NFL Draft: DeShone Kizer Responds to Criticism from Brian Kelly

NFL Draft prospect DeShone Kizer spoke with Rich Eisen yesterday. Here’s what he had to say about his NFL future, and his former head coach’s doubts.

In the National Football League, there is no position that garners more attention and more speculation than quarterback. DeShone Kizer, the former Notre Dame quarterback and NFL Draft prospect, is vying to jockey for better position among a field of passers that also includes Deshaun Watson, Mitch Trubisky, and other talents.

With the NFL Draft beginning on Thursday, major prospects have been making the rounds among sports media. As teams try to do their due diligence in evaluating talent, those players are doing their best to sell themselves not just to franchises but also the fans that will be following them in the pros.

In an interview with The Rich Eisen Show yesterday, the eponymous star of the radio show met with Kizer. He specifically deflected recent criticism from Brian Kelly that he was not ready to play at the professional level. When Eisen asked Kizer about the comments from his coach, here’s what the quarterback said:

"The timing of [the comments], and the way it was pushed out there, was pretty negative. But after going back and having a conversation with him, he’s just making it understood that there’s room for improvement, there is some opportunity for me to get better. And I just decided that it was best for me to get those improvements and develop my game at the National Football League level. You know, I’m in a position now where I get to do this as my job and spend time with this every day, and do whatever I can to become the best quarterback I possibly can. But instead of doing that at Notre Dame for another two years, I’m just going to have to do it in the NFL.There’s no air that needs to be cleared at all. This is a situation where my college coach had planned to be developing me into the best quarterback I can possibly be for the next four to five years when I stepped into this situation."

Ultimately, Kizer was smart to play down the comments from his coach. Kelly’s argument was not so much that Kizer is incapable of playing in the pros, but rather that two years of college ball is not enough for anybody to develop a well-rounded game that will serve well in the NFL.

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Kizer will need a year or two of observation and learning before he can be an effective pro quarterback. That doesn’t, however, make him unique or a lesser prospect. Every quarterback needs time to grasp the intricacies of the game when it speeds up at the next level. For all that Kelly has done during his time in South Bend, this is fairly innocuous.