Stanford QB K.J. Costello likely to enter 2020 NFL Draft

The 2020 NFL Draft has a chance at being a pretty special class of offensive skill players with several first-round worthy wide receivers, running backs, and quarterbacks. Depth of talent will be a legitimate strength.

As any draft enthusiast knows, the best draft classes are the ones that have potential starters available for teams on Days 2 and 3. That could be the case at quarterback, and one prospect in particular in Stanford’s K.J. Costello.

Costello is a polarizing prospect at this point in the process. Some draft analysts have him pegged as a potential first-round pick while others, myself included, have him somewhere closer to that fourth-thru-seventh-round range.

Regardless of where his draft grade lands, it appears more and more likely that he’ll indeed be in next year’s pool of prospects.

Stanford coach David Shaw was open and honest about his assessment of Costello and said he has no expectation that his starting quarterback will be on his depth chart for 2020.

“There’s no thought in my mind that he would come back for a fifth year; I don’t think he’s gonna need to,” Shaw said via the Athletic. “He showed last year he can play this game at a high level, and now it’s that transition of going from being a good college quarterback … to a true NFL-caliber starter.”

Costello’s biggest issue is his mechanics. He has a very elongated release and his passes are oftentimes uninspiring en route to their target. I’m not nearly as certain he’s ready to make the jump from the Pac-12 to the NFL, but Shaw is in a much better position to render an opinion on that than I am.

Costello should challenge for the top-five at his position once position rankings start getting cranked out, and it looks like draft fans can focus on him as a legitimate prospect this season despite his status as a redshirt junior.