2019 NFL Draft: Nate Stanley is sneaking back into NFL Draft talk

Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback Nate Stanley was a preseason sleeper 2019 NFL Draft first round prospect. He’s slowly sneaking back into that discussion.

Prior to the start of the 2018 college football season, Iowa Hawkeyes starting quarterback Nate Stanley was a preseason sleeper pick to potentially be a first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

After a slow start to the season when the pads finally went on, the NFL Draft talk slowed down and nearly came to a complete halt as Stanely struggled to a combined three touchdowns and two interceptions in Iowa’s first three games of the season against Northern Illinois, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa.

After his first two games, Stanley had completed just 52 percent of his passes with one touchdown throw in two games against lesser competition.

Since those first two or three games, Stanley has quickly reminded everyone why he was thought to have NFL potential going into this season. He certainly flashed it as a sophomore with the Hawkeyes in 2017 and has started to put together some consistently good, smart football.

It has long been a mystery to me why Iowa was not cranking out top-flight NFL prospects every few years because of Kirk Ferentz’s connections to the league, the fact that he employs an NFL-style attack on both sides of the ball, and recently because his son Brian — a four-year employee of the New England Patriots — is the offensive coordinator and tight ends coach for the Hawkeyes.

With both Ferentz’s operating the show in Iowa, it makes sense that a quarterback has finally come along that now has NFL scouts intrigued.

Stanley has the prototypical size for an NFL quarterback at 6-foot-4, 242 pounds, his body type somewhat reminiscent of Ben Roethlisberger.

He made a Roethlisberger-esque play in 2017 against the Ohio State Buckeyes, too.

Since his slow start, Stanley has caught a bit of a hot streak, throwing 12 touchdowns in his last three games including 10 over the last two weeks, with an eye-popping six-touchdown performance against Indiana.

Though Stanley is still a bit of a work in progress, the signs of progression and the tools are clearly there. He’s taking NFL drops, he’s making the right reads, and other than the occasional overthrow he’s shown vastly improved accuracy with the ball from a year ago.

He’s now throwing receivers open rather than trying to force the ball to receivers who struggle to make tough, contested catches, resulting in a completion percentage increase of nearly seven percent from last season.

It also helps that he has two future NFL tight ends in Noah Fant and T.J. Hockenson catching passes.

Stanley may yet be a season away from NFL-readiness after this one, but he’s showing signs of progression toward eventually being someone’s starter on Sundays.