I sat in Lucas Oil Stadium with some media peers to watch the first session of quarterbacks throw Saturday—the Dwayne Haskins/Drew Lock/Daniel Jones/Tyree Jackson/Will Grier/Ryan Finley (among others) group. All this is, an hour watching these guys, is a snapshot. But three guys who stuck out:
• Ohio State’s Haskins, who throws a beautiful ball and can throw it 55 yards near the target effortlessly;
• North Carolina State’s Finley, who was accurate and mechanically sound;
• Penn State’s Trace McSorley. Trace McSorley? The guy who was likely one of the last of the 17 quarterbacks invited to the combine in the eyes of NFL scouts, and who turned down a request to work with the safeties. No, he said; he’s a quarterback. I don’t know if he will be, but he impressed me throwing the ball, particularly on the 25-yard outs that every passer had to throw. He was the fastest (4.57 in the 40) quarterback on site, with Murray not running, and had a little quickness to him too. I thought of him as a backup QB, special-teams weapon, and maybe receiver, a guy who could be your 51st player, active some week and inactive others.
So I asked Sean Payton about McSorley on Sunday night. “When I looked at him, my first thought was, ‘I wonder if he can be [Julian] Edelman?’ I wondered if he could be a versatile kind of guy.”
I’ll be fascinated to see his NFL fate. He might not get drafted, but he’ll be a hard free-agent (if that’s his lot) for a team to cut. “Nobody’s gonna outwork me,” McSorley said. “They’re gonna have to drag me off the field.”
