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Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral elected to play it safe and not throw for NFL teams at the NFL Scouting Combine after suffering a high ankle sprain in his team’s bowl game, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
The commerce world isn’t the only industry suffering from supply chain issues. Are you an NFL team in need of quality quarterback play? Join the club. It’s a big one. And the supply is limited at best no matter which route you go.
Free agency might as well be the housing market, with a historically low amount of inventory. There are maybe two universal upgrades on the table via trade in Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson IF they decide to even leave their current teams. And chances are, you’re getting outbid anyway.
So let’s take a look at some of the young talent about to enter the league in this 2022 draft class. Surely the football gods wouldn’t be stingy across the (literal) board, right?
Wrong.
It’s what makes Corral’s decision not to throw at the NFL Scouting Combine even more puzzling. He has an opportunity here to set himself apart from what is largely viewed as an underwhelming draft class. He could easily be the star if his processing and decision-making are all it’s cracked up to be. Not to mention, settling for ‘just enough’ and sitting out seems to go against his very nature as a competitor.
“This has been my dream ever since I started playing football,” said Corral. “I'm here with the best of the best and now I'm not able to perform physically [...] I definitely can show the teams what I know mentally yet it does absolutely kill me.”
In fact, the reason Corral is playing it safe in the first place is conversely due to the fact that playing it safe isn’t his normal modus operandi. He said on Wednesday that he didn’t even entertain the idea of sitting out the team’s bowl game at the end of the season, where he suffered the high ankle sprain. Yet, he maintains he’s turned a corner.
“About two and a half weeks ago I started throwing and running with no pain and I just thought it'd be smart just to sit out,” Corral said. “If I wanted to put my best foot forward, just wait until my pro day.”
What changed? If he’s ready to go and throwing pain-free, wouldn’t your best foot forward be to show scouts in a head-to-head scenario that you are the consensus number one quarterback?
Unless he really isn’t ready to go.
Fifteen minutes into his podium session, which he began standing up, he ended up having to sit down. That could just be me, an overthinker, reading entirely too much into things, but perhaps Corral isn’t as healthy as he’s trying to portray. That would certainly justify his non-participation.
Corral did say he just started taking dropbacks 2.5 weeks ago after going through stationary spot drills up until that point. It could just be that he’s not confident he’s shaken off all the rust quite yet and wants to set himself up for success in a comfortable environment during his pro day. But a guy that didn’t even entertain sitting out a bowl game, who has toughed it out countless times before, now all of sudden deciding to be more conservative and not feed the competitor within? That doesn’t sit quite right with me.
And besides, what’s the pre-draft process without a sprinkle of conspiracy theory anyway?
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