This series was created in response to questions about why certain well-known prospects went unselected in NFL drafts. For these articles, I reach out to sources with NFL teams to find out why their organizations passed on drafting a given player, and/or, what were the reasons for other teams to pass on that prospect. The positive response to “Why Undrafted” and questions from readers about why prospects were drafted lower than the media expectations led us to create the parallel series “Why the Slide?”
Both series are back this year. Feel free to email me requests for Why the Slide? and Why Undrafted? at [email protected]. I can’t promise to get to all of them, but I will do my best and definitely will respond to the email.
During a lot of the 2021 college football season, it appeared that Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral could be the top quarterback prospect for the 2022 NFL Draft. He had a hot start to the season after playing well overall in 2020. Corral, however, was not as impressive to close out the 2021 season and suffered an injury in Ole Miss’ bowl game. Still, given the weakness of the 2022 NFL Draft’s quarterback class, there were some projections of Corral being a late first-round pick and hype about him being underrated.
Team sources told WalterFootball.com they did not believe Corral had a real slide. Many teams had a backup grade on Corral with a mid-round projection. Multiple team sources compared Corral’s skill set to a Case Keenum-caliber quarterback rather than a first- or second-round talent. So around the NFL, they felt that Corral went roughly where he belonged.
The Carolina Panthers traded into the third round to take Corral, and that was a good landing spot for him, at least in the short term. Corral will be able to immediately compete for playing time with veteran quarterback Sam Darnold. While Darnold might beat Corral out for the starting job to open the season, if Darnold struggles, Carolina could quickly bench Darnold and put Corral on the field. The Panthers also have some talent to work with in Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore, Robby Anderson and Terrace Marshall. Thus, Carolina is not a bad landing spot for Corral.
That being said, Panthers head coach Matt Rhule is on the hot seat, and he has looked in over his head at the NFL level. The organization could spiral and lead to Rhule being fired during or after the season. The Panthers could easily have a new coaching staff by this time next year and no loyalty to the draft-pick investment in Corral. Thus, Corral is going to need to hit the ground running in the NFL. Everybody knows that NFL stands for Not For Long. Corral has a real shot at a pro starting job, but he probably won’t have the luxury of much developmental time.
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