Curtis Painter Is the New Matt Ryan

Curtis Painter: coming to an incredibly disappointed NFL city near you.

College football fans outside of Boston were by in large puzzled by the NFL's lofty opinion of 61st-rated passer Matt Ryan, the third pick in the NFL draft. Why Ryan went so high will be a mystery until such time as he proves himself Not Rick Mirer or Not Joey Harrington, but at least Ryan's team played pretty well and, you know, beat some teams that weren't repugnant.

The same cannot be said for Mel Kiper's top-rated senior quarterback for the 2009 NFL draft, Missouri's Chase Dan-- wait... what? CURTIS PAINTER?

10. Curtis Painter, QB, Purdue (6-3½, 225)
He's an impressive pure thrower, but what I liked about Painter's junior season was his improved game management. In 2006, Painter threw 22 touchdowns, but he also had 19 interceptions. Last season, he threw 29 touchdowns but had only 11 picks.

Painter does have one thing in common with Ryan: an underwhelming passer efficiency rating (46th last year in Joe Tiller's QB-friendly system) against a wretched schedule. Outside of the Big Ten, Purdue went up against Notre Dame, Toledo, Eastern Illinois, and Central Michigan... twice.

And, like... last year Tiller completely changed his offense to this weird pistol-option thing that got Purdue's run percentage up 50% specifically because he was terrified of Painter. And he's not good. I know, I've watched him for like four hundred years.