And THE most interesting guy in the draft is … There isn’t much dispute around the NFL that the two most polarizing prospects in this years draft – which for the record gets underway three weeks today – are Georgia DT Jalen Carter and Florida QB Anthony Richardson. A pretty good case can be made, though, that the most interesting prospect this year, or at least the guy getting the most interest these days is Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker. Recall that Hooker was the consensus favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and an emerging top 10 draft prospect unil late in the season when he tore an ACL and kind of dropped off the draft radar. Hooker was still considered to be the 5th QB overall for this year’s draft, but the feeling was that ir was unlikely any team would pull the trigger until the second day because of the injury. However, with the top four QBs likely to be off the board as early as the 4th or 5th picks later this month, a number of teams which would like to get a young QB, but aren’t likely to get one of the top 4 are taking a long hard look at Hooker as a realistic option in the opening round. And again while it isn’t an exact science, Hooker has either visited, or will visit in the next week or so with Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Tennessee, Washington, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, New Orleans, and for some reason the NY Giants. What makes Hooker especially attractive to teams like Las Vegas, who he will visit next week, Tennessee, Washington and Tampa Bay is that none of those teams is really looking for a QB to come in and play right away. Vegas, for example, has Jimmy Garoppolo, in Tennessee Ryan Tannehill still has a year on his contract and Tampa Bay has Baker Mayfield, so they can all afford to bring a player like Hooker along slowly and it could end up being a race to see who is willing to pull the trigger first to see who gets him. Stay tuned!
