Dante Moore made the somewhat surprising decision to return to the Oregon Ducks this season when he would have been one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL Draft should he have decided to declare. Now, after a disappointing start to the season, one college football analyst is wondering if the star quarterback could fake an injury to project his draft stock.
During an appearance on The Zach Gelb Show a few days after Oregon’s upset loss to Oklahoma State and Dan Lanning’s testy press conference about Moore’s absence from the podium, NBC college football analyst Joshua Perry pondered whether or not Moore might fake an injury to sit out the remainder of the season.
‘Not saying that he would ever do this…”
Perry suggested that if things continue to go poorly for Oregon this season, Moore might mysteriously develop an injury that would keep him out for the rest of the season to preserve his health for the NFL Draft.
“The other thing human emotion-wise, that I’m gonna project right now, not saying that he would ever do this, but like, I don’t know, do I get a hammy, do I get a little lower back injury, and if things don’t improve, just kind of like, I’m not be around for the mess,” Perry, a former Ohio State linebacker, said on the podcast via Awful Announcing.
“Because one of the things I will say is he’s still spinning it, right? Like dudes are out there dropping the ball. They’re not protecting very well. He is still spinning the rock. And I just, you might get to a point where you’re like, I’m not gonna be a part of the mess anymore.”
Impacts to his draft stock?
After Perry’s suggestion, Gelb pondered how a decision like that would impact Moore’s draft stock.
“I remember Jalen Ramsey, when he was with the Jaguars, had that back injury, and then he wound up with the Rams and he was OK,” Gelb said. “At the quarterback position though, it’s a little bit different. If he does that — oh, my hamstring’s hurting a little bit, my shoulder’s hurting a little bit — quitting on your team as a quarterback, that’s a rough look.”
Perry, however, suggested that it could be framed as “protecting his investment in himself.”
“Yeah, well, I would, if I were his people, I would totally spin it,” Perry said. “I would do the PR. He didn’t quit on the team. The team quit on him before, and he didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. It’s a business he’s protecting, his investment to himself. You could hold it against him — it’s not the most quarterback-y thing to do… If I had $50 million riding on what was going on, and I felt like the best strategy was to just pull the ripcord and not be a part of an offense that wasn’t gonna let me thrive the way that I need to, it’s business at that point.”
Obviously, Oregon still has a lot to play for this year. But if things do continue to go in the wrong direction, perhaps this is something we see from the star quarterback.
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