March 13, 2016
Every year, each NFL team is allowed to host 30 players at their facilities for pre-draft workouts. Over the last three years during the Chip Kelly era, those pre-draft meetings were outstanding indicators of who the Eagles were likely to draft. To be determined if Doug Pederson's Eagles are cagier with their pre-draft visits than Kelly was.
The Eagles likely already have numerous visits lined up, but the first player who has been reported to have a visit set up with them is Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott, according to Chase Goodbread of NFL.com. (h/t BleedingGreenNation.com).
Prescott's schedule remains the same: the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys with private workouts later this month, and facility visits to the Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills in April.
According to Michael Bonner and Sarah Fowler of The Clarion Ledger, Prescott was arrested for DUI in Mississippi early this morning. Prescott's reputation was that of a team leader and great character kid. Obviously, this slip up will not help his draft stock.
Back in November, we took a detailed look at Prescott's game. His numbers in 2015 were tremendous. Equally important, in my opinion, is that he has shown steady improvement as his college career has progressed:
| Year | Comp-Att | Yards | TD-INT |
| 2012 | 18-29 | 194 | 4-0 |
| 2013 | 156-267 | 1940 | 10-7 |
| 2014 | 244-396 | 3449 | 27-11 |
| 2015 | 316-477 | 3793 | 29-5 |
The obvious thing to note above about Prescott's passing numbers is his TD-INT ratio this year. The other obvious thing to note over the course of his career are his rushing numbers:
| Year | Att | Yards | YPC | TD |
| 2012 | 32 | 118 | 3.7 | 4 |
| 2013 | 134 | 829 | 6.2 | 13 |
| 2014 | 210 | 986 | 4.7 | 14 |
| 2015 | 160 | 588 | 3.7 | 10 |
Prescott has found the end zone as a runner 41 times in his college career. That is impressive.
However, I watched a couple of Prescott's games (vs LSU and Texas A&M in 2015, both of which were losses), and I don't see a quarterback who is ready to have immediate success at the NFL level. He has a ways to go.
In the games I watched, Prescott was not accurate at all throwing deep and intermediate passes. He's high, he's low, he's left, and he's right, but he's rarely hitting his receivers on the mark. He does, however, do a really nice job in the short passing game. While he has the skills to take off and run, he is a "pass first" quarterback, as he will hang in the pocket until his reads have been exhausted, or until he feels pressure.
At the Senior Bowl in January, he did not look good at all during the week of practices but then was named the MVP of the game itself.
Prescott could make sense for the Eagles as a draft-and-groom project, but obviously, he will have more questions to answer now.
