Trace McSorley NFL Draft Scouting Report

Today we start a special scouting series where we look at the 12 most likely quarterbacks to be drafted. If a quarterback isn’t on this list, we don’t believe he will be drafted, although it is of course possible. Let’s start off our dirty dozen quarterback scouting series by taking a dive into number 12 on my list, Trace McSorley from Penn State.

Positives

McSorley has a strong arm which is good to see, he puts good velocity on the ball and can drive it downfield. He’s also a very good athlete. He moved well in the pocket and ran well at Penn State. He also ran a 4.57 40 yard dash at the NFL Combine.

If McSorley came out last year he would have been a much higher draft pick He put up monster numbers his junior year in 2017 with 3,570 yards, 28 touchdowns against 10 interceptions, and a 66.5% completion percentage. Unfortunately for McSorley, his numbers fell off a cliff during his senior year in 2018. He threw for 2,530 yards with 18 touchdowns against 7 interceptions, but most concerning his completion percentage fell to 53.2%.

Negatives

Watching his senior film, he simply misses a lot of receivers. I’ve long held that accuracy isn’t something that’s easily learnable, especially at the NFL level where defenses are much better. He’s a three year starter and his junior year is the only year his numbers aren’t very concerning. It seems very likely that he was able to put up strong numbers his junior year as defenses focused on stopping star running back Saquon Barkley. McSorley is also only 6’0” tall. He was actually asked to work out with defensive backs during the combine, but he declined. This means that NFL teams aren’t looking at him as a real quarterback prospect either. He’s no Ugo Amadi either.

Prediction

His poor accuracy mixed with his less than ideal size lands him at number 12 on my quarterback list.

Draft Dive’s Grade: Undrafted free agent, at least is a camp arm maybe a practice squad guy.

Likely Landing Spots: Anywhere, he could be a 6th or 7th round pick for a team that needs a quarterback on a rookie contract in order to have a small cap hit.