A very technical writeup of our new QB Matt Corral

[electro's horse]

 

Guy on another forum did a huge predraft writeup on all the qbs. Don't worry about who he is or who he works for. He gave me permission to post this here, states next offseason he might make a patreon or something. He also added a Panthers specific addendum at the bottom. 

Full disclosure, he does not like Corral as a prospect so do with that you will. 

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Man, Matt Corral owes Lane an edible arrangement at a minimum. They really went to the drawing board this year to pull back some from the vertical throws that he's become a bit of a meme for in favor of creating some horizontal pressure and RAC with no Elijah Moore on the roster. If I'm describing my favorite thing about him as a prospect, it's his release. If I'm describing the thing that might get him killed in the NFL, it's also his release. Zach Wilson's ability to suddenly get the ball out on a slant/spacer last year was one of the faster releases we've ever seen out of a prospect, and Corral isn't too far off of that from a time to release standpoint. So why is that a problem? When you watch Corral, his accuracy continually gets worse the longer downfield a throw is. Most downfield shots inherently should be less accurate, but some of his misses on vertical routes are still by 5+ yards, usually deep but sometimes to the side. I'm getting to a point where I would theorize that he's almost holding the ball too little to have a consistent feel beyond about 15 yards since his window to apply touch is small. This happens to Wilson from time to time, but he had the ability to just air it out and err on the side of putting a ball up too high in college since the defenders just didn't have the closing speed to make it a problem, which has created some hilariously bad picks for him in the NFL. Mechanically, it's difficult to coach out anything in the hand/arm entirely, given that you're not only fighting muscle memory but every QB tutor in the world is obsessed with speed and "firing the arrow" or whatever metaphor they use to signal getting the ball out quickly with your body on a line, but it's generally easier to lengthen a stroke than shorten it.

From an arm standpoint, he has pretty good velocity when he steps in and gets a clean look. His ability to put air under the ball is good by league standards--nothing incredible but enough that you'll see him connect on some huge deep shots at the next level and rarely underthrow the receiver consistently which is a decent habit to have. His velocity when his feet are set is also very good--on par with a Watson type where it's on a line but never at risk of breaking fingers. When he moves, he tends to lose velocity moreso than air, but both end up affected, which would indicate that a lot of his arm talent isn't the type where you could truly separate his upper and lower body in an eval like a Mahomes or Lamar. You can see it if you watch his misses when he sets versus when he doesn't. Set Corral usually misses deep or occasionally to the side on things like posts with a consistent arm motion and stance, albeit he can point his front foot too far forward and leak power/push balls left which is something he can work on. Moving Corral misses wide, short, or soft and high which would indicate that he's not setting at all on the move unlike a lot of scramblers who succeed by stopping for a half second to create a launch platform.

He's also essentially "standard requirements" build for the NFL at around 6'2" 210ish and moves better than you'd expect, essentially functioning as a dual threat in the offense. He's not a running threat in the NFL like a Lamar or even a Mahomes, but you could see him develop a tendency to pull down and get easy yards in the event he's not pressured and can walk up a couple. He's done so many rollouts and bootlegs in his life that I wouldn't be shocked to see someone try to roll out the Browns' treatment of Mayfield right now as some initial training wheels.

Coming out, Pat Mahomes had some of the worst footwork that you would ever see from Tech's line being abysmal and his need to extend plays, and he made it a moot point because his arm was so big. Corral has that tendency without the one of a kind arm, largely due to the Ole Miss OL being intensely bad in pass protection up the middle. This has led to two extremely weird behaviors. One, he's really really comfortable half-rolls and scrambles wide to prolong things from sensing pressure up the middle, albeit without ever really setting his feet which leads to his velocity loss and likely some accuracy issues downfield. Two, he's absolutely fuging terrible at sensing or dealing with edge pressure or knowing when even a half roll won't save him from a blitz up the middle. I think a lot of this is because he knows his interior line is frequently blocking down no matter what with how Lane handles RPOs/PA, but he can literally see the pressure coming and still tries to do more than he should on interior blitzes. Therefore, he thinks his information advantage will save him, which leads to him being risky on plays there's no real reason to do so. With the edge thing especially, he's just always convinced he can outrun his problems and waits until the last possible moment, which is a big problem. In the NFL, the best thing you can do is be able to recognize, extend a little bit, and get the ball out when you're not going to be interrupted. If you wait too long, a defender will close down and not give you the luxury of setting your feet. Essentially, he's going to need to be retrained when to function in a pocket and when to move out based on whatever offense he lands in because Lane essentially runs the Baylor/Veer and Shoot tree mixed with some RPO/West Coast chicanery.

If I'm comparing him to recent prospects, there's really two that come to mind. From a performance and processing standpoint, he looks like Sam Darnold--forcing balls and extending plays no matter the cost but generally doing more good than harm at the college level for his team because of decent skill players, knowledge of what the scheme is trying to do, and some level of natural talent. From a mechanical/processing standpoint, I keep thinking Bryce Petty or Jarett Stidham. He's just so bad with a pocket and has such a bizarre toolkit that he looks like he's running a run and shoot half the time, which is simultaneous credit for surviving but make his odds of working out lower. I think he has big upside if you can work on some little things like his touch when he's comfortable and setting his feet before throwing/when to set his feet.

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One thing you might wanna add that I would add to the write-up in the context of rhule and the way they’ll run the offense is that he’s potentially a good way to deploy a healthy mccaffrey. Dude is the king of object reads to determine spot throws which work the best when you have Kamara/McCaffrey type backs who can essentially be their own crack back if a defense keys them off the initial read. Think what the Wentz offense did with Pedersen. Entirely a question of how you build more constraints around that to add optionality at the nfl level, since just RPOs aren’t enough, but it’s an interesting way to potentially create easy yardage at first in the league albeit one that you have to build past. He’s going to have an easier time doing the basic basic things Rhule wanted out of Darnold but beyond that, it’s going to be a very different set of throws and asks albeit he has the talent.

 

[Mr. Scot]

Definitely reads like his best fit would be a West Coast offense.

People aren't going to be too happy about that one comparison though

[Jon Snow]

The only opinion that matters is what the team thinks of the player and what they think they can accomplish with them. Outside noise is mostly butthurt writers and prognosticators who got their evaluations and "big boards" completely wrong because they are not as good at evaluation as they thought they were.

In short.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Jon Snow

[Khyber53]

Complicated read and a lot to digest. Our line and having confidence behind it will be his bugbear. Sounds like last year. And the year before.

If they can hold steady just a bit and he can learn to live in the pocket, this could be good. That natural tendency to look for a quick outlet might pay off with CMC and could, conceivably, get DJ Moore some good opportunities, too.

It's going to take time, though. Hope Butterfingers Bobby doesn't start throwing him under the bus early.

[TheRumGone]

7 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

The only opinion that matters is what the team thinks of the player and what they think they can accomplish with them. Outside noise is mostly butthurt writers and prognosticators who got their evaluations and "big boards" completely wrong because they are not as good at evaluation as they thought they were.

In short.

History shows qbs drafted after the first round have an extremely low chance of turning into franchise qbs. he’s got some really good stuff about his game so I’m hoping we get lucky. I like his attitude kept saying the panthers wouldn’t regret drafting him. So it seems he’s gonna put in the work to be the best he can be. I’m just glad we took a shot. We gotta take our shots.

[hepcat]

That writeup makes it sound like we just drafted a less durable version of Sam Darnold with a little more running ability. 

[FuFuLamePoo]

9 minutes ago, hepcat said:

That writeup makes it sound like we just drafted a less durable version of Sam Darnold with a little more running ability. 

Player comparisons are so fuging stupid. 

[hepcat]

4 minutes ago, FuFuLamePoo said:

Player comparisons are so fuging stupid. 

I agree but they did note he has a lot of the same weaknesses as Darnold. 

[Brooklyn 3.0]

If he can't be objective about a player, why bother reading what he has to say?

[unicar15]

25 minutes ago, hepcat said:

That writeup makes it sound like we just drafted a less durable version of Sam Darnold with a little more running ability. 

That’s a huge difference. Darnold has horrific footwork bc he’s not very mobile. He gets nervous and isn’t good at throwing on the run. Corral stays confident and is really good at throwing on the run so he’s going to be more prone to keep his footwork sound after some good coaching. 

[Snake]

What a crap write up. He has zero objectivity and completely misses and makes up crap along the way. 

[WarPanthers89]

Russell Wilson had a 68.5 prospect grade coming out and here is a nice quote from NFL.coms “scouting report”

• It remains to be seen if he can throw effectively from the pocket at the next level

[WarPanthers89]

Source: Guy who wrote a long article. “Trust me bro”

[FuFuLamePoo]

24 minutes ago, hepcat said:

I agree but they did note he has a lot of the same weaknesses as Darnold. 

Darnold threw x3 the number of INT’s that Corral did in their last years of college, but yeah sure.