During the final rounds of the 2017 NFL Draft, there will still a number of prospects who had yet to be drafted. One of those was former Miami Hurricanes quarterback Brad Kaaya. He was eventually taken in the sixth round to the Detroit Lions, which was a pretty long wait for him — he was projected to be taken as early as the second round.
A Louisville long snapper got drafted before Miami’s Brad Kaaya. This is not a joke.
Man, this is rough.
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Yes Kaaya was selected, but before he was, a long snapper, Louisville’s Colin Holba went to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the sixth round with the No. 213 overall pick.
Here’s my colleague Richard Johnson on how weird it was that Kaaya was left undrafted for so long.
It’s strange to see a QB with Kaaya’s talents fall this far. No, he isn’t a top-level elite talent. But you’d be hard pressed to find an argument that he isn’t worth a mid-to-late round pick on. There is also the fact that Kaaya’s spent the last season under the tutelage of Mark Richt at Miami, a fairly notable QB tutor as a head coach and Stafford’s former college head coach while both were at Georgia.
There are mobility concerns with Kaaya, but besides that he a screams safe and solid in the right system. The type of guy who won’t turn the ball over and won’t beat you. Draft him, stash him and he could develop without the pressure to start immediately to win you a game or two if Matthew Stafford goes down. If you really strike gold, he could do better than that.
Kaaya obviously isn’t going to start with the Lions, but as he holds a clipboard behind Stafford in Detroit, he can become a competent back-up quarterback in the meantime.
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