Chris Simms Tabs Matt Corral QB1 of the 2022 NFL Draft Class

Kenny Pickett and Malik Willis. Those were the two names everyone had been mocking to the Panthers since January. However, the quarterback the Panthers actually landed on was Matt Corral out of Ole Miss.

When you look at the top quarterbacks in the class, Pickett was deemed the most "pro-ready", Malik Willis had the "highest ceiling", and Desmond Ridder was the "matured winner." Corral was often left out of the QB discussion in this class which is probably due to the offense he played in under Lane Kiffin but maybe more so because of the ankle injury he sustained in the bowl game against Baylor. 

Regardless of where many draft experts had him, the Panthers had him at the top of their board. When they saw the quarterbacks were going to slide, they remained patient.

"Well, you know it’s interesting how the quarterbacks fell," Fitterer said. "People had talked about the whole quarterback group as a whole, whether it’s first round, whatever, but as they start to slide, we kind of took steps back with them. We looked at going up in (round) two, several different times, there was just too much to get up there, but as the numbers stayed on the board that allowed us to be patient, go back with those quarterbacks. We’re just very fortunate to have someone of Matt’s talent sitting there in the third round."

According to Chris Simms of NBC Sports, this is a steal as he has Corral ranked as the top quarterback in the 2022 NFL Draft.

"Insane athlete, he's the quickest quarterback in the draft. There's nobody with quicker feet. Can make people miss, you know, great acceleration. Pop his feet to get back into throwing positions. Nobody can do that as good as Matt Corral, let alone, he's got the quickest release in the draft too. It's as quick of a release as I've seen coming out of college football in a few years actually. Then, we get into the arm strength. The arm strength is phenomenal. The ball absolutely flies out of Matt Corral's hand. To me, he's made for the modern-day NFL. Corral is the most accurate thrower in the draft too. He is. I don't know what his numbers are and I don't even really care. When he sees a target, he can put the ball on the money into the tightest windows out of anybody in this draft. He can do sidearm, he can do both feet off the ground and still throw the ball with great power. Now, the one thing is, he's got to put it al together. It's not all together there yet. I wish we did see a little more of, let's go through reads. There's some of that but a little bit like a Malik Willis or some of the other guys that we've talked about - a lot of the times it's just look at one guy and I'm going to run or take it away."