held up in coverage or running the wrong routes. Mayfield could just hit his targets without waiting too long or deciphering complicated coverage.
The thing is, minus the machismo, we could easily make many of the same comments about Trubisky. He was less successful at it. His arm is not stronger-at least, we have no empirical evidence suggesting that. In 2019, he was the worst deep passer in the league by far (Daniel Jones was second), going 32-107 with four TDs and seven INTs. As far as arm strength goes, Trubisky was clocked at an average 55 mph as compared to Mayfield’s superb 60 mph (again, tied for second along with Pat Mahomes, Logan Thomas, and Brian Bennet), but he is not a good deep passer. He is more mobile, having twice the yardage as Mayfield on the ground, and four more TDs (9 to 5), but Mayfield also has a respectable 500+ yards in a non-RPO system. So, yes, Mayfield is observably better than Trubisky, despite their sharing a few similar problems.
then why’s no one want him?
I’ll take the bigger more athletic guy who was decent in a terrible situation,
over the smaller injury prone guy who was decent on a superbowl calibour roster with a GM who went all-in.
I am surely undervaluing Bakers arm strength, however we don’t see him throwing downfield when things get messy.. instead we see him panick and roll out of the pocket and try to beam it in to a closer target along the sidelines
And although I definitely disagree, maybe Baker would indeed be a marginally better option than Trubisky, but the fact is that Steelers already have Mitch on a 2-year contract so it really wouldn’t make any sense to bring in Baker unless they don’t plan on drafting a QB which also looks like a lock and seems much more worthy option than bringing in Baker
Corral is a smaller quarterback who ran a RPO based system. He has plenty of physical talent, but I just don’t see anything right now that looks like he would be able to either successfully run a pro style offense or be able to withstand the physical punishment associated with that type of system. Both Lamar Jackson and RGIII were bigger than Corral, for instance, and had about two years before injuries began to kick in. Cam Newton is 6’5” and was about 240-250, which allowed him to be able to run those types of plays longer than anyone else.
He did get injured eventually, but it seems that any player doing that would have to be that size or larger, and even that’s no guarantee that they’d be good enough to be successful. Corral may have the tools to run a more pro friendly offense, but much of his production at Ole Miss was based on a scheme that doesn’t translate well to the NFL.
Corral is a better passer than all three of those guys when they came out of college. He may not be a star, but I think he will be better than the other QBs in this class. I certainly wouldn’t use a first day pick on him though
Like I said, Corral has some great physical talent. The problem is how dependent his college offense was on RPOs. Corral could take advantage of that passing ability to play from the pocket more and protect himself better, but he did that less at Ole Miss and took advantage of his great mobility. He will either have to learn to play differently, which will take time, or will expose his smaller frame to more hits.
I’m a fan of this Kid! A lot of great attributes!! Steelers or Panthers 2nd round!! RIP Dwayne Haskins!!! He always seemed like such a Happy Guy !!