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Ohio State QB Dwayne Haskins Declares For Draft

January 7th, 2019 at 2:56pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The 2019 draft class got a big addition today when Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins announced in a tweet he would forego his senior season and enter the draft.

We heard last month that Haskins had received a first round grade from the draft’s advisory board, and this move had been widely expected for a while now. At this point Haskins seems like a lock for the first round, and unless something goes wrong, is a heavy favorite to be the first quarterback taken this April.

Haskins went from a relative unknown to one of the biggest players in college football during his lone season as the Buckeyes’ starter. He seamlessly took over for longtime quarterback J.T. Barrett with a sensational junior season, and ended up finishing third in the Heisman voting. His path to being the top signal caller selected in the draft got a lot easier a couple of weeks ago when Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, long thought to be the class’ top quarterback, announced he would return to school next year. 

While Haskins is “probably top-ranked QB of this year’s NFL draft class”, the “early assessment is that he’s not necessarily a plug and play”, meaning he could use some time developing on an NFL bench, according to Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com (Twitter link). For the first time in a while, not a ton of teams picking at the very top of the draft will be in the market for a quarterback, with top picking teams like the Cardinals, 49ers, Jets, and Raiders already having young quarterbacks, so a surprise team could end up trading up and taking Haskins.

NFL Trade Rumors: 2019 NFL DraftDwayne Haskins

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