Former Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein, who came in third place in last month’s Heisman Trophy voting, is the top star at the East-West Shrine Game. But he’s not the top NFL prospect. Not by a long shot.
The reviews are in on Klein’s first Shrine Game practice, and he’s being compared to Tim Tebow. Which is not a good thing, if you want to be an NFL quarterback.
“This is a tough week for Collin Klein, who wants to be an NFL quarterback,” Charles Davis said on NFL Network. “He has many Tebow-esque qualities, including a throwing motion that many people question.”
Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times attended the Shrine Game practice and described Klein’s throwing motion as “very strange.”
And Steve Muench of ESPN.com writes that Klein “labored to drive the ball downfield, needing to summon everything he had to put zip on vertical passes, and . . . also made some questionable decisions.”
The good news for Klein is that he was a great playmaker with his feet in a spread offense at Kansas State, and Colin Kaepernick’s performance for the 49ers against the Packers on Saturday may have NFL teams coveting a quarterback who can make plays with his feet in a spread offense. The problem is that Klein doesn’t have anything close to as good an arm as Kaepernick. And if you make plays with your feet but you don’t have an NFL arm, then quarterback is probably not the position for you in the NFL.