Former Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore, who won 50 games as a starter in college but waited through 253 draft picks without hearing his name called, will get his first NFL opportunity with the Lions.
Signed by the Lions, he’ll settle in as the third quarterback on the depth chart. But he’ll be driven to rise through the ranks, in Detroit or elsewhere.
“I don’t think there will probably be a more motivated quarterback,” Moore said after being passed over, via the Associated Press.
He’s nevertheless happy with where he is. “Going into it, you felt very comfortable and confident that you’d get an opportunity to get drafted,” Moore said. “Bottom line is it didn’t happen. But it’s kind of funny you end up where you’d love to go in the first place.”
Surely, Moore won’t want to stay for very long, given that Matthew Stafford blossomed last season into one of the best quarterbacks in the league. That said, Stafford’s unlikely 5,000-yard season has caused many to forget that his first two seasons were marred by injury.
If Stafford gets injured again, and if backup Shaun Hill gets hurt or plays poorly, Moore will get his chance to show that the knocks on his height and his arm strength and his scrambling ability and his level of competition were misplaced, and that he’s the kind of good football player who can play good football at any level, regardless of whether he arrived via the draft.