Tyler Bray, UDFA, Tennessee (2013)
I was insanely high on Tyler Bray coming out of college and I am not sure if I will ever be as high on an UDFA Quarterback ever again. I will preface this by saying I had a chance to see him play live when Mizzou went down to Tennessee and I was absolutely blown away by the arm strength. Being 6’6, he has the prototypical NFL height and I thought that all of the negatives would be correctable. Looks like they weren’t.
In fairness to Tyler Bray, tearing your ACL multiple times when not having great mobility to begin with is not a good way to show your progression. The accuracy was always a problem in college and while he didn’t get much of a chance to show what he could do in a live NFL game, I assume there is a reason for that. For a player who was seemingly the opposite of Alex Smith, I always wanted to see what Bray could do. I wanted to see the cannon of an arm stretch the field to a streaking receiver like Mahomes is doing now.
Whether it was injuries, the lack of progress on accuracy, or the complete faith in Alex Smith that kept Bray from seeing the field, for me there is always a what if when it comes to what Bray and what could have been. At the end of the day, I obviously trust the Chiefs front office and coaching staff over my viewpoints, but Bray was my great white buffalo of an undrafted free agent quarterback.