INDIANAPOLIS — Utah State quarterback Jordan Love has long had his eyes on the NFL, so the fact he tuned in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV is hardly a shock.

While Love was partly watching out of sheer interest in his favorite sport, he also had a personal rooting interest.

Over the past several weeks, he has come to realize that the continued success of Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes is not only making his tricky draft evaluation easier, he’s also giving his draft stock a boost, almost by proxy.

“Seeing that, I was obviously rooting for him to do his best,” Love told Yahoo Sports this week in a sit-down interview at the NFL scouting combine. “Seeing him … a guy [like that], that can make plays and get your team back in it, it’s huge to see.”

And helpful to Love, personally. The 21-year-old is phenomenally gifted — big, at 6-foot-4 and 224 pounds — with arm talent galore. He can make all the throws, from different platforms to boot (like Mahomes), and he has the athleticism to escape and elude pressure.

Although Love has first-round talent — one scout told Yahoo Sports this week that he could see Love going in the top 40 — he’s also coming off an uneven junior season at Utah State, a campaign in which he threw for 3,402 yards and 20 touchdowns but also had 17 interceptions, a concerning number for talent evaluators.

Former Utah State quarterback Jordan Love answers questions from the media during the NFL scouting combine on Tuesday in Indianapolis. (Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) More

Love’s statistical regression after a dazzling 2018 campaign in which he posted a 32-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio has caused teams to dig deeper on him, but it appears they still cannot deny his Mahomes-accentuated positives.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” Love said, when asked if teams have mentioned the comparison to him. “Different teams ask me who I’d compare my game to, and I’d say that too, as well, just as far as arm strength and playmaking ability. I mean, I’m not saying I’m Patrick Mahomes at the end of the day. But I love his game, I love watching his game, and obviously, that’s something I’m trying to implement in my game, as well.”

That Love could actually be getting the benefit of the doubt despite his issue — which hasn’t always been a given for black quarterbacks — doesn’t surprise NFL.com draft analyst Bucky Brooks. After talking to league executives, Brooks says mobile, African-American quarterbacks like Love are tangibly benefitting from the unparalleled success that many black NFL quarterbacks had in 2019.

“The Pat Mahomes-Lamar Jackson bump is real, because the more we get comfortable seeing African-American quarterbacks having success, the easier it is for teams to get comfortable envisioning that guy being their player,” Brooks told Yahoo Sports. “When you looked at, like, four of the top [quarterbacks in 2019], it was Russell [Wilson], it was Mahomes, it was Jackson, Deshaun Watson. All those guys are balling out.

“And so now what is happening is, some of the things that we used to have said about them like, ‘Oh, you can’t play that style and succeed, you can’t play that style and remain healthy, oh those guys can’t pass, oh they don’t have the IQ to be able to run the game’ … now that a bunch of different style of quarterbacks who happen to be African-American have had success, it has kind of opened up the floodgates for the next generation of guys to come through.”

‘I’m gonna figure out what’s gonna work for him’

Love isn’t the only black quarterback at the combine who is positioned to get a similar benefit of the doubt throughout the draft process.

Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, a dual-threat quarterback who this week shot down any possibility of playing a different position in the NFL, must still overcome questions about his passing ability over the next several months. Yet, he was thrilled to see the success of Mahomes, Jackson and others in 2019.

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