Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
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If you ignore what turned out to be a historically rough quarterback class in 2022, QBs pretty much always get helium as we build up to the draft. Guys who were top-10 picks battle for first overall. Late first-rounders become top-12 options. Day 3 picks go on Day 2. And so on. The possibility of nailing on a lottery ticket outweighs the downsides, and stocks rise.
What that means for you is that any quarterback who could see some steam between the end of the season and the combine, or between the end of the season and the draft, could be a savvy short-term investment. Because even if things don’t pan out in the long term for any given quarterback, a guy who profiles as a third-rounder in January who sneaks into the first round in April becomes a skyrocketing stock.
Enter Tanner McKee.
Mojo Spotlight: Tanner McKee
After sitting behind then-starter (and now Houston Texan) Davis Mills in 2020, McKee took over as the starter for the Stanford Cardinal in 2021. He passed for 2,327 yards as a sophomore in 2021, then he upped that to nearly 3,000 (2,947) as a junior in 2022 before declaring for the draft. Those aren’t eye-popping numbers, but on a middling Stanford team, it’s playable (it’s considerably ahead of the 1,960 yards Mills put up in 2019, for example). Better, McKee has the profile that historically has made NFL decision-makers salivate. He’s got fantastic size, at 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, and possesses elite footwork. His arm talent and accuracy are NFL level right now, let alone with what offensive coaches think they might be able to coax out of him at the next level. He’s never going to be mistaken for Lamar Jackson as a runner, but he’s not a statue, and should at least be able to evade some tackles in the NFL.
Going Forward
All the traits listed above could make McKee a star in the NFL if everything breaks right. That’s one possibility. But those traits also have the potential to make him absolutely tantalizing to evaluators who love to see what could be. A quarterback like McKee might have looked like a Day 2 or Day 3 pick after the numbers he produced in college, but with some good workouts and a good combine, it wouldn’t be a shock at all to see him get steamed to the first round by draft day. (PFF’s Mike Renner has already forecast McKee as a potential first-rounder.)
Summary
You can get McKee for a relatively paltry $3.06 a share on Mojo right now. That’s a reasonable price for a project quarterback who could develop into something someday. But for a first-rounder, that’s a relative bargain. Invest in McKee now, and if he does see his stock rise to the point where he goes in the first round in April, that’s when you sell off and take a tidy profit. Maybe he develops into a star down the road and maybe he doesn’t, but if he goes in the first round, his stock will be at a high-water mark and you can get out before any fall.
