There are still five weeks left until the 2017 NFL Draft, and I think we have maxed out the Mitchell Trubisky comparisons. The North Carolina quarterback was recently compared with Rich Gannon among executives. Now, Todd McShay is ready to top that. The ESPN draft analyst said one personnel director at Trubisky’s Pro Day compared him to Aaron Rodgers when the Packers QB was coming out of college.
Naturally, that will get tongues wagging, and people calling it crazy talk. I will say that McShay conveyed some context from the personnel director. Here is the specific comment:
One interesting tidbit from QB Mitchell Trubisky's pro day: An NFL personnel director told me that Trubisky's skill set reminds him of Aaron Rodgers entering the league. The similarities: The quick release, the arm talent and the ability stay in balance while moving his feet. A lot of time and motivation went into Rodgers' NFL development, of course, but you see the raw tools with Trubisky.
It is easy to jump all over this comment as more draft exaggeration. But there were plenty of question marks about Rodgers, coming out of Jeff Tedford’s offense. And Rodgers did sit for some time behind Brett Favre, not taking over the starting role until his fourth year in the league.
Hopefully people recognize that this does not mean the personnel director thinks Trubisky will turn into Rodgers, but he sees a similar set of raw skills. Make of that what you want, but it is always fun when anonymous personnel people attach certain names to prospects. The question now is who is the Alex Smith prospect for the 49ers to consider?