Senior Bowl’s Jim Nagy Sees Starter Potential in Michael Pratt

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine that he’d like start drafting quarterbacks on a regular basis. Sure enough, with a seventh-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, he selected Tulane’s Michael Pratt.

“This was a shocker for me,” Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy told Packer Central.

Not that the Packers drafted a quarterback with Jordan Love and Sean Clifford atop the depth chart.

Rather, “I thought this guy had a chance to go in the third round,” Nagy continued.

The consensus was Pratt or South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler would be the next man up after the Big Six went off the board in the first round. Instead, Rattler was the seventh quarterback in the fifth round and Pratt was the 11th and final quarterback selected.

“I didn’t talk to any team that didn’t have him as the seventh or eighth guy,” Nagy said. “Then you go to draft day, and there are guys like Joe Milton, Devin Leary, Jordan Travis.

“Those weren’t the names of the teams I talked to. It was Michael Pratt. There’s so much to like about him. He raised the level of that program at Tulane. I mean, think about this: The guy beats Caleb Williams head-to-head in the Cotton Bowl a couple years ago. They could have gone undefeated this year. Their only loss [until the conference championship game] was against Ole Miss and he didn’t play. They probably would have beaten Ole Miss at home with him in the lineup.

“So, this was the head scratcher of the draft for me. How was this guy sitting around in the seventh round?”

In four seasons that included 44 starts, Pratt completed his career with 9,603 passing yards with 90 touchdowns vs. 26 interceptions. Plus, he rushed for 1,145 yards and 28 touchdowns. He got better with every season, his completion percentage going from 55.1 and 57.6 percent during his first two seasons to 63.6 and 65.4 percent during his final two seasons.

After accumulating 37 total touchdowns in 2022, Pratt was the AAC’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2023.

Team success followed the individual accolades. Tulane had only three 10-win seasons in program history, and none since 1998. However, he led the team to records of 11-3 in 2023 (11-1 when he was in the lineup) and 12-2 in 2022.

“Obviously a winner. He really turned that program around,” Gutekunst said. “He’s a good athlete. He’s got a pretty live arm. Very accurate. Just like the way he handled himself. He had some big wins, so we’re excited. I wanted to add a quarterback and, as we got later and later, he was the only left that we wanted to target, so that was kind of nice.”

As a fifth-round pick last year, Clifford had such an impressive training camp and preseason that Gutekunst didn’t feel the need to sign a veteran to be Love’s backup.

He’ll have to win the job again, though, if Pratt can get up to speed quickly, because he showed an intriguing combination of arm strength and movement ability at Green Bay’s two-day rookie camp.

“Just evaluating the two players, we had a significantly higher grade on Pratt than we had on Clifford,” Nagy said. “I think this guy at minimum could be a really solid No. 2 quarterback in the league and I thought, in the right situation, this guy could end up being a starter. I don’t know how or why he fell but, shoot, that could end up looking like a steal for Green Bay.”