Iowa Football: 3 reasons to select Nate Stanley in 2020 NFL Draft

Nate Stanley started for three seasons with Iowa football. While he isn’t the most “talked” about quarterbacks in the draft, he’s one of the most talented.

Nate Stanley was a three-year starter for the Iowa Hawkeyes and now finds himself as one of the 17 quarterbacks invited to the 2020 NFL Draft Combine. However, even with that invitation, he still isn’t one of the quarterbacks you hear a lot from the media.

While Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert are getting all the love as the top three quarterbacks in the draft, Stanley is a talented quarterback as well who could make an NFL team happy down the road.

The big right-handed gunslinger finished his college career with 8,297 yards passing, 68 touchdowns to 23 interceptions and a career completion percentage of 58 percent.

Now that we got some brief background on Stanley, let’s look at some film and go through three reasons why an NFL team should draft him.

3. Ability to make every throw on the field

There are several things about Nate Stanley’s game that jumps off the screen as going through film, but the most apparent trait is his elite arm talent. Let me preface this with saying: arm talent isn’t everything and there are plenty of big-armed quarterbacks who failed in the NFL and plenty of average-armed quarterbacks who had spectacular careers.

However, it certainly helps set you apart if you can sit back and rip it.

I’m not just talking about Stanley’s arm strength here, though, as there are plenty of quarterbacks with big arms who can’t make every throw. Stanley is one of those rare guys who can spin it with the best of them, but is also able to complete any throw that is asked of him. He continually completes NFL throw after NFL throw on tape.

So while, yes, his arm talent is great, his ability to translate arm talent to completions on the field is what’s more impressive.

The below clip is Nate Stanley against Minnesota from the 2019 season. Fast forward to the 3 minute and 20 second clip to watch Nate demonstrate his elite arm strength.

It’s second-and-10 at the end of the third quarter and Stanley effortlessly throws a deep out from the opposite hash and beautifully flattens out his wide receiver towards the sideline.