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In our first month of the positional draft breakdown series, we already discussed running backs, linebackers, wide receivers, cornerbacks, offensive tackles, edge defenders, interior offensive and defensive linemen. This week, we’ll be taking a look at the tight-ends and safeties, before we finish up with the long-awaited quarterback rankings.
This group is obviously headlined by a player who has dominated college football the last three years and has been destined to sit atop this list ever since he was a true freshman. After that, there’s another player who should be a top-50 pick. From that point onwards, these rankings can look a lot different depending on what you personally value and which type of player you’re looking for. I personally have three other names that belong inside the top-100, along with one more guy who could easily be up there with a clean medical bill. The depth in this class is certainly underwhelming however and I would think we’re looking at 15 or 16 total TEs drafted.
Since I mentioned it just now, these rankings are solely based on film analysis, without taking any injury or off-field concerns into account. And for the purposes of this exercises, a “Y” tight-end refers to a player playing on the ball next to the offensive tackle, an “F” is your more modern move option – which also includes big slot players – and an “H-back” or wing is someone lining up off the ball, either on the hip or just behind the tackle.
Let’s now get into it:
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1. Brock Bowers, Georgia

6’3”, 240 pounds; JR
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Just outside the top-100 overall recruits in 2021, As a true freshman, Bowers caught 58 passes for 882 and 13 touchdowns, along with four carries for 56 and another score, That made him a second-team All-American and first-team All-SEC selection, His follow-up campaign was even better, hauling in 63 balls for 938 yards and rushing for another 109 yards on nine carries, including ten total TDs, winning the John Mackey award for the top TE in the country and just losing out to Michael Mayer for first-team All-American, whilst winning back-to-back national titles. He missed three weeks with a sprained ankle this past season, but still made first-team All-American for turning 62 touches into 742 yards and seven TDs across ten games.
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Blocking:
+ Routinely used as the H-back and wing-man, while Darnell Washington lined up as the de-facto Y in prior years, before spending nearly 40% of snaps in-line last season
+ Offers a good initial strike and is regularly able to turn guys on the edge further outside, so they don’t affect runs between the tackles
+ Does well to get underneath the chest and/side of C-gap defenders and allowing linemen to pull around, such as on power
+ You like what Bowers gives you leading the way out towards the sideline, lending a help-hand if necessary and snatching up DBs on fly sweeps for example
+ Well-coordinated and fundamentally sound at securing blocks in space when split out, while continuing to re-fit his hands and never stopping his feet from churning
+ Urgently approaches safeties or slot defenders and gives his teammates a clear indication of where to go on perimeter runs and screens
+ Quickly turns himself into a blocker when he sees one of his fellow receivers secure catches and is able to land his hands into the frame of defenders at a high rate
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Releases & route-running:
+ Provides the vertical push to put off-defenders on their heels and come opens as he breaks off intermediate routes, since he can really drop his weight and make sharp transitions
+ Has the footwork put himself in leverage advantages against press-defenders, leans into and nudges them off effective to create separation at the top of the route
+ Putting Bowers in stacks or bunches with his man in outside leverage becomes dangerous if he runs drag routes
+ You can not allow this guy to zoom up the hashes uncontested or he’ll burn you, yet he also offers the nimble feet to elude ancillary defenders without really getting off track
+ Shows a good understanding for widening his stem in order to create more space for himself as he breaks into voided space of zone coverage
+ Frequently was able to create a favorable target pushing up to depth, rapidly turning around knifing upfield for good yardage on sit-routes over the middle
+ Bockers can truly line up as a single receiver on the backfield and defeat corners
+ Has posted elite PFF grades each of his first two seasons (92.1 and 90.0) with the Bulldogs, with passer ratings above 140 when targets in each of those
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ While tracking the ball early already, Bowers doesn’t reach out or back and lead defenders to initiate contact at the catch-point typically until he needs to
+ Showcases high-level hand-eye coordination and does well on those awkward adjustments, having to reach behind or slow down as he’s running at full speed – only dropped eight of 178 catchable targets these past three years combined (4.4%)
+ Displays strong hands in tight areas and has the frame to deal with contact, while naturally clearing the hands of defenders trying to contest the catch – hauled in 23 of 39 contested targets in his career (59.0%)
+ He’s continued to become more effective at getting past defenders, identifying defenders in pursuit and crossing them up unlike – last season, he forced 18 missed tackles on just 56 catches, which is closer to a top-tier running back in terms of that rate
+ You see Bowers constantly drag tacklers along and make those guys look small – Against TCU in the 2022/23 National Championship, the phrase “man amongst boys” was truly on display, as he hauled in all seven of his targets for 152 yards and a touchdown
+ Pullls those knees up high to not have hie leg cut down from underneath him and racked up at least 479 yards after the catch in each of his three seasons with the Bulldogs – only now-Ravens standout Isaiah Likely had more than 406 in any of those years
+ That’s why the Bulldogs handed him jet sweeps, end-arounds and reverses as actual elements to the rushing offense, along with screens
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Weaknesses:
– Undersized for an extended in-line role and wasn’t asked to do that a whole lot leading up to 2023
– When bigger edge defenders are able to get into his chest, they can dictate terms to him in the run game, and you see Bowers overextend as a result, which still leads to some unfavorable position
– More of a build-up speed than instant explosion off the line I’d say (with no official timed speed on it)
– After excelling in that area coming into his junior season (70% combined), Bowers was only able to haul in two of nine contested targets in 2023 (22.2%) and he fumbled twice
– Won’t be able to bully defenders after the catch in the pros like he did in college
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Any argument for Brock Bowers not being a top-ten prospect in this draft revolve around nit-picking and wanting to slap the label of “tight-end” on him, which simply doesn’t encapsulate what role he’ll fulfill. If he was a pure slot receiver, he should probably be a first-round pick anyway. You can line him at basically any of the eligible spots and he can win his matchups vs. man-coverage or work towards space against zone. He tracks the ball and adjusts to it very well, he can secure targets through contact and then once it’s in his hands, he can either make people miss or take them along for the ride on his way towards the end-zone. If you do want to utilize him as more of a traditional in-line option, the lack of raw mass to gain control and sustain blocks will be lesser than some of other guys in this class, but he can get the job done when asked to, especially if you put him on the edge for a wide zone-based scheme, where he can combo up with the tackle to help get the ball out to the perimeter. Positional value and how it compares with the money he’s actually going to be paid relative to a wide receiver in that range will be brought up, but this is a unicorn-like prospect who has absolutely dominated the SEC for the last three years, even if the NFL is still a big step up of course.
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2. Ja’Tavion Sanders, Texas

6’4”, 245 pounds; RS SO
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A five-star recruit in 2021, Sanders redshirted his first year at Texas, before setting a Longhorns single-season record for tight-ends with 54 catches in his actual debut campaign, accounting for 613 yards and five touchdowns. He caught nine fewer passes and only reached the end-zone twice in 2023, but put up 682 yards and helped Texas win the Big 12 along earning a CFP berth, while making first-team all-conference individually.
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Blocking:
+ Can fire out of a three-point stance, with a former defensive end background (20 TFLs and 11 sacks as a high school senior) and provides great leg-drive
+ Able to dish out powerful drive-blocks on the move and more than just “securing” targets in space – you see him ride DBs out of bounds every once in a while
+ Continues to bring his hips around and is able to reach-block the point-man on perimeter-oriented run concepts
+ The Longhorns put Sanders at H-back a ton and tasked him with a variety of assignments in the run game, whether he was pulled out to the corner or was brought across the formation on split zone or counter, where he’d wrap around for linebackers
+ Reliably lands the near-shoulder into the inside half of edge defenders on kickouts, in order to force them to work around him
+ Excellent at locating and latching onto targets on the move as part of end-arounds, reverses, etc.
+ Has some tremendous showcases of effort, to actually pass his teammates and getting a piece of defenders way down the field
+ You saw Sanders work underneath the formation and pick up legit edge rushers as part of the protection on play-action and holding his own for a few reps against names like Alabama all-world edge rusher Will Anderson Jr.
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Releases & route-running:
+ Has easy acceleration off the line, with the speed to blow by the second level and split the safeties in two-high looks if you let him release cleanly
+ Could become a nightmare for linebackers in match-coverages when he runs benders and forces them to turn with him
+ His change of direction skills for a guy at his measurements are pretty rare, throwing in hip-shifts
+ Offers the quick feet and ability to turn his shoulders away from defenders to elude press-attempts and put guys in catch-up mode
+ Continues to swipe and swat the near-hand of defenders trying to stick to him across the field
+ Effectively applies pacing on double-moves, baiting defenders to undercut the initial break before bursting away from them
+ Had PFF receiving grades of 76.1 and then 79.0 these past two years
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ Showcases excellent flexibility and sticky hands to deal with suboptimal ball-placement – didn’t drop a single pass (45 receptions) in 2023
+ Can shield the ball with body and seems unbothered by contact as he’s extending for it
+ You see plenty of catches that allow the defender back into the catch window and Sanders being able to bail out the quarterback – posted a 53.6% contested rate in his career
+ Whether he has to embrace an oncoming hit by a safety barreling down on him or turn his body away from shallow zone defenders underneath him as he secures the catch, Sanders avoids opportunities for the ball to be jarred loose regularly
+ Has that instant burst once the ball is in his hands, to challenge the pursuit angles of defenders – Averaged 7.7 yards after the catch this past season
+ Displays splendid lateral quick to side-step or jump-cut defenders in the open field, yet is also capable of running through safeties in his way when he drops the pads on them, converting speed to power effectively
+ Was put on lots of chip-releases and became a dump-off option with RAC opportunities, and Texas also set up screen passes for him
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Weaknesses:
– His hands do slide outside the frame of front-seven defenders and he ends up holding quite a bit – was penalized ten times over the past two seasons combined
– As a slot receiver. Sanders has room for improvement in terms of breaking down and putting his body in front of DBs on screen passes
– The foot quickness is there, but currently he’s too upright trying to release out of two-point stances and doesn’t counter the initial jam effectively enough
– Needs to work on his ability to freeze the feet of defenders in man-coverage, particularly when he has the advantage by leverage and allows those guys to stay in phase anyway (to disrupt the catch-point)
– Has some balance issues after the catch trying to get up the field when he takes dump-offs underneath
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Being TE2 in a class with a talent at the top like in this draft is sort of an unenviable position, because the rest of the group is barely being discussed. However, in many other years Sanders would at least get a lot more attention. The urgency out of his stance and the ability to block on the move are excellent. As a receiver, he offers quick acceleration from any alignment, showcases impressive of change-of-direction, catches pretty much anything in his vicinity and offers an impressive blend of speed, agility and power after the catch. He did not test like the athletic freak you were expecting at the combine, running a 4.69 at 245 pounds, and he needs refinement as receiver to avoid contact early and separate from it during the route. Sanders’ best role in the NFL is one as an H-back and big slot, although it will not exclude in-line duties from his task list. So depending on his development, he could land anywhere from a Pro Bowl-level F tight-end to a WR3 with mismatch ability as the baseline. I would be willing to invest a top-50 pick in him.
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3. Ben Sinnott, Kansas State

6’4”, 250 pounds; RS SR
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Once a former zero-star recruit for 2019, Sinnott originally committed to South Dakota, but didn’t see the field until he enrolled at K-State the following season. 2022 is when he finally started getting extended run, catching 31 passes for 447 yards and four touchdowns. However, he basically put up 1.5 times those numbers his final year with the Wildcats (49-676-six) and made first-team All-Big 12.
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Blocking:
+ Used in a variety of ways, playing in-line, the slot, wing and fullback
+ His natural leverage advantage and powerful lower half allows Sinnott to help dig out C-gap defenders on combos with the tackle
+ K-State shifted him into an offset I-formation and used him as a lead-blocker a few times, where he was able to get under the pads of linebackers and ride them out of the lane
+ Was regularly asked to work out to the corner and clear the way on QB keeps or sweeps, with the light feet to secure targets in space
+ Frequently sifting underneath the O-line, Sinnott shows the ability to not get hung up with bodies in the backfield, but rather to stay tight to the backs of his teammates and wrap around onto force defenders, while the QB reads the unblocked edge defender get too far up the field
+ With his wide base and sticky hands, Sinnott can be relied upon to contribute in pass-pro against edge rushers a few times per game from in-line or wing alignment
+ Received PFF run- and pass-blocking grades well above 70 last season (76.1 and 72.8 respectively)
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Releases & route-running:
+ Has some pretty snappy hips for more of a tall fullback build, to where he can gain separation on dig routes
+ Navigates around traffic at a very efficient level and you see him fluidly adjusts the steepness of his angles on the fly on deep crossers
+ Even if he gets knocked off track a little bit, Sinnott stays focused on getting back to his landmarks and maintaining a place in the pattern
+ Showcases excellent understanding for how to widen windows for himself with the way he stems and bends vertical routes between the hashes
+ Works to depth and then offers a swift turn back to the quarterback to eat against zone coverage, whether he’s splitting linebackers or curls up in front of deep safeties
+ Realizes when to slow his pace a little bit in order to take advantage of the space between the second and third level in shell coverages
+ Had an average depth of target of over 10 yards each of the past two seasons, yet passer ratings of 127.7 and 105.3 respectively when targeted
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ Has continued to work on tight overhand positions on targets above the belt – only dropped two of 50 catchable targets in 2023
+ Because of that more compact build, it’s tough to really affect the catch-point unless you actually wrap around him – 66.7% contested catch rate in 2022
+ Plus then he has the strong hands to swallow the ball when he has to work to his quarterback with defenders driving on the throw
+ Makes some challenging catches where he has to elevate for the ball and snatch it at full extension and pull it into his body
+ When he catches the ball on the run, you see Sinnott drag along tacklers and force more people to join the party
+ Displays great awareness for pursuit angles and finds solutions in the open field, hitting a well-timed spin move occasionally
+ Has more quicks and wiggle to him as a runner than defenders might anticipate – forced 14 missed tackles and gained 31 first downs across his 48 receptions last season
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Weaknesses:
– Only having 32.5-inch arms limits his reach as a blocker and his catch-radius
– Earned just a 58.8 PFF run-blocking grade in 2022 and while he did significantly improve on that last season, edge defenders are able to establish first meaningful contact thanks to their length and take control of reps, along with his punch lacking some striking power
– Long, speedy edge rushers are able to turn the corner on him in pass-protection and I wouldn’t want to leave him one-on-one with guys from wide alignments
– Sinnott is quick at getting through his breaks, but the acceleration out of them leaves you wanting a little more
– May be able to gain a step on trailing defenders as a vertical threat, but he’s not going to split safeties or really pull away defensive backs with his long speed
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I just outlined Sinnott as one of “my guys” as one of my favorite tight-ends/H-backs to watch over the past two seasons. I understand why the scouting community may be underrating him, considering he lacks top-end speed and the length you typically like to see from in-line options. However, you can argue nobody in the country play the position in a more well-rounded manner last season outside of Georgia’s Brock Bowers. Sinnott can take on a varied blocking role in terms of different alignments and assignments. He’s a more sudden route-runner than you might expect, he’s become a highly consistent catcher of the ball and then he’s one of the more effective YAC players at the position, thanks to his awareness for bodies, how quickly he processes information and the physicality of a fullback that he runs the ball with. Looking at his athletic profile, it’s eerily similar to Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl tight-end T.J. Hockenson and I believe this guy could do a lot of the same damage in the short to intermediate range. His jumps were in the 94th and 97th percentile respective and he was tied for the second-fastest three-cone drill among ALL players at the combine (4.82). I value him as a mid-day two selection, compared to falling to day three based on consensus boards.
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4. Cade Stover, Ohio State

6’4”, 250 pounds; RS SR
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Initially recruited as a linebacker inside the top-100 of the 2019 class, despite being mainly used as a running back in high school, Stover was used in the defensive front-seven as a rotational player his first two years with the Buckeyes before making the switch to tight-end. After catching five passes for 76 yards in 2021, he turned 36 receptions into 406 yards and five touchdowns as a redshirt junior. In 2023, he put up career-highs in catches (41) and yards (576), along with five more TDs, which earned him second- and first-team All-Big Ten recognition by the coaches and media respectively.
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Blocking:
+ Legit Y tight-end with a heavy workload playing in-line and a linebacker mindset approaching contact
+ Excels at securing the end-man at the line of scrimmage and allowing his tackle to overtake, while cutting off a scraping linebacker on outside zone
+ Does an outstanding job of sealing off guys on the backside, urgently covering ground laterally and swiveling his hips around
+ Capable of displacing C-gap defenders and proving a lot of space for pullers coming around on powecounter etc. towards him
+ Seems comfortable blocking on the move, either on kick-outs or lead-blocks out to the corner, such as on sweep plays
+ With how sturdy he is, Stover doesn’t need to overextend and can take a blow to his chest from safeties without giving them an angle around him on screen passes
+ Has the frame and plays with the sink in his hips to be an effective pass-protector (68.6 PFF grade in that regard last season)
+ Legitimately gets edge defenders airborne when he delivers chips before getting out in his route
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Releases & route-running:
+ For a converted tight-end with his size, Stover releases pretty easily from a staggered stance or a hand in the ground
+ His burst from a two-point stance to get up the seam is a lot more impressive than out of an in-line alignment
+ Already has shown substantial improvements at setting up intermediate breaks, with a sharp drive step to come out flat and not allow angles to undercut him
+ Can use his size to create openings for the ball as he slightly pushes off at the break-point
+ Light on his feet and reduces the near-shoulder well to evade ancillary zone defenders, yet if they do get a piece of him, Stover typically isn’t pushed off track too far usually
+ Quick to get his head around as he enters voided space and became a safety blanket for an otherwise confidence-lacking Kyle McCord – hauled in 29 of 32 targets of less than ten yards last season
+ Earned PFF receiving grades above 93 for every level of depth (negative, 0-9, 10-19 and 20+ yards) and averaged a career-best 2.02 yards per route run in 2023
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ Attack targets at their earliest available window and with optimal use of his hands – only dropped two passes in 2022 and none last year across 100 combined targets (and 79 catchable ones)
+ Actively works back to the ball with defenders closing on it, to not have passes broken up
+ Strong hands to survive defenders making contact with his backside and raking through the catch-point
+ Showed insane hand-eye coordination in the 2023 Notre Dame game to come down with a passes that got batted around on a prayer from QB Kyle McCord over the middle
+ Catches and pierces on targets where he turns back towards the quarterback, getting vertical immediately and turning his pads away to minimize surface area
+ Becomes a tank to bring down with the ball in his hands, as defenders just slip off him or he drags them along – averaged a substantial 6.9 yards after the catch this past season
+ You see him spin off hits and even hurdles diving attempts occasionally
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Weaknesses:
– Tends to lead with his pads and could still latch his hands more emphatically to stay connected as a run-blocker
– Doesn’t offer a whole lot of juice vertically or after the catch – Not somebody who’s going to threaten the seams for you, to where you see linebackers catch back up and make plays on the ball
– Still developing his stem work and how to set up eventual breaks as a route-runner
– There’s some stiffness in his upper body trying to adjust and contort for passes without losing speed
– Showed up lighter than expected at the combine (247 pounds), yet his 4.65 in the 40 and the 36.5-inch vertical were both slightly below-average, he finished dead-last among tight-ends with a 9’8” broad jump and he second-to-last in the short shuttle (4.45)
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Watching Stover with the background knowledge of him being a former linebacker does make you notice a slight difference in the way be moves. Yet, it also shows up in his affinity for contact and battling with front-seven defenders. While there is still room to perfect how he initiates contact, it’s the fact that he doesn’t really play fast or is particularly loose as a receiver that makes you question how much of a difference-maker in that regard. Having said that, he may very well end up as the best blocker from Y or wing alignments from this class and he presents upside to still improve his ability to separate. I feel confident in his ability to get on the field quickly, since on top of what he provides in the run game, he does settle or slows down effectively in open areas and fundamentally sound in how he approaches passes, catching pretty much everything coming his way. If he can grow his route his ability to set up routes and makes flexibility a high priority, he can be a quality starter in the NFL, worthy of a top-100 selection.
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5. Theo Johnson, Penn State

6’6”, 260 pounds; RS JR
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One of the top-100 national recruits in 2020, as a true freshman, Johnson caught four passes (for 56 yards) seeing very limited action across seven games. Over the following two seasons, he started 15 of 24 contests, hauling in 39 combined passes for 541 yards and five touchdowns.
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Blocking:
+ Highly appealing physical profile with old-school size and new-school athleticism
+ Impressive ability to roll his hips into contact to create momentum as a run-blocker and his 33-inch arms are a major plus at winning the battle with edge defenders to not be out-reached and give up control
+ Excellent initial quickness and lateral agility to reach-block edge defenders lined up to his outside shoulders in order to allow the ball to get out to the perimeter
+ Regularly was utilized as a lead-block on gap and inside zone plays, often times lining up next to the quarterback in shotgun from split backfield looks
+ Happily throws his shoulder into backside edge defenders when sifting across the formation, but will keep them off balance with some effective cut-blocks to mix it up
+ Penn State worked in some misdirection plays, where Johnson would pivot around and basically “pull” out to the corner in order to turn into an effective lead-blocker
+ Does a good job of coming to balance against safeties on swing screens and other perimeter plays when lined up in the slot, yet can also ride people into the boundary when given the chance at a higher pace
+ Shows good fundamentals when asked to stay in protection, shuffling along with his feet and shoulder aligned, paired with a well-timed two-handed punch
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Releases & route-running:
+ Had a massive average depth of target in 2022 (13.1 yards), yet the passer rating when targeted still ended up at a perfect 158.3
+ This past season with Brenton Strange off the NFL (second-round pick for the Jaguars), he was used more over the middle of the field, hauling in all but one of 19 targets from 0 to 10 yards between the numbers
+ Is able to cleanly get off the line typically from Y-alignments, even as defenders try to knock him or somebody slants his way
+ Packs a solid one-two step and swipe-down to defeat defenders matched up with him from detached alignments
+ Could use some improvement in the way he decelerates and sets up breaks, but the acceleration coming out of them makes you perk up
+ Showcases the sudden explosiveness to peel off the edge or leak underneath the formation out into the flats for RAC opportunities
+ Instantly turns his head as he’s clearing the second level on routes down the seams
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ Showcases the hand-eye coordination to haul in passes put right on his frame just as his head turns back for them
+ Plucks passes from the top shelf on routes over the middle of the field to save his quarterback a few times
+ Makes several underhand catches on throws out to the flats off peel- and leak-routes without showing any issues of securing the ball and turning up the ball
+ The ball just sticks to those 10-and-¼ inch mitts – never dropped more than two passes in any season, including two last year on 36 catchable targets
+ Was only given nine contested catch opportunities, but did haul in six of those, displaying good focus with guys sticking to his hip
+ Instantly turns up the field, with the speed to stride away from and the affinity for contact to go through tacklers for yards after the catch
+ You see defenders race down on him catching a crossing route their way and Johnson has them bounce off his quads before getting upfield
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Weaknesses:
– Overruns his targets when asked to work across the formation at times, especially when he’s supposed to wrap around and isolate second-level defenders
– Doesn’t always seem like he’s super confident in his route-running (particularly vs. zone-coverage) and sort of paces himself as he’s deciphering the defensive picture
– His footwork against contact early in the route need work and he allows defenders to stay tight in man-coverage more than they should be able to when he has a speed advantage
– Needs to improve how he utilizes his physicality to create separation, nudging instead of being obvious with pushing off defenders
– Lacks creativity with the ball in his hands, not even trying to put moves on people a whole lot – only forced two missed tackles across 34 receptions this past season
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Johnson has seen an astronomic rise since his legitimately historic combine performance. He finished with a nearly perfect relative athletic score (9.99 out of 10), thanks to the second-best mark among tight-ends in the 40 (at 4.57), along with second in the vertical (at 39.5 inches) and broad jump (10’5”) and posted the best 20-yard shuttle time (4.19). During Senior Bowl week, I thought you also saw the easy burst off the line, along with an improved ability to violently drop his hips and burst out of his breaks, being named the National team’s Tight-end of the Week. He doesn’t always play up to those athletic measurements, even if the flashes may be there. Right now, he’s at his best lining up in the box as a blocker who can take on diverse assignments and then release off play-action to rip off plays where he has room to run and bowl over defenders at the end of it. In order to come close to his potential as a detached receiver, he really needs to work on pairing his hand-swipes with the appropriate step-coordination to gain control of routes early and then be more subtle with creating late separation. If he can do that, he has the potential to turn himself into the second-best TE of this class.
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6. Erick All, Iowa

6’4″, 250 pounds; RS SR
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A four-star recruit for Michigan in 2019, All had less than 100 receiving yards across his first two seasons, before hauling in 38 passes for 437 yards and two touchdowns in 2021. Only three games into the following season (three receptions for 36 yards) he suffered a back injury which required surgery. For the final 2023 season, he transferred in-conference to Iowa, where across seven games he secured 21 receptions for 299 yards and three TDs, before unfortunately tearing his ACL.
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Blocking:
+ Has quality experience at H-/fullback and then more as in-line TE/wing for two of the most run-heavy pro style offenses in college football
+ Gives you quality effort generally as a blocker and works off combos with the appropriate timing
+ Strikes with forces when he has a bit more of a runway on split-zone or climbing up to the second level
+ Showcases impressive mobility to pull across the formation and become a lead-blocker, where he delivers some oomph on contact
+ Won’t slow down and ultimately finds work if he gets through the second level without anybody being in his path to block
+ Did well to run off coverage from the slot by putting his head down and forcing safeties to open with him
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Releases & route-running:
+ Capable of dropping the hips and cleanly getting out of square breaks, but also plant and getting through transitions quicker, such as on delayed glances or you can even see it on a few shovel passes or sweeps
+ Runs some impressive angle routes basically, where he widens the stem vs. outside-leveraged defenders and at times actually get them to flip their hips that way before he breaks across their face
+ Effectively bends off the outside foot on quick routes towards the sideline
+ Displays the suddenness with his feet to elude ancillary zone defenders and be efficient with getting to his ultimate landmarks
+ While he was mainly clearing out space, All does provide a vertical component, pushing up the seams with plus acceleration
+ Iowa utilized him more down the field, where he’d run corner-post routes, showing a nice head-fake to get defenders leaning the wrong way
+ Averaged what would be strong mark for wide receivers with 2.62 yards per route run in 2023
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Approaching the catch & YAC:
+ Does a nice job of high-pointing the ball and turning his body away from contact
+ Tracks the ball over the shoulder and cleanly catches it with his finger-tips on floating passes
+ Shows natural adjustments to back-shoulder placement based on the leverage of the defender and quickly pulls the ball into his frame to not allow it to be knocked out
+ Whether he hesitates or just makes subtle adjustments to his path, All has a knack for not giving defenders in the open field a straight shot at him
+ Has a bit of that bowling ball quality to him with the ball in his hands and plenty of horsepower to churn through wraps
+ All will stutter his feet to make defenders stop theirs, then plant and have his pads and hips aligned to drive through one shoulder of them
+ When he has space to run off crossers or slide routes, you’ll see this guy really pump those arms and be able to turn up the sideline for explosive plays
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Weaknesses:
– Would more so throw a shoulder into defenders during his time at Michigan instead of latching his hands and sustaining blocks by driving his feet through
– Gets driven into the backfield at times when asked to cut off edge defenders on the backside from crashing through the C-gap
– Needs to play with a more consistent physicality and more active hands against defenders working hard to sticky to him
– Finished his career with a 13.4% drop rate, showcasing a side-by-side clap-attack tendency
– Suffered season-ending injuries in back-to-back seasons, including what is always rather scary with back surgery
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While I started taking notes on All in 2021 and liked plenty that I saw on broadcasts, considering he only played in ten combined games – and didn’t even finish two of those – over the past two seasons and what an atrocity this Iowa offense has been to watch, he did leave my mind to a certain degree until I actually went back to study him. I was very impressed with his ability to go through different breaks with the appropriate suddenness or haste, some of the tough grabs he was able to hold onto and then how he’d navigate through contact once the ball was in his hands. With that being said, how he approaches more routine catches going forward and works on actually connecting with his hands as a blocker as well will determine how he turns early opportunities into extended ones. He may not ever be a true Y, but as a number two for an offense, who can line up on that guy’s hip or is featured more in the backfield, I really like his ability to get to spots and create that initial displacement on the collision with defenders, even though he doesn’t yet secure those as well as you’d like. His injury history will certainly push him down boards, but with a clean bill or at least confidence from your medical stuff that it won’t affect him going forward, I’d be fine with selecting him early on day three.
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7. Jaheim Bell, Florida State

6’2″, 240 pounds; SR
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The rest of the analysis can be found here!

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8. Tanner McLachlan, Arizona

6’5”, 240 pounds; RS SR
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9. Dallin Holker, Colorado State

6’4”, 240 pounds; RS SR
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10. Tip Reiman, Illinois

6’5”, 270 pounds; RS JR
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The next names up:

Jared Wiley (TCU), Jack Westover & Devin Culp (Washington), McCallan Castles (Tennessee), A.J. Barner (Michigan), Brevyn Spann-Ford (Minnesota) & Trey Knox (South Carolina)
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If you enjoyed this article, please visit the original piece & feel free to check out my video on the biggest risers and fallers coming out of the NFL combine!
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Twitter: @ halilsfbtalk
Instagram: @ halilsrealfootballtalk
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Finishing up our first month of positional draft rankings, we close the chapter on trench warriors with the interior D-line. This group includes all players on the defensive side of the ball lining up anywhere from a zero- to a four-/five-technique depending on your labelling, although it’s rare to find such a clearly defined alignment roles these days. Just for clarification on how I will reference them:
0 = head-up on the center, 1 or shade = shoulder of the center, 2i = inside shoulder of the guard, 2 = head-up on the guard, 3 = outside shoulder of the guard, 4i = inside shoulder of the tackle, 4/5 = head-up on the tackle
This is a group that includes two incredible prospects worthy of top-20 selections and between five and seven other names that should go on day two. You can find useful players after that, but there is certainly a drop-off and you’re looking at role players or unrefined projects.
Let’s get into the list now:
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1. Jer’Zhan Newton, Illinois

6’2”, 285 pounds; RS JR
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Just outside the top-1000 overall recruits of 2020, Jer’Zhan “Johnny” Newton enrolled in 2020 and saw some action as a backup year one, but entered the starting lineup as a sophomore. Last season he racked up 61 tackles, 14 of those for loss, 5.5 sacks, three passes batted down and two fumbles recovered, which earned him first-team All-Big Ten and second-team All-American accolades. This past season he improved to first-team All-American and was named the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year, despite to his numbers slightly dropping off (52 tackles, 8.5 for loss, sacks, two PBUs, a fumble forced and recovered each.
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~Run defense:~

• Improved massively from his freshman season (611 snaps) to year two, going from a 57.7 PFF grade to 91.0, which ranked behind only Jalen Carter and Calijah Kancey in 2022 and made him the most valuable Power Five interior defensive lineman according to PFF’s “wins above average” metric
• This guy’s a bowling ball of butcher knives, who constantly seems to be disrupting plays as a presence in the offensive backfield
• Super effective at slicing through lanes in the zone run game to shut down the front-side
• You see like one stupid back-door play on a guard that has the running back cut all the way back every week it seems like
• When he can’t get to the play-side shoulder of linemen chasing the ball from behind, Newton makes sure to apply force under their arm pit and ride them down the line, whilst staying ready for the ball-carrier on potential cut-backs
• Has some snaps where he recognizes he’s being pinned down and the guy across from him pulls out to the corner, yet Newton is able to go over the top in order to funnel the ball-carrier back inside
• Has the power and knack for pulling blockers off himself and show up in the gap when the ball arrives there
• Finished just one run stop short of the top mark (30) among Power Five interior D-linemen in 2022 and then four short of it (25) this past season

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~Pass-rush:~

• If he can just get up the field as a three-technique, his ability to burst through the gap and angle towards the quarterback in designated passing situations made him nearly impossible for college guards to handle – had two big sacks against Wisconsin that way in 2023 (one taken off by penalty)
• Packs a quick two-handed downward-swipe directly into the rip-through in order to get past the hip of the blocker, often paired with a little stutter to beat guards cleanly off the line
• Showcases a fluid club-swim combo to step past the hip of guards and corner his rush towards the passer, even as he has to drive through contact with blockers being able to recover
• Recognizes when guards overset on him and has the lateral quicks to cross-face them in a hurry
• Is constantly looking for secondary wins and how to impact pass plays, by batting down passes or cutting off angles for the quarterback
• Pulls linemen aside like they’re nothing a few times per game as he recognizes the offense is running play-action or someone’s just leaning into him
• The ability to stick his foot in the ground curve around as the looper on games up front is pretty scary for a guy of approximately 300 pounds
• Flashes some eye-opening chase speed when he pursues quarterback out to the sideline
• His 102 total QB pressures over the past two seasons are ten more than any other interior D-linemen across that stretch

~Weaknesses:~

• On the shorter end of NFL interior defensive linemen, with his 76-inch wingspan putting him in the sixth percentile, giving him less room for error
• Would benefit from striking with his hands to take control of the line of scrimmage early on against down-blocks before really tracking the backfield action
• At times appears to be oblivious to angular blockers and allow himself to get washed down the line
• Has room to become more precise and effective with chopping/swatting down the near-hand of pass-protectors, as well as being more pro-active with his counters

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If Penn State left tackle Olu Fashanu is the most overthought prospect in this draft, Newton is kind of the forgotten man, yet I have both as my top names for their respective positions at a time where it seems other guys have surpassed those two on consensus rankings. Calijah Kancey was a top-20 pick for the Buccaneers last year and while Newton isn’t quite explosive off the ball, I think he’s a better all-around player. Now, he does also come in with some length concerns and if he’s asked to stack-and-shed blockers more regularly for his future team, he’ll need to become better with reacting to pressure points and setting the tone on contact with his hands. However, I would love how he projects into a traditional three-technique role for an even front team, I think he gives you alignment versatility – particularly in defined dropback situations – and what separates from a lot of these disruption-style players we see at the position is that if he connects with his hand combats, he links those with his hips in order to actually step through and create a path towards the ball for himself. To me, Johnny is a top-15 player in this draft.
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2. Byron Murphy II, Texas

6’1”, 300 pounds; JR
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One of the top-500 overall recruits in 2021, due to the crazy depth of the Texas D-line, Murphy started only two of 25 games played over his first two years with the Longhorns, recording 41 total tackles, 6.5 of those for loss and three sacks. This past season he cracked the lineup and made first-team All-Big 12 as well as second-team All-American, thanks to putting up career-highs across the board (29 tackles, 8.5 for loss and five sacks). The Big-12 also got a little sneaky, when they named Murphy the conference’s Defensive Lineman of the Year, even though his teammate T’Vondre Sweat received the DPOY award.
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~Run defense:~

• Stout run-defender, who plays uncommonly low and regularly demands both offensive linemen on combos to stay firm on him, which allows the linebacker to work around freely
• Capable of lining up at the nose and anchoring against the angular element of combo-blocks
• Has an uncanny feel for where pressure is being applied and how counter it – There are snaps where he doesn’t move one inch while his knee towards the second man is hovering barely over the ground
• Showcases highly impressive lateral agility to counter zone concepts, where he doesn’t only maintain leverage on the gap, but actually gets his hands onto the next lineman who may try to provide a help-hand on the front-side
• The short-area quicks to back-door blockers or execute run stunts pops a couple of times in every game
• Asking a center to down-block on him when pulling a guard across the formation is pretty much off the table, because he sticks to the hip of that guy and often ends up bumping him into the ball-carrier in the offensive backfield
• Murphy’s sudden hands regularly cause issues, as he side-steps linemen and steps past their hip, initiating first contact with ball-carriers at the line of scrimmage that way regularly
• His 83.9 run-defense grade in 2022 was a top-ten mark among Power Five interior defensive linemen and he actually had three extra stops (21) on the same amount of such snaps basically

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~Pass-rush:~

• His height gives Murphy a natural leverage advantage already, but paired with his explosion off the ball and his ability to keep his upper body parallel to the ground basically makes him almost impossible to slow down when he just attacks up the field
• Packs a violent club-rip move, including cross-face maneuvers, and fights hard through the reach of interior pass-protectors
• Recognizes when linemen lean too far into him, rapidly yanking them forward and pulling his arm over to get by them
• Has the flexibility and strength in his ankles to corner his rushes working on the outside shoulder of guards or tackles
• When the O-line slides his direction or a tackle sets out to him rushing off the edge and Murphy attacks the other way, the guy responsible for him typically has to get into catch-up mode and try to take him enough off track, with the force he blows by them with initially
• Capable of drawing multiple bodies with him as he slants across gaps and attempts to open up a lane for one of his teammates to loop over the top of
• Murphy’s ability to suddenly disengage from blocks and then chase down scrambling quarterbacks really stands out
• His 14.8% pass-rush win rate in 2022 put him just outside the top-ten of the interior D-line group and while he “only” had five sacks last season, PFF had him with the highest pass-rush productivity (9.6) among the position (with at least 100 rush snaps)
• You see him turn his head and chase down screen passes 10+ yards down the field on multiple occasions

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~Weaknesses:~

• Will get a little undisciplined with his run fits and attack too far upfield or across blockers, to open up bigger lanes than they should otherwise be
• There’s room for improvement with how quickly he transitions from run-defense to disengaging from blocks and rushing the passer
• You love the ability to torpedo up a gap in passing situations, but you do see him end up on the turf quite regularly and blockers be able to push him down because of it
• Needs to start incorporating counter moves when he wins off the line but then doesn’t punish blockers as they try to recover and get loose with their footwork

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Murphy offers a rare blend of leverage, explosiveness, quicks and strength. He can pretty much fit in any type of front and become a difference-maker with the versatility to move around throughout games. Having said that, because the Longhorn coaches took advantage of that diverse skill-set, he has some development to do in order to realize his potential one day. Being able to recognize plays before he’s charged into opponents, playing under a little more control and countering the techniques of blockers are all necessary if he wants to be a legit “play-maker” instead of just a disruptor. Yet, you’re not going to find many guys who can penetrate as a three-technique or anchor against double-teams as a nose-tackle, before either side-stepping or going straight through a 330-pound guard on thirds pretty much equally well. And then he backed up that up with elite testing and a tremendous positional workout at the combine. You may not want to put too much on his plate right away, but Murphy has the potential to end up being the best defensive player from this entire draft. He should go off the board at some point in the teens.
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3. Kris Jenkins Jr., Michigan

6’3”, 275 pounds; SR
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A three-star recruit in 2020, the son of Jets All-Pro defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, Junior appeared in just one game as a true freshman. He played in all 14 and started four games the following season, recording 22 tackles but zero sacks. In year three, his numbers jumped up to 54 total stops, 3.5 of those for loss and two sacks. While his overall tackles were down a little bit this past season (37), he did slightly better his TFLs (4.5) and sacks (2.5), while snatching his first interception and scooping up a fumble, which he was recognized as a second-team All-Big choice for.
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~Run defense:~

• Comes out of his stance low and ready to strike with his hands against the run – Regularly you see guards take a couple of small steps backwards as contact is initiated
• When allowed to shoot his gap, he’s quick off the ball and ready to take control of plays instead of allowing blockers to dictate terms to him, shutting off the front-side frequently as a 3/4i
• Regularly is able to stay square against lateral run concepts and then fall back by one gap to hold up the running back
• Against double-teams, he packs a potent corkscrew technique to squeeze through the squeeze between the two linemen
• Highly active to work off blocks with a potent arm-over and track down the ball-carrier rather than getting hung up in traffic
• You better not give this guy an opening as a linemen has to get in front of him after bucket-stepping, with no initial bump by anybody, as well as make sure he’s secured before somebody peels off combos, because he’ll otherwise chase down the ball
• Actively closes the distance to pullers when initially unblocked and is able to create traffic in the backfield to throw off the timing of plays
• Routinely squeezes bodies into the action and puts some centers on the turf trying to down-block on him
• As a junior, Jenkins’ 31 run-defense stops were tied for the most in the nation among interior defensive linemen (in 2022) and almost one third of his run-defense snaps were categorized as “positive” in PFF’s database, which you get a “neutral” when you just “do your job”, meaningful he was highly impactful at that

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~Pass-rush:~

• Packs some legit bend for an interior rusher
• You see Jenkins dip and rip in order to create an angle towards the quarterback – particularly off play-action – quite regularly
• Capable of cross-facing blockers with great suddenness, especially once his hand-swipes continue to improve to actually win cleanly
• We didn’t see Jenkins just sell out for bull-rushing solo blockers, but his power was on display a few times when he drove back double-teams to squeeze down the pocket
• Really worked on his spin move in 2023, selling that he’ll attack the outside shoulder and then getting to the opposite hip in one fluid motion just as guards lean into him
• Michigan put Jenkins over tackles more often this past season, where he showed the ability to condense the edge by riding tackles into the quarterback with the long-arm or bull-rush
• Looks dynamic sticking his foot in the ground and looping across multiple games, being able to corner his path towards the QB
• The type of style Michigan asked Jenkins to play didn’t lend itself to great production as a pass-rusher, yet he matched his pressure number from 2022 (20) on 75 fewer opportunities (228 pass-rush snaps) last season

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~Weaknesses:~

• Even for a read-and-react Wolverine front, Jenkins appears a tad late off the ball and puts himself in compromised positions at times because of it
• Could do a little better job of mirroring the first step(s) of offensive linemen and not allowing himself to get sealed off or scooped on the backside of wide zone plays
• Wastes too much time with tight-end when lined up at 5-/6-technique, instead of quickly shedding them to make plays
• Doesn’t have a much of a pass-rush portfolio at this point, largely relying on power and not packing any reliable counters he’ll access
• Needs to do a better job of when he does have vertical momentum to keep working through one half of the man and shorten the path towards the quarterback for himself

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This draft is filled with sons of former NFL standout player, but somehow Jenkins Jr. is the one I barely hear being talked about. A big part of that is how he was asked to play by the Wolverine coaches, where he regularly is in a more conservative four-point stance on early downs and doesn’t just get off the ball on purpose, although even for that, I thought he didn’t help himself with that and it affected him even on passing downs to some degree. With that being said, that doesn’t mean he can’t be a more disruptive player if coached that way, considering we did see that quickness he clearly has show up more in 2022. I mean, he was number six on Bruce Feldman’s 2023 Freaks List, because his shuttle and three-cone times at Michigan were up there with any D-tackle coming into the league these past couple of years and only Cowboys first-round pick Mazi Smith (at a good 30 pounds extra), put up a higher mark than Jenkins’ 760 pounds on the combo twist – which tests an athlete’s ability to apply force. Jenkins certainly needs to improve his ability to attack half the man and become a more well-versed pass-rusher, but I think he could be a borderline elite run-stopper by his second season and has the potential to be a legit impact player on third downs, particularly on different games up front.
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4. T'Vondre Sweat, Texas

6’4”, 340 pounds; RS SR
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A top-1000 overall recruit in 2019, Sweat saw limited action as a true freshman with the Longhorns, before becoming a key cog of the rotation up front year two onwards. Across the next three seasons, he combined for 74 total stops, 8.5 of those for loss and two sacks, along with eight PBUs. He openly spoke about his increased investment this past season, which led to career highs across the board (45 total tackles, eight for loss, two sacks and four PBUs), the Big-12 Defensive Player of the Year award and first-team All-American recognition.
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~Run defense:~

• This dude is a monster truck, who regularly is first to land his hands onto opponents in the run game
• Has the sturdy frame to not get bumped off his landmarks on down-blocks and giving him a chance to take a couple of steps up the field as the offense pulls someone denies the running back to stay on a tighter track initially
• You see some trap plays, where the puller is really loading up for contact, yet it’s nothing better than a stalemate with Sweat
• Has plenty of plays, where he’s dealing with down-blocks, rips through and circles around those guys in order to get involved with wrapping up the ball-carrier going through the opposite gap
• There are some impressive reps back-dooring centers on zone plays with a quick arm-over and standing there as the back tries to squeeze past or bounce runs
• When he sticks his foot in the ground and pursues the ball down the line, the speed for a man his size to chase down plays is pretty darn impressive
• Re-set the line of scrimmage on the vast majority of snaps in the 2023 Red River Rivalry – Oklahoma’s QB Dillon Gabriel was the only guy to find success rushing
• Only UCLA edge defender Laiatu Latu earned a higher overall PFF grade last season (91.7) and Sweat had the highest run-defense grade among all Power-5 defenders (92.0)

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~Pass-rush:~

• Routinely is able to create that initial momentum and push up the middle of the pocket
• Packs a rapid two-handed downward swipe against interior pass-protectors trying to quick-set him, making them fold over and going right by them at times
• It’s a constant battle for guards and centers trying to re-fit their hands and find ways to set their base in order to keep him occupied when soloed up against Sweat, who swipes those paws off and eventually pulls them aside
• Capable of creating angles towards the quarterback even after allowing blockers to square him up, by lifting their arms upwards and ripping underneath them
• Once he gets to one shoulder of pass-protectors, at best they can take him off track enough to allow the QB to step up usually
• Provides the force to cave in one side of the protection and open up a lane for a looper to get through on games
• Finished tied for eight among interior D-linemen in the draft with 31 total pressures – on less than 300 pass-rush snaps – and added 21 “other pass-rush wins” according to PFF
• Consistently gets those big arms up as he’s closing in on quarterbacks (outside the pocket) in order to force them to put extra arc on passes

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~Weaknesses:~

• Due to his height and center of gravity, Sweat quickly pops up out of his stance and if asked to play extensive snaps, that only gets worse (conditioning will remain a question)
• Angular blockers (on quick combos), who understand how to appropriately apply force to his hip or arm-pit, can get his body turned in the run game after being square in how he’s engaged with somebody else
• Frequently is late to redirect or get into pursuit mode, when the play is going away from him
• Doesn’t give you a whole lot of versatility as a pass-rusher, where he can take advantage of being singled up at times, but he’s not stringing moves together and slips through a crack between blockers, to flush the quarterback
• At this point doesn’t utilize his length and power optimally to truly overwhelm solo-blockers with the bull-rush

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Nobody in college football was as physically dominant at the line of scrimmage as T’Vondre Sweat last season. His ability to swallow double-teams but also become more of a play-maker in the run game when soloed up made Texas one of the toughest defenses to run the ball against (averaging a miniscule 2.9 yards per carry). You’d like him to play a little lower still – especially watching teammate Byron Murphy fire off the ball next to him – and he’s not going to give you a whole lot in the pass-rush department as long as he doesn’t master his power-approach and the ways he can work off it. With that being said, if you understand what he is, this guy can change how your defense operates, because he consistently demands and extra pair of hands and allows your linebackers to roam freely, while having the ability to put interior pass-protectors on skates occasionally. For a mountain of a man like this, conditioning and how much he can play will always be a question, but he did earn his highest PFF grade (91.7) while playing a career-high 503 snaps last season. If Mazi Smith can go at the end of the first round last year, Sweat deserves to be a late second-rounder.
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5. Braden Fiske, Florida State

6’5”, 305 pounds; RS SR
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A three-star recruit for Western Michigan in 2018, Fiske was on the field for just 18 snaps as a true freshman, before appearing in 12 games as a rotational player the following season, recording 24 tackles, two TFLs and a sack. He started all six contests during the 2020 COVID-shortened campaign, putting up the same tackle number, but about double the negative plays created respectively. Starting all 25 contests the following two years, he racked up 101 tackles, 20 of those for loss and ten sacks, along with three passes batted down, two fumbles forced and one recovered – all this past year. He decided to prove his talents in the Power Five for 2023 with the Seminoles and backed it up with a second-team All-ACC campaign, thanks to 43 total stops, nine TFLs and six sacks.
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~Run defense:~

• True worker-bee on the defensive interior, who’s a pest for any team facing him
• When offensive linemen block down on Fiske or seal him on the backside, it regularly looks like they’re just trying to hold up in pass-protection rather than bringing the fight to him
• Pro-actively encounters double-teams and is able to hold pretty firm ground
• There are some plays where it truly looks like the offense is running into a wall, as there’s no movement at the point of attack against Fiske and then the back comes to a dead-stop as he collides with the D-tackle at the line of scrimmage
• Consistently plays the game with a great motor and is looking to work off blocks
• You frequently see him get involved on tackles ten yards past the line of scrimmage, but also if he misses initially, pop straight back up and join the party
• Logged at least 26 defensive stops each of the past three seasons, speaking to his level of activity
• Him and teammate Jared Verse were amongst boys in the ACC Championship game vs. Louisville, whether Fiske was man-handling the interior O-line with power or penetrated the backfield for negative plays, including a TFL on the very first snap from scrimmage

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~Pass-rush:~

• Fiske’s get-off is up there with basically anybody among this interior D-linemen class to immediately stress the shoulder of pass-protectors
• Has some awesome reps of guards setting out to him rushing from the three-technique and beating them across the face with a shockingly rapid arm-over move, where he basically slaps that guy’s butt as he steps through
• Really works those hands and you see him break free even when four hands touch him with protection being slid his way
• If his initial rush stalls, Fiske will just work into the depth of the pocket and get his hands up to challenge passing lanes for the quarterback
• Constantly is looking to disengage or spin away from blockers late, in order to chase after the quarterback
• When he’s asked to spike into linemen or almost bowl over guys as he slants across multiple gaps trying to create a free lane for one of his teammates, he will do so with great determination and force
• Yet his burst and ability to turn a tight corner on delayed loops is also massive, particularly being able to shut down quarterbacks trying to escape the pocket
• Over his final two seasons with WMU, Fiske’s 81 pressures were tied for fifth among FBS interior defensive linemen, before adding 28 more on 263 pass-rush snaps in one year with SMU
• Impressive with how he diagnoses screens to the back and is able to force quarterbacks to dirt the ball

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~Weaknesses:~

• Sort of a tweener, playing too upright for what you’d like to see from a three-technique but doesn’t project well as somebody playing over the center and dealing with doubles frequently
• Comes in with an inherent length disadvantage at only 31-inch arms and it limits his ability to really threaten the edges of blockers
• Too often gets caught hand-fighting at the line initially rather than winning to one shoulder early
• Presents a limited radius as a tackler, leading to a career miss rate of 15.3%

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Fiske has been on an astronomic rise during this pre-draft process, catching up with a high grade that I already had on him based on watching him during the actual season. The motor and level of activity he played with made him one of my favorite players to study overall. This guy comes off the ball with a purpose. He can penetrate on run plays but will also strain to control his space and then slide off blocks to get his hands on the ball-carrier. He has the quickness and his movements and hand-swipes to put pass-protectors to, but will also push them up the pocket and make quarterbacks uncomfortable back there if he has to. Unfortunately, his arm length is clearly below NFL standards and you have to question if there’s a clean schematic fit for him at that profile. Yet, with how dominant he was throughout Senior Bowl week and the incredible performance he delivered at the combine – leading all interior defensive linemen in the 40-yard dash (4.78), vertical (33.5 inches) and broad jump (9’9”), as well as short-shuttle time (4.37) – I have a tough time seeing him make it outside the top-50 picks now.
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6. Ruke Orhorhoro, Clemson

6’4”, 290 pounds; RS SR
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Despite only playing two years of high school football, Orhorhoro was a top-1000 overall recruit and became the first Clemson commit from the state of Michigan since 1975. He barely got onto the field his first two years for the Tigers, but over the following two as a rotational piece, he combined for 59 tackles, eight for loss each year, 6.5 combined sacks, eight passes batted down at the line and a fumble recovered in each.
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~Run defense:~

• Lined up all over the D-line for the Tigers, from nose-tackle all the way to six-technique
• Defends the run with good pad-level and maximizes his length when asked to gap-control or even two-gap
• From shade-alignments and on slants, he consistently is looking to attack one shoulder of the blocker and keep his opposite arm free
• You love his ability to stay square on the front-side of zone concepts, lock out and then fall back a gap as he tracks the ball-carrier, creating first contact
• Frequently is able to press off and create leverage on the gap after the guy across from him takes that initial step reach-block him
• Was very effective on early-down gap-exchanges, with his lateral agility to loop over the top of traffic and take away the front-side, forcing running backs to redirect
• Looks like he’s almost bouncing off blockers and then running down the back a few times, providing excellent pursuit
• Received PFF grades above 75 vs. the run in each of the past two seasons

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~Pass-rush:~

• The ability to win against centers with the club-rip, where he pushes at the shoulder and really pulls the inside arm through leads to some clean Ws for him
• Has some nice reps where he freezes the feet of guards by stuttering off the line and then cornering his rush with that rip-through
• Packs a rapid arm-over to free himself from pass-protectors as he’s recognizing play-action after engaging with those guys
• Guards lunging forward trying to quick-set him get beat cleanly off the line with the club-swim a few times
• Yet if they initially sit back, he’s also very good at anticipating up their punch and linking his arms and hips in order to win on cross-face moves paired with a tight arm-over mauneuver
• When he’s at the hip of a blocker and that guy has him arm-barred to push off with the back of his near-arm or pull it over and clear that, as he chases the quarterback
• Showcases good awareness for screen passes and trails the back working outside, forcing quarterbacks to dirt the ball
• Was tied for tenth among interior D-linemen in this draft in 2023 pass-rush productivity (7.1) – 26 pressures on 235 rush opportunities

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~Weaknesses:~

• Has room to improve his ability to read and counter the first step(s) of the offensive line, particularly staying a half gap ahead so to speak against wide zone
• Gets blown off the ball by double-teams quite a bit, lacking the ability to anchor effectively against the angular element of those
• When linemen get their hands inside his chest quickly (on short-sets), too often he’ll end up battling them instead of being forceful with attacking one shoulder to gain control of the rep
• Generally has room to grow as a “reactionary” pass-rusher, countering the approach of opponents on the fly and figuring out how to give them trouble throughout games – being moved around as much as he was didn’t help with that development, to be fair

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Assuming no issues in terms of medical report or otherwise, I believe the top-five on the interior D-linemen is pretty concrete, even though the order may ultimately look different for the NFL as a whole. With that being said, Orhorhoro was pretty clearly my next name up here, because even though he’s not a complete player at this point or I see a defined scheme fit, I see him as an extremely useful player for a variety of systems. His ability to play low, combined with length, the short-area quickness and play demeanor, you’re got yourself a pack of dynamite on the interior. I do believe you want to protect him early on at least, where he‘s in shade-alignments and can play that “gap-and-a-half” but not deal with legit double-teams, and he certainly has room to grow in that first phase of the pass-rush and he approaches those matchups. However, I really liked his tape and then he finished with a 9.88 RAS score at the combine thanks the second-best broad jump (9’8”), third-best vert (32 inches) and fourth-best 40 (4.89) for his position, along with putting together an excellent on-field workout.
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7. Michael Hall Jr., Ohio State

6’2”, 285 pounds; RS SO
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The rest of the analysis can be found here!The rest of the analysis can be found here!

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8. Mekhi Wingo, LSU

6’0”, 285 pounds; JR
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9. Brandon Dorlus, Oregon

6’3”, 285 pounds; RS SR
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T.-10. Tyler Davis, Clemson

6’2”, 300 pounds; RS SR
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T.-10. Fabien Lovett, Florida State

6’4”, 315 pounds; RS SR
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Tremendous potential:

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Maason Smith, LSU
6’5”, 310 pounds; RS SO
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Leonard Taylor III, Miami
6’3”, 305 pounds; JR
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The next names up:

DeWayne Carter (Duke), McKinnley Jackson (Texas A&M), Khristian Boyd (Northern Iowa), Keith Randolph Jr. (Illinois), Gabe Hall (Baylor), Marcus Harris (Auburn), Justin Eboigbe (Alabama) & Logan Lee (Iowa)
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If you enjoyed this article, please visit the original piece & feel free to check out my video on the biggest risers and fallers coming out of the NFL combine!
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Twitter: @ halilsfbtalk
Instagram: @ halilsrealfootballtalk
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Below is a full mock approach to the Bills roster and needs this offseason. Split into sections with detailed explanations. (Had to split into 2 parts due to reddit character count)
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Full projected roster here and explanations below
2023 mock offseason: Bills subreddit, NFL Draft subreddit
2023 mock offseason review: Bills subreddit, NFL Draft subreddit

7.) Day 1 and 2 Draft

With all the moves above made, my draft philosophy is to double dip at WR in this potential historical class with our first two picks, considering tradedowns to build up more early day 3 capital. While trading out of the late 3rd rounder to build up capital as well.
First pick:
Priority: Andrew Ladd McConkey, UGA
I am very very bullish on McConkey, versus consensus and in a vacuum.
He has been on my radar since his RS freshman year in 2021 (the Auburn game specifically), and he broke out even more in 2022 (the Oregon game put him in the first round conversation for me) while showing more of the same good play albeit missing time in 2023. He has an early to mid-first round grade for me, while he is hovering around the early second round level on the consensus big board (on nflmockdraftdatabase website).
I don’t like using prospect to pro comps too seriously as every player is unique albeit there being similarities. But he reminds me of Lockett in the deep game, Baldwin in his releases and some Ceedee in his YAC. But another way of putting it is just that he is a bigger and faster Tank Dell.
While I wouldn’t go as far as calling him the best overall WR in this class, he is certainly in my view the clear best route runner and separator, with other additional skills that are on the higher end too.
Has both elite smoothness and sharpness in his breaks, very dangerous at the release and shows a veteran level ability and understanding of how to attack leverages of DBs.
I can see him being a top 15 maybe top 10 route runner as soon as he enters the league.
He can excel at Z and in the slot but also has the releases to play against press at X in the NFL and can also win at all 3 levels.
(2022 Kent State game is a huge outlier and for sure a game he’d like to forget)
He is also one of the better YAC threats in this WR class (only firmly behind Corley whose game is mostly YAC based, and Malik Nabers) with his shiftiness and speed in the open field.
He also has good (but not elite) deep speed with his acceleration being even better. The 4.39 40 yard dash does not surprise me. Matching the eye test, I read he registered 21mph+ as a ball carrier vs Texas A&M which would get him in the top 10 in the NFL in most seasons.
While I think his size “concerns” are overblown, he has shown an ability to catch balls outside of his frame. This ability was there but inconsistent in 2021 (failing to complete a high cover 2 hole shot vs Clemson, but also making a great contested endzone fade vs Vandy), improved a lot more over 2022-2023. He has always shown a willingness and toughness to catch passes over the middle.
Just see how McConkey’s measurements size up against similar premier WRs:
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For reference, Dell lined up wide 70.1% in 2023 per PFF, Addison at 70.7%. AB lined up wide at an 83.6% throughout his career with only his shortened NE season having less than half of his snaps out wide.
On top of what I have seen on film, his analytics advanced metrics are also highly favourable, as per PFF:
McConkey lined up wide at a 78.7% rate in 2023, ahead of other notable prospects such as Malik Nabers, Keon Coleman, Xavier Legette and just slightly behind Marvin Harrison Jr.
McConkey’s ADoT of 12.2 was ahead of Nabers and Worthy and within a yard of Coleman, MHJ and Troy Franklin.
Despite these constricting parameters, McConkey had a 81.1% catch rate, higher than anyone notable, as well as an elite 3.3 yards per route run measure.
So anyone who comps him Edelman/Amendola/Renfrow/Beasley are just wrong or lazy in my view.
I would be happy taking him at 28 but would like to see if we can trade down a bit (anywhere from Baltimore at 30 to Carolina at 33) and still get him, dependant on how the board shapes up.
A good realistic scenario is a high value RT falls to 28 and we trade with SF, keeping us ahead of KC.
Depending on the Ravens WR needs, it could be risky trading below them due to the Todd Monken connection.
Brian Thomas Jr., LSU
Much higher among consensus but I view him mostly similarly to McConkey as an overall grade. In general I find it very difficult to rank receivers of similar calibres but of completely different styles as it is very nuanced.
In terms of style rather than just calibre, I feel like McConkey is a much better fit than Thomas but I can certainly be tempted by having Thomas.
Thomas is to me the best pure vertical outside WR that can really stretch opposing defenses, much in line with consensus view on him. Underrated releases, good ball tracking, great size and speed combo, solid but not spectacular at the catchpoint.
One small point I’d add is that Thomas has shown that he CAN hands catch well but he does have a strong preference to body catch.
The Bills WR room is lacking in all aspects rather than just a deep threat and the upside to McConkey over the middle of the field, in the short and intermediate areas, in the redzone etc are greater to me, but should the Bills draft Thomas at 28 I’d still be happy with that even though it is not what I would personally do.
Adonai Mitchell, Texas
Mitchell is also in the similar range on the consensus big board to McConkey, and to me is purely as a contingency option if both McConkey and Thomas are gone by our pick (gone at 28, or a tradedown that backfired).
In view, Mitchell is stylistically the same player as Brian Thomas Jr. He is a smaller and slower (on film) version. While Thomas has better releases to me (Mitchell can take a lot of wasted steps), Mitchell is overall the better route runner: he has even smoother and sharper breaks and has shown an even better understanding than Thomas in how to attack leverages.
While I personally have a late first round grade on Mitchell, there can be argument that the league could see him fall lower: his box score production is poor as are his advanced analytics metrics. His YPRR is at 1.7 which is lower than most notable WR prospects in the entire class and his 71.9 PFF grade is also on the slightly lower end for 1st round prospects.
WRs I want to avoid:
Troy Franklin, Oregon
The most often mocked WR to the Bills I see that I want to avoid.
Franklin possesses terrific top speed, albeit above average but not elite short acceleration on film and is a highly credible threat to stretch defenses. Despite being lower on him than consensus, I would argue that his slower than expected 40 time does not represent his field speed.
His hands are a red flag, both on film as an unnatural catcher whenever ball is slightly off-placement with his 10% drop rate per PFF.
Rail thin frame: Already had worryingly small measurements at Oregon, and he proceeded to weigh in lighter and measure shorter than his Oregon numbers.
Highly worried about his thin frame being rerouted or locked up vs physical corners like Sneed, Sauce and Ramsey, both at the release and downfield. Didn't face many jams in college.
Route breaks are not sudden or twitchy at all, manageable for vertical routes as long as he keeps attacking leverages and stays untouched, but likely prevents him from being a capable stop route runner, out breakers and likely a non-factor in the endzone where speed is less of a plus.
Good YAC numbers but mostly scheme based rather than tackle beating based (PFF has his avoided tackle rate at 17.3% which is bang average despite 6.6 YAC/reception being well above average in the 2024 draft class)
This is teachable but I did not like a habit he had in zone where he’d just keep on drifting through coverage rather than finding and settling in between defenders to make himself QB friendly.
I hate player comps being the be all and end all, but: a totally different player than Davis but could see similar results: outstanding highlight reel, averages 1 or 2 amazing plays a game over a season's sample size, but can be AWOL and highly inconsistent on a down to down basis.
I also had this view prior to his record breaking 40 yard dash, but if I wanted an undersized deep speed WR, I’d much rather have Xavier Worthy. Worthy runs better routes, and “fixed” his 2022 drop issue in 2023 and it has been reported that he played with a broken hand in 2022.
Will give credit where credit is due, he certainly is a far better run blocker at that size than I was expecting to see on film, which I respect.
Keon Coleman, FSU
I value Keon Coleman in the mid second, but my view on him carries a lot more uncertainty and agnosticism than most of the other top WRs.
I studied his 2022 Michigan State tape as well as his 2023 FSU tape. In 2023 he struggled to separate but excelled at playing through contact at the start of the season. Late season film was worse but reportedly played through an injury which I cannot verify as an outsider.
He did however show more ability to separate in 2022 but Jayden Reed was getting a lot of the targets while Coleman was open.
PFF’s numbers support this as his only 18.2% of his targets were contested in 2022 (less than MHJ, Odunze, Legette and MHJ) vs 34.5% being contested in 2023 which is ahead of all notable WR prospects. Sample size of targets were very similar across both years.

WR double dip to consider for second pick:

So hopefully McConkey would have been picked at 28, or with a slight tradedown. Then I’d like to find a bigger WR to complement him and the WR room which is lacking size mainly now. If the board is shaping up well here, a small tradedown could also be considered.
Xavier Legette, South Carolina
I also have a late first round grade on Legette, but that comes with some uncertainty and it’s even harder to gauge where the league and consensus sees him which seems all over the place. (Dane Brugler has him 80, PFF has him 74 Lance Zierlein has him at WR17, while the mockdraftdatabase consensus big board has him hovering 50-60, he was outside of Jeremiah’s latest top 50)
Outside the film, the fifth-year breakout after four years of nothing is a point of concern.
But what I see on his 2023 film highly impresses me:

• Great natural hands catcher than regularly makes tough catches outside his frame in traffic.
• Route tree was limited but the movement ability was there, can stop very quickly and cut sharply for his size, best demonstrated by his curl and comeback routes.
• Was very good at gaining inside leverage, where he can run gos, posts and slants from exceptionally.
• Plays even faster than the already fast 4.39 40 he ran (looks more like a low 4.3s player)
• Very dangerous with the ball in his hands, especially with his ability to gain inside leverage and then to run away from defenders.
• Better at the break than he is at the release (especially vs press).

This is teachable, but his routes and stems lack nuance for certain routes: he never threatened the inside for out breaking routes.
The fade route has a lot of potential but needs the most work: when facing a DB with outside leverage in off coverage, Legette run straight at the outside without challenging the DB inside and getting his flips to turn in, closing off the space to the sideline and giving himself much less room for error.
This actually brings a very interesting point to the nuances of grading (for evaluation vs projection), he managed to win running fades vs outside leverage off coverage in a textbook incorrect manner multiple times (twice vs UNC, once vs Miss St. simply because he was bigger and more athletic).
He tried doing the same thing against Clemson with Nate Wiggins and failed didn't win those reps.
He has shown that he can challenge the inside for outbreakers at times on film (released inside on his out route at the start of the UGA game, threatened the inside for his double move TD vs Kentucky), it is something he needs to do more consistently.
Definitely something to bring up if the Bills interview him.
Ja’Lynn Polk, Washington
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In contrast to Legette, Polk is a lower risk but much more solid high floor option to bring size to a WR room.
Like Legette, I highly rate his ball skills and like the toughness he shows making catches over the middle and he can regularly make tough grabs outside of his frame.
Shows more nuance and polish with his route running
Consensus big board has him at a similar range to Legette but his average athletic testing when so many WRs “won” the combine could have him slip through the cracks.
As an aside, I know they lost by more than a TD but Penix had him open for a deep TD in the Championship final but checked it down instead at the start of the game.
These are only if they slide semi unexpectedly:
Adonai Mitchell, Texas
As said above, I am personally higher on Mitchell but am unsure how the league will see him. Revisiting this after the combine, he certainly “won” the testing but the aforementioned production, or lack thereof could still act in Buffalo’s favour if it causes him to slide.
I doubt this would happen with how he tested but is something worth considering.
Keon Coleman, FSU
See analysis above, I’d be very happy to get Coleman at 60. His “poor testing” could facilitate in a slide. Would be a very good pairing with McConkey.
Second round WR if BTJ or Mitchell was picked instead of McConkey:
If we miss out on McConkey and get a size/speed mismatch type, then he would best be complemented with a high volume WR with their calling card being the separation/route running. Below are two players of that style which I have second round grades for both.

• Roman Wilson, Michigan
• Ricky Pearsall, Florida

If second round WR choices dried up:
Not ideal but something to prepare for. If the WR prospects at 60 aren’t worth it, that would likely mean other positions could have been pushed down by a WR run.
Notable targets include:

• Safeties Tyler Nubin (Minnesota) and Javon Bullard (UGA)
• 1-tech/nose tackle T’Vondre Sweat (UT)
• 3-tech DT Braden Fiske (FSU)
• OC Zach Frazier (UWV)

If we miss out on a WR double dip, I do want to attack the position further in Day 3.

8.) Day 3 draft strategy

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Day 3 targets table: There are close to 20 names and I don’t expect all of them to be drafted, and in fact repeating positions are eitheor alternatives to look out for unless stated otherwise. Loosely sorted by preference (a combination of need and my grades)
Mo Kamara, DE, CSU
Slightly undersized but has good burst, bend and polish (not a project).
Excelled against weaker competition, would be an early second round grade had he shown the same things on film in a Power 5 conference.
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Jaylen Wright, RB, Tenn or Audric Estime, RB, ND
Wright has a highly desirable size/speed combo and runs with very good contact balance, reminds me of Isiah Pacheco as a runner but also more developed as a pass catcher and protector.
His production was facilitated from a lot of lighter boxes from what I saw on tape, but I wouldn’t count that against him too much.
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Estime is bulkier and also slower on film in comparison, but not as slow as his 40 implies. Good powerful runner, okay receiver and in pass pro. Good lateral agility for someone of his size.
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Khristian Boyd, DT, UNI
Small school prospect dominated in the Shrine Bowl and was basically unblockable there, can play both 1-tech and 3-tech on the Bills DL.
Put up good film vs Iowa State at the FBS level.
Beaux Limmer, OC, Ark
Limmer is not a steal but more of a necessity pick. I haven’t watched any centres that I think are undervalued, where consensus has his is roughly where I have him (4th round grade). Good the run game, can be vulnerable to lateral quickness in pass pro. Had a good Senior Bowl with the exception of one rep against T’Vondre Sweat.
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Javon Baker, WR, UCF or Cornelius Johnson, WR, Michigan
Baker is a good contested catcher, is a decent but not spectacular route runner that just put up good film at UCF. Experienced facing press man on the outside.
Johnson has a lot of experience and playing time at Michigan. Solid but not spectacular, can play X and all around.
Good mix of route running and ball skills, ran faster 40 than what I saw on film (4.5s).
Weird stance at the LOS, excessively wide, would like our coaching staff to see if they can get it to narrow.
One of the better WRs at scramble drills on film during the McCarthy era.
Sione Vaki, S, Utah
Definitely a projection based pick and a project. Bishop was the more refined safety for Utah who played better on film.
But Vaki is relatively inexperienced and he plays with very good toughness and aggression, I believe he is quite far from his ceiling. Much better athlete and movement skills at his size than what he managed to test at.
Can be coached up well by our staff ready to compete in 2025.
Brennan Jackson, DE, WSU & Zion Tupuloa Fetui, DE, Wash
Jackson has a good athletic profile that was demonstrated in both testing and on film. Has a good combo of size, power and strength to overwhelm tackles but lacks the refinement and pass rush moves to develop his game further. Decent bend, especially for his size.
ZTF is one of the trickiest evals in 2024. A perfect example of why you should just declare as early as possible as his 2020 tape (vs Oregon St. and Utah) was second round worthy but has not played at that level since. Had injuries and then personal tragedy to deal with, and these prospects are humans too, a gamble on whether he can get back to his 2021 form.
Logan Lee, DT, Utah
Moot if Shelby Harris is signed, especially if Boyd is drafted earlier.
Weirdly played 1-tech quite a bit despite having a DE/DT hybrid size profile. Can only see him at 3-tech in the NFL level.
Very soild and stout against the run, has aggressive hands, can push the pocket well vs the pass but needs to work on more moves. Gets erased by double teams when pass rushing.
Performed well at the Shrine Bowl. Athletic testing is below average.
Noticed him last year when watching Lukas Van Ness tape.
Sataloa Laumea, OT, Utah
Moot if Edwards is extended and Limmer is drafted.
Played tackle on film but struggled with speed on the outside, but a decent mover in the run game and had good anchor. Flashed at reps at guard in the senior bowl.
Cody Schrader, RB, Missou
A real “steady eddy” type of RB, consistent but not flashy. Good vision, good contact balance allows him to contribute, below average athletic profile and isn’t a game breaking threat for opposing defenses to plan around. Would be my go-to 4 minute drill back, or just whenever a long clock chewing drive is needed.
Tanner Mclachlan, TE, Ari, Tip Reiman, TE, Illinois & AJ Barner, TE, Mich
Mclachlan had the best all round film of these TEs to me but his measurements are much smaller than expected.
Despite being Kincaid sized, lined up in-line a lot and was a good blocker there. Reliable hands, excels at finding space in zone defenses, dynamic with ball in hand and okay separator.
Worst rep was at pass pro vs Laiatu Latu 1 on 1 but why would you let him (or any college TE) do that.
In all fairness, Kittle was not that big coming out of college.
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Reiman has more of the prototypical size measurements for an inline TE than Mclachlan but also flashed on film. Not as much of a receiving threat but still solid. Reiman’s combine had him shooting up the consensus big board in a manner of days.
Barner is the highest among these consensus late day 3 TEs. The best run blocker of the 3, possesses solid hands but “dynamic” and “explosive” are far from his game. Not surprised he didn’t run a 40. Looks very slow with the ball in his hands, zero YAC.
Ryan Rehkow, P, BYU & Tory Taylor, P, Iowa
After having already spent hours on prospects, I will just defer and delegate to a STs expert Isaac Punts for the punters. He has Rehkow as P1 and Taylor as P2, despite Rehkow not being ranked on the consensus big board.

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Four years after Patrick Mahomes pedaled backwards and hit Tyreek Hill on “2-3 Jet Chip Wasp” to convert a third-and-15 and start their comeback over the 49ers, these two sides are set to face off again on the biggest stage. This time around, Kansas City is looking to cement itself as a dynasty, with their third championship in five years, while San Francisco is going for their sixth title in franchise history, but the first one in 29 years, after knocking on the door with four NFC championship game appearances in those last five seasons.
The Niners looked dominant throughout the regular season en route to the NFC’s number one seed, before having to battle until the end against the Packers and Lions, coming back from a 17-point deficit in that conference title game. Meanwhile, it wasn’t nearly as smooth a ride for the Chiefs, trying to defend their championship, finishing with an 11-6 record and having to go on the road in the playoffs for the first two teams in the Mahomes era.
Based on the current active rosters, the 49ers are slated to return nine players and the Chiefs seven who were also part of those Super Bowl 54 teams. Both Kyle Shanahan and Andy Reid return as head coaches, while Steve Spagnuolo on defense and Dave Toub on special teams for the Chiefs are the only two of six total coordinators still around. They also have the benefit of a quarterback starting his fourth Super Bowl in five years, but the Niners have their best signal-caller under Shanahan in the Bay Area.
I want to look at both sides of the ball, break down in detail how the offensive and defensive units function respectively, along with how I believe they’ll match up, before presenting a couple of X-factors for each group and ultimately give you my prediction for the final score.
Let’s dive in:
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49ers offense vs. Chiefs defense:

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NINERS O:

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Going through the history of head coach Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco, they’ve been a very efficient offense every year without a difference-maker at quarterback, considering their track records once they moved on. However, with a full season of Brock Purdy running the show, they’ve taken things to the next level. Looking at the regular season numbers, the 49ers easily the number one offense in expected points added per play (0.179) and success rate (51.6%), with the top marks on both dropbacks and run plays, along with being tops in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (31.8%). In fact, the difference between them and number two in DVOA is the same as the gap between second and eighth. Their passing EPA is down a little bit – in large part due to Purdy struggling in the rain until the final drive of the Divisional Round game against the Packers – but they’ve actually been even more effective on the ground by quite a margin (0.1 EPA better). They also led the league with 75 explosive passes (20+ yards) and overall in terms of yards per play (6.6 YPP). Once again, due to the weather conditions versus Green Bay and Deebo Samuel getting banged up early on, that number was a little bit down, but they still logged four such explosives in that contest and then eight more in the NFC title against Detroit.

Run game:

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The “Shanahan offense” and in particular its run are terms that are often vaguely thrown around. The base run concept of wide zone that Kyle father’s Mike Shanahan popularized towards the end of the millennium has become a core component of many offensive systems across the NFL, but as you follow its trails and look at how Kyle himself has continued to evolve during his tenure in San Francisco, you realize that it would be a disservice to categorize what they do in such a simplistic manner. While they haven’t swung so far towards a more vertical orientation, such as one of his disciples Sean McVay with the Rams, where now their primary run concept is duo, they’ve certainly become more diverse in their approach. They still major in the inside and outside zone, but while they started to only enhance that horizontal stretch of the defense by tossing the ball to the back a couple of years ago, now it’s more about having additional blockers on the move at the snap already along with different sift elements to kick out the backside man at the end of the line of scrimmage, such as with a tight-end or fullback. So while the idea remains to make their opponents flow play-side, in part because they have a running back more suited to make quick decisions and translate information to his feet, they end up hitting inside a lot more than they would’ve in prior iterations. Along with that, pulling the backside guard plus a TE/FB on power and counter plays is a lot more frequent.
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https://reddit.com/link/1alc4b0/video/eltdlet3q7hc1/player
Where Shanahan is truly special though, is the way he can identify how you’ll defend certain looks and dress up the same plays differently. More than any other team in the league, the Niners use shifts and motion at the snap to create numbers advantages against static defenses. Yet, if opponents do react to it and try to overload that way, they’ll happily hit weak-side (inside zone) runs. Additionally, when they do want to get the ball out to the perimeter, they love to run toss out of more condensed sets along with flipping the ball to receivers on end-arounds/reverses, frequently off counter action, where they pull what ends up the play-side guard the opposite way, as a false key presented to linebackers. In particular, they love to use Kittle as a kick-out element basically to their toss plays, while having receivers in condensed splits pin down edge-defenders, in order to get their tackles out to the perimeter as well. Separate from the scheme itself, Christian McCaffrey has turned himself into an elite decision-maker and operator in condensed space, where he truly understands how body language can affect second-level defenders, how to press creases, get guys moving to one side of blocks and cutting the opposite way at the last moment. For the regular season, he finished second in average rushing yards over expected (1.32) to only Miami’s Devon Achane, who just set a new NFL record in yards per attempt on a much smaller sample size. And he did so rushing against the highest rate of 8+ defenders in the box (36%) among RBs with 90+ carries, according to Next Gen Stats. I wouldn’t say San Francisco has maulers on the O-line outside of left tackle Trent Williams and the one blemish you can put on them is that they’ll happily keep running into unfavorable looks, particularly on early downs.

Pass game:

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So, fundamentally you’d think an offense so expertly constructed in the run game would heavily rely on moving the launch point of the quarterback with bootlegs and building plays off punish the flow of the defense with misdirection throws. And don’t get me wrong – they still have plenty of that on the menu. However, they have gone from the most play-action-heavy offense over the last couple of years to being in the middle of the pack this season. Part of that is modern NFL defenses adjusting to the influence Shanahan’s coaching tree and its offsprings have had on the landscape of football, but also having a quarterback, who is more comfortable and a cleaner, quicker decision-maker from the pocket. There are a lot more new-school West Coast elements I would call it, where the route distributions are very similar to what you may find in even the old Bill Walsh playbooks from the late 80s and early 90s, but they do it with a lot more movement before and at the snap, where Shanahan understands extremely well how to create issues for how match-coverages operate. Where Kyle separates himself from the rest of the league though is his ability to isolate defenders and if there’s a weakness across that unit, keep picking on it relentlessly. We saw that came to full effect in their week 13 win at Philadelphia, when they put those linebackers in hell for four quarters by the way their heads were spinning. I actually put together an extensive All-22 analysis on the way San Francisco threw all kinds of misdirection at them, putting those guys in a bind with high-lows and changing up who they were responsible for matching multiple times.
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https://reddit.com/link/1alc4b0/video/m6fx5uqaq7hc1/player
One of the big differences for San Francisco’s more traditional dropback game is how insanely good Brandon Aiyuk has become – in particular as that isolated X receiver on the backside of the formation. He finished the regular season third among all pass-catchers in yards per route run (3.01) and has absolutely feasted when left one-on-one. We’ve seen Shanahan play around with that a lot, where they’d work that backside matchup when calling four-strong concepts the other way, before taking advantage of the space it creates as defenses adjust and now another pass-catcher would have a lot of room to run on a crosser towards where the receiver was originally lined up, as that guy ends up being bracketed. An element to watch that they've incorporated is a swing route with a designated lead-blocker, almost like an option to throw a screen pass within a typical pure-progression read. Being able to use that type of route-running expert like Aiyuk requires a guy not only willing to hit him on in-breakers and setting up YAC opportunities – like previous quarterbacks would do as well – but also capable of testing defenses outside the numbers. That’s where Purdy has added another layer to the aerial attack, as you see him hit out routes from the opposite hash and push the ball vertically, especially working against aggressive isolated defenders on the backside, who you can occasionally punish with double-moves. Also taking into account what Brock brings to the table with extending plays with his slithery-ness, those are the components that have furthered what already made San Francisco a nightmare to prepare for with their position-agnostic personnel, where they can freely swap alignments and have five dangerous eligibles out there when they’re in a traditional run-play 21 grouping (two backs, one tight-end). The one concern to keep in mind is that outside of left tackle, this O-line has issues at providing clean pockets beyond the typical “play-clock”, which has become an issue at times when defenses have changed up the picture for the QB and made him hold onto the ball, which is why the other four starters have received PFF grades between 50 and 65.
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CHIEFS D:

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On the other side, this is the best unit defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has coached in Kansas City and maybe the best overall since he put together a masterful gameplan to stymie the Patriots in Super Bowl 42, to ruin their undefeated season in 2008. The Chiefs defense finished the regular season sixth in EPA per play (-0.076) and fourth in success rate allowed (39.8%), along with second in the two more traditional statistics – yards (289.8 YPG) and points allowed (17.3 PPG). That’s because even though they rank 28th in rush EPA, they’re top-three in both categories against the pass. They’re actually the only team in the NFL that has a better per-dropback success rate allowed (40%) than rushing success rate allowed (41.4%). Even beyond the statistics, the attitude they’ve brought to the table and how they’ve picked up the slack at times when the offense hasn’t been lighting up scoreboards, has been highly impressive. Looking at their three-game sample size during these playoffs, they’d rank dead-last in both EPA and success rate against the run, although in large part facing highly mobile QBs in Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson affected that. What has mattered is that they dominated the Dolphins up front in one of the coldest games in NFL history, making it feel like those guys didn’t want to be out there anymore during their seven-point outing, even in by far their worst showing at Buffalo, they were able to create a key stop at the end to force what ultimately turned into a missed field goal attempt, and then they just held the likely MVP Lamar Jackson to just ten points in the AFC title game, with an aggressive gameplan and timely takeaways.

Run game:

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The Chiefs like to start out games in a lot of two-high looks and generally want to operate out of those, because of the options it gives them against the pass. However, a big key to them being able to live in that world is how their safeties run the alley and involve themselves in the run fit, when they’re not actually accounted for. So structurally, they’re willing to concede box count advantages to their opponents when they push explosive passing opponents into more run-heavy scripts, while trusting their ability to rally and limit that effectiveness. Where this is interesting though is looking at the AFC title game and seeing that they are equally capable of making certain opponents check out of run calls, because they have the personnel flexibility to put bigger bodies out there, using base personnel and making a safety threaten to drop down as the quarterback is about to get into his cadence. That’s how the Ravens ended up with an insanely low six(!) carries by their RBs against them, after leading the league in rushing. At a time when many teams across the NFL have continued to get smaller, the Chiefs have zagged the other way. The six defensive linemen who have played more than 35% of snaps for them (nobody else is above 20%) have an average weight of 284.5 pounds. That’s because they ask that group to play a lot of gap-control instead of shooting up the field, in order to occupy the O-line, while the second level can aggressively shoot through open lanes. Meanwhile, they’re one of only two teams in the NFL to use both base (three linebackers) and dime personnel (six defensive backs) on over 23% of snaps. They may have Leo Chenal at 250+ pounds basically functioning as another D-lineman for a five-man surface on first down, but on third-and-long play cover-zero, where they double/bracket two pass-catchers on third-and-long.
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https://reddit.com/link/1alc4b0/video/p3i2ry3dr7hc1/player
Where they’ve struggled as a unit is not only when offenses have called their bluff of the illusion of disadvantageous box counts to run the ball against on one hand, but then from a more schematic perspective, when opponents were able to use angles up front and create new gaps with pulling linemen. Because the Chiefs want their D-line to hold its ground, blocking down against them and just keeping them there becomes easier than trying to run right at them, as it’s more about walling off bodies whilst the displacement offenses intend to create is with those bigger bodies on the move. KC has bigger defensive ends to attack pullers on designated kick-outs, but you put pressure on those linebackers to box in what would be referred to as a lead-blocker wrapping around from the backside. While Spags helped push Baltimore away from the run game, two of their seven designed carries were back-to-back FG power (fullback kick-out, guard wrap-around) calls for 21 and 15 yards respectively. As cool as watching that unit match the aggressiveness of their coordinator is, that can also be taken advantage of with counter plays – in particular in short-yardage – and flipping the ball to one of your receivers on reverse action. The one other factor to look at is the availability/health of Derrick Nnadi. He’s their primary (shade) nose-tackle and while the sample size is limited, if you extrapolated their two playoff games without him in the lineup for a full season, they’d rank dead-last in both EPA per rush (0.090) and rushing success rate (57.1%).

Pass game:

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Transitioning to how Spags approaches the pass game, it’s very different on early downs and to some degree early in games compared to more defined dropback situations. For the regular season, they ran cover-two at the third-highest rate (16.7%). That’s what they want to do when offenses can either run or pass, because of what I just explained about having that heavier front-seven along with keeping routes in front of them. At the same time, they used either cover-one or cover-zero on a combined 30% of dropbacks, along with straight quarters on another 21.2%. That speaks to the confidence they have in their guys in coverage for 2-3 seconds at least, to where it allows them to send additional rushers. They posted the eight-highest blitz rate across the NFL (31.2%), while using stunts fewer than any other team (11.4%). When they get to those longer downs, it’s not about sitting back and hoping that gives the front enough time to get home. They want to be the aggressors, either challenging receivers off the line to throw off the timing or because of how well-taught those DBs are, being able to read routes playing off and driving on them, since they know quarterbacks won’t have the time to hold onto the ball for double-moves typically. Through week 18, they had posted the second-highest pressure rate league-wide (27.8%) according to pro-football-reference.com, and nobody created more unblocked pressures (73), meaning defenders putting heat on the QB without being accounted for by the protection. You just don’t ever really see them line up one safety deep and play straight zone, as indicated by the lowest rate of cover-three league-wide (17.2%).
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https://reddit.com/link/1alc4b0/video/d1uvqstkr7hc1/player
Arguably no team in the NFL has a more physical group of cover-guys, which is why they trust that group to be one-on-one on such a regular basis, in combination with their safeties and their smarts to use leverage and route anticipation to their advantage. Trent McDuffie was a first-team All-Pro selection in the slot this year and I believe you can make a strong case that L’Jarius Sneed on the outside could’ve joined him there. Across 16 regular season games, Sneed was targeted 100 times, yet allowed just under 30 yards per contest, with zero touchdowns compared to his two interceptions (slightly worse in the playoffs). How tight the refs call things in this game will be huge however, since he was penalized 11 total times throughout the year. With all that being said though, going back to the tape from the AFC Championship game, as well as the Chiefs did for the most part at plastering receivers while heating up Lamar, there were opportunities to hit a couple of big plays down the field. He was about to launch the ball for a potential 64 touchdown to Rashod Bateman on a deep post route, but Charles Omenihu was able to beat the left tackle around the edge and strip the QB. That’s along with a couple of deep balls down the sideline in the Divisional Round not being hauled in by Bills receivers for a good 100 yards, despite them having a step on their defenders. When the Chiefs don’t bring extra pressure, I’d still say the areas you want to attack are their linebackers when isolated – particularly if Willie Gay Jr. at least isn’t 100% – and to some degree that second outside corner, when McDuffie is in the slot. They also suffered a significant loss in terms of their pass-rush when Omenihu tore his ACL in that conference title game.
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HOW THEY MATCH UP:

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While the Chiefs ended up winning 44-23 when they traveled to San Francisco in week seven last season, early on it looked like Niners were going to bludgeon the visitors. They ran the ball on four of the first six plays for a combined 38 yards. That was actually Christian McCaffrey’s debut performance with his current team and he only touched the ball ten times – fewest in any game he’s finished with San Fran. They had plenty of other runs pop, but some ticky-tack holding calls took them off the board. Re-watching the tape from that game, only strengthened my belief/memory of a lot of the negative plays being a product of quarterback play. Jimmy Garoppolo made several costly mistakes, holding onto the ball, missing open receivers and running himself into sacks with questionable pocket movement. What made me smirk at the end of the All-22 was that we got to see Brock Purdy for the first time as a rookie, outside of a kneel-down, and he actually had a couple of nice throws on deep in-breakers before getting picked off at the goal-line when he slightly overthrew another one of those.
In terms of the run game, the advanced metrics would strongly signal the Niners should continue to have success calling inside and outside zone, as it presents the biggest advantage in terms of success rate differential (both +11.2% above average). With that being said, as I already explained, counter as the “counter-punch” to take advantage of the second level defensively starts opening their shoulders prematurely as they work laterally could result in a couple of explosive gains and I’d think a healthy Deebo will be a focal point of the gameplan, where the get him involved quick-hitting end-arounds and sweep plays out of reduced splits. Once KC starts reacting to it and guys away from the point of attack have to freeze instead of chase, you’ll see McCaffrey cu up runs between the guards with success. While being able to stay on/ahead of schedule will be key for San Francisco of course, the facet of the game that will be the biggest tell for its outcome is the Niners’ top-ranked passing game against a top-three defense against in EPA and dropback success rate.
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https://reddit.com/link/1alc4b0/video/xtuxqk0tr7hc1/player
As tremendous as the Chiefs may be at plastering receivers in man-coverage, to give the rush a chance to get home, this is a different animal. No collection of skill-position players is more capable of killing man-coverage, because of their ability to break that one tackle and put the rest of the defense into scramble mode basically, as they transition from having their eyes locked on their responsibility to locate the “free runner” and trying to corral him. One metric that supports that idea is the fact that Deebo, Kittle and Aiyuk all finished the regular season in the top-15 in terms of average YAC above expectation, according to Next Gen Stats. Going back to when these two sides last met, it was a big George Kittle day, as Shanahan designed a lot of misdirection plays off play-action for him. Yet, when they do get to designated passing situations, the matchup I’ll be watching closest is Brandon Aiyuk versus L’Jarius Sneed. KC has bullied several opponents along the way with their aggressive pressure packages. Throwing hot and alerting to screens against it has rarely been a good answer, in large part due to the excellent tackling by their DBs. As a unit, they only missed 76 tackles throughout the regular season despite that style of play (sixth-fewest in the league). I can remember that early in the season, the Vikings had success disrupting the pass game with a blitz-heavy approach, but otherwise Shanahan has found solutions schematically. Including the postseason, Purdy has posted a league-best passer rating (119.4) and yards per attempt (9.9) against the blitz, and one more crazy stat on him – his 7.94 yards per attempt under pressure would rank fifth(!) among quarterbacks on ALL plays. So could we maybe see them deploy resources into coverage a little more and use simulated pressures, since on plays where they don’t blitz opposing passers hold onto the ball for 3.02 seconds (fourth-longest in the NFL)?
One position the Chiefs should have an advantage against is right tackle Colton McKivitz. He has allowed easily a team-high nine sacks and he’s the biggest question mark, trying to hold up in defined dropback situations. George Karlaftis will regularly match up with him, having racked up 34 combined sacks and QB hits through 19 games. Yet, I would also expect Spags to move Chris Jones out there on critical downs, where his power advantage will help close in those walls for Purdy. I’ll also be very interested in Shanahan’s usage of wide receivers, in two areas. One of those is how much the Niners like to put those guys into condensed splits and involve them closer to the action in the run game. That has largely played into Spags’ hands however during his time in Kansas City, because he takes that as an invitation to blitz his DBs, who now have a shorter towards the ball. The second part of this is general personnel groupings, because while San Francisco has built their own “death lineup” – whose name was inspired by another Bay Area team in the Golden State Warriors – when they are in 21 (meaning McCaffrey, Juszczyk, Kittle, Aiyuk and Deebo), as we already discussed, the Chiefs like to counter with base, at least on early downs. In part, that’s because the one position they don’t have a ton of confidence in is that second outside corner, which is why they move McDuffie out there with three linebackers on the field and a third guy at that spot has only logged a cumulative 63% of snaps, if you take out week 18, when both definitive starters sat out. I’d still very much expect Shanahan to ride with the crew that got them here, but could we maybe see some more Jauan Jennings in 11 personnel sets and force KC to match with traditional nickel – or take advantage if they get a receiver matched up against a safety? One huge advantage this would present – the Niners are number one in rushing success rate with three receivers on the field, while the Chiefs rank 31st defending it.
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Chiefs offense vs. 49ers defense:

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CHIEFS O:

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For Kansas City’s offense, it truly is remarkable how they’ve been able to go from an offense that was marked with mistakes, leading the league with 39 team drops in particular, and that has struggled to create chunk plays, to all of a sudden looking like they can get that key first down or score whenever they really need it. The Chiefs during the regular season ranked just outside the top-ten in both offensive EPA per play (0.021) and success rate (43.8%), along with scoring more than a touchdown less on average (21.8 PPG) than what they’ve done since 2018 (first season under Mahomes). And while the latter of those two numbers is only slightly higher, they’d be pretty much right there with the 49ers as the number one unit in terms of dropback EPA (0.294) looking at their three playoff contests. A massive reason for that is of course is Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce getting back to creating magic on third downs, but also the ability to create explosive plays. For the regular season, they were tied for 15th in 20+ yard gains (62). During these playoffs, they logged seven each against the Dolphins and Bills – in inclement weather – and then a couple against the Ravens, when they had built a ten-point lead and it was more about ball control, being in possessing for 37:30 minutes. After rotating receivers at a high rate throughout the year, they’ve settled in on Rashee Rice as their designated yards-after-catch threat (finished second to only Deebo Samuel with 8.3 YAC/reception), MVS as their primary deep threat (108 yards on just five catches during the postseason) and of course Kelce as the high-volume target, as he’s had a little more juice after being able to sit out week 18, leading all pass-catchers in the playoffs in targets (27), receptions (23) and yards (262). Yet, while positive game-script has played a huge role, with inconsistencies that plagued them throughout the regular season, they’ve gone from the seventh-most pass-happy unit (60.2% of plays) to a very balanced attack (53.3% pass rate – would rank fifth-lowest), with the violent Isiah Pacheco handling the majority of the work.
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Run game:

As I just mentioned, it took Kansas City a while to transition to this ground-oriented approach, which not only mitigates some of their issues in pass-protection on the edges and wide receiver consistency. Focusing on this postseason run, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an Andy Reid-coached team become this patient with the run game. A big reason they should’ve probably swayed that way earlier is the number of advantageous looks they’ve been presented to run against. Isiah Pacheco, who has handled a massive 79.8% of RB carries when available, faced defenses with 8+ defenders in the box on just 12.2% of his carries (41st among 49 RBs with 90+ carries) – that’s basically a third as much as McCaffrey, which I mentioned earlier for the 49ers. Even with the issues this group has had for most of the year at threatening their opponents through the air, because they’ve gone away from the multi-tight-end sets that were a big factor in their run at the Lombardi trophy last year, opponents have chosen to make Big Red lean into a facet he’s refused to at times in his past. That’s a big reason they were able to finish top-ten in yards per attempt on inside zone, power, counter and pin-and-pull – so four of the six big run play categories in terms of how they’re typically categories.
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With that being said, there’s a clear path for how they should be trying to attack the edges of the defense on the ground. They’ve been very effective when condensing the formation and getting the back out on the perimeter with toss plays. And presenting that threat is of course, because it forces the entire unit on the other side to flow that way and open up lanes on the inside. Where they’ve gone wrong to some degree is insisting on running outside zone from the shotgun, in order to support the RPO game, which messes with the blocking angles, and then the occasional sweep plays with their receivers, in particular when they get a little too fancy, trying to catch the defense off guard in short-yardage situations. Getting back to what they generally do well, you want to see Pacheco be able to hit the hole at full speed and not have to read plays behind the line of scrimmage. As fun as he is to watch, running the ball as if he has rabies it seems, he’s not advanced in his ability to set up run plays conceptually and adjust his pacing on the fly. What he does typically is run towards open space, which can close in a hurry if you tell the second level to meet him there, being able to take a direct angle. So there may be more of a focus coming into this matchup with how KC can affect the defensive backfield with eye-cand, in order to not allow them to fly to the ball.
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Pass game:

Moving on to the pass game now – when Andy Reid first unleashed Patrick Mahomes onto the scene in 2018, it took all of three games for me to acknowledge that he would be taking the NFL by storm and he ended up winning his first MVP award, as they were running a style of offense unlike what we had quite seen before. While the ideas weren’t completely new, some of the deep-developing concepts they used and how they allowed the speed of someone like Tyreek Hill to shine was stressing defenses in ways they weren’t used to. Since then, as defenses across the league have transitioned into playing a lot more top-down, basing off their coverages in two-high safety looks and being less static on the back-end, so have the Chiefs made their adjustments. We saw that in 2022 – after trading Tyreek to Miami – when they had just one ace left in Travis Kelce, along with role-players around him. They went from the most explosive aerial attacks to a well-oiled machine, which had Pat getting rid of the ball quicker, with a lower depth of target and attacking the middle of the field repeatedly. This season, that trend has gone even further, but the difference in their quarterback winning a second MVP trophy and being part of the 12th-ranked passing attack in EPA has been a decline in Kelce’s play, highly inconsistent ancillary pass-catchers and a struggling duo of offensive tackles – at least until they reached the tournament.
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Taking a look at Mahomes’ playoff statistics is truly insane. He has now basically played a full season when you just look at his 17 postseason appearances and despite facing the toughest competition across those, who have designed ultra-specific gameplans against him/them, the Chiefs with #15 under center have posted a 14-3 record and Pat himself has put up numbers that would rival, if not outdo his best MVP campaign, accounting for 5360 yards and 44 touchdowns compared to only seven picks. In his last six playoff games, he has a sack rate of just 2% and he hasn’t thrown a single interception. So there are virtually no negative plays – which are the biggest indicators for drive success rate. This postseason, 50% of Mahomes’ throws have come out of his hand in less than 2.5 seconds (would rank ninth league-wide during the regular season) and he’s only averaging 6.7 intended air yards per attempt – which is actually just a tad higher than his regular season numbers (30th in the NFL). KC runs four-strong concepts more than any other offense in the league and they’ve taken it up a notch during their playoff run. The idea behind that is to flood zone coverages and put defenders into a bind with multiple routes in their vicinity. What that also does however is limit the space they can attack and asks a lot from their quarterback and primarily Kelce as the designated target to find openings as a tandem. Yet, when they used such concepts in the past, they’d have #87 on the backside to take advantage when singled up or the coverage would bump over towards the passing strength. NFL defenses have been more willing all season to play a little further off and make KC navigate through the limited space, in part also because of the lack of threats after the catch outside of Rashee Rice. That simply hasn’t been the case during the playoffs, where they’ve scored on 14 of 22 drives through the first three quarters and found more explosives, with a couple of them coming on long Mahomes scrambles. And of course, you always have the possibility of insane play-extension by the quarterback, who is as comfortable and creative out of structure/in the midst of chaos as anybody in history.
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NINERS D:

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Comparing where they’ve finished across multiple categories since these two sides last met, the 49ersdefense has taken a step backwards from where they’ve stood over the last five years, if you take out an injury-riddled 2020 season – where they still fielded a more than respectable unit. As I already explained in the prior paragraph, playing alongside a more explosive offense has led to gamescripts that have lent themselves to more easy yardage surrendered. Yet, the switch at defensive coordinator from DeMeco Ryans to Steve Wilks has also necessitated a certain adjustment period. Altogether, San Francisco’s D finished the regular season 10th in EPA per play (-0.052), but even worse – only 26th against the run. During their two-game playoff run, they’ve been even worse, allowing a success rate vs. the run of a massive 51.7% (which would be dead-last for the regular season). We’ll get to their issues in that regard momentarily, but they’ve been able to step up in the biggest moments, holding the Packers and Lions to a combined 1-of-4 on fourth downs, including when they were able to flush Jared Goff to force an incompletion which set up their game-winning touchdown drive, plus an interception to seal that win in the Divisional Round on an ill-advised throw across his body by Jordan Love. And looking at schedule-adjusted DVOA, they were up there for fourth league-wide (-9.6%), because of how well they’ve performed against the pass.
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Click here for the rest of the analysis, including X-factors and my score prediction!

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If you enjoyed this NFL breakdown, please consider heading over to the original article, and feel free to check out all my other video content.
Twitter: @ halilsfbtalk
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Oi! Oi! Oi! Welcome to this Uthden Troll Cup V tournament report.
Last year, I attended UTC IV with the Ghent crew (Baptist and Gwen) and we had tons of fun, so we decided to come again this year of course!
We registered for the Swaffel (OS Swedish rules with reprints AKA Ravenna rules + Fallen Empires) world championship on Friday and of course for the main event on Saturday (Ravenna rules).
We were requested to submit our decklist pictures well in advance, which is kind of irritating, but lets me sleep better.
Due to a storm, Gwen had to pick me up at home on Thursday evening on his way back from Germany, meaning we had a small testing session at his place (me playing The Deck and him Arabian zoo, our decks for the Swaffel event on Friday) which ended on a 2-2 score.
On Friday morning, we picked up Baptist at his place and drove to Leeuwarden, which was a 4-hour drive from Ghent. Fortunately, the storm had passed and we had a safe trip. We checked in at the hotel (same former prison as last year), and headed to the tournament location, where Ron welcomed us. We had a look at the artists room (Jeff A. Menges as orginal Magic artist, but he was not alone, great art) then blended into the crowd.
The Swaffel tournament starts at 14:00, we are 38 players, meaning 5 Swiss rounds followed by single elimination top 8. Two of us play The Deck: Baptist plays his version with 2 Serra Angels main deck and I play Svante's version from Winc0n 2023 with what he suggested in his report. Gwen takes Arabian zoo (close to what he played in the semi-finals at Fishliver Oil Cup 3). None of us plays a single Fallen Empires card...
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Svante's updated version of the Deck I played on Friday
Round 1: Frank Sliphorst - RWU Land's Edge
Frank starts on the play with a turn 1 Winds of Change! Fortunately, I get an OK hand, and manage to get The Deck's plan going: deploy mana and double Jayemdae Tome, draw enough cards to be in control, Mind Twist his hand away, and start the beating with a couple of Factories. Frank concedes.
I get a turn 1 Library of Alexandria on the draw in game 2, which allows me to draw a few cards before Frank gets a Strip Mine, with the help of a second turn Wheel of Fortune. I get out a couple of books again, followed by 2 Serra Angels. Frank managed to deal me 10 damaged thanks to Land's Edge and a hand full of lands, but I am still at 5 life. The angels go to town.
2-0, 3 points
Round 2: Giacomo Basseoto - DFB's aggro green with black
I play The Abyss which stops him in his tracks until he finds Chaos Orb. He also get Sylvan Library out, but can't stop my Factories.
Game 2, he plays a turn 1 elf, I drop City of Brass, 3 Moxen and The Abyss.That's all she wrote.
2-0, 6 points
Round 3: Åland - URb counterburn with Sedge Troll
Good to see him again.
He gets a great start with LoA on the draw, I play Ancestral Recall (after a mulligan) and get the Strip Mine I needed badly. It is then my turn to play LoA, but he has a Stone Rain. I play a Book, he burns me down to 7. He then plays Braingeyser for 5, I Mana Drain, but he taps out to counter it. I play Time Walk, Recall on Regrowth and Time Walk, attacking with the Factory each turn, then Fireball him to death before he gets a turn to play the drawn cards.
It is his turn to mulligan, but twice unfortunately. I Tutor turn 1 for Ancestral Recall. He plays Greed from the sideboard which I counter. I play a Serra Angel while he gets out a Sedge Troll, but he can't attack as I also have 2 Factories out. I get him down to 6 then fireballs him for the win. He tells me that The Deck is indeed a bad matchup for him.
2-0, 9 points
Round 4: Frank Roelofs - The Deck
This is a swingy game: I first Recall for 3 but fall flat, he then Recalls for 4, then me again for 4 too (since I am playing 2 Recall). He concedes hoping to win the next two games.
I play a turn 2 Stone Rain on his Volcanic Island, he doesn't have UU to counter my turn 3 Mind Twist for 4: he keeps one card. I am holding an Angel and Counterspell, so I wait to reach 7 mana to be able to protect the Angel that kills him.
2-0, 12 points
Round 5: Baptist Matthys - The Deck
We are the only undefeated player, so it is not to bad to play each other at this time, knowing that both will be in the top 8.
He plays a LoA on the play, I don't have an answer. He follows with a Book, then he Mind Twists my hand away, followed by books #2 and #3. When he starts to attack, I concede.
He is mana screwed in game 2 and has to play a Demonic Tutor without UU open. That is a good time for me to cast Mind Twist. Five hits of Serra Angel do the trick.
He gets a turn 1 Serra Angel thanks to Black Lotus. I play Demonic Tutor to get Sol Ring turn 1 and play a turn 3 Mind Twist, then a turn 4 Chaos Orb to kill the Angel. I play a Serra of my own, but Balance deals with it. I then play my own Balance to get him to discard his hand and we both are in topdeck mode. His next two draws are Angel, then Angel again: I can't cope with that.
1-2, 12 points
Top 8 is announced, Baptist is first seed, I am third and Gwen is 6th with a 3-1-1 sheet.
Quarter-final: Gwen De Schamphelaere - Arabian zoo
This time we cannot avoid playing each other...
He gets a slow start (no spells turns 1 and 2) while I don't have any Swords to Plowshares, I am happy to counter his 2 Serendib Efreets. He then gets out Kird Ape and Argothian Pixies, but a timely Abyss means I can stabilize at 2 life. I Recall for 2, getting back the 2 Counterspells. Two Factories kill him.
Game 2, he has an early Sylvan Library which stays on the board, then Pixies and Black Vise. I counter the latter and play turn 3 Abyss to get rid of the Pixies. He plays Timetwister when I have only one mana open, but I counter with a REB. He then gets Wheel of Fortune with a Black Vise in play that I Disenchant at the end of his turn. On my turn, I tutor for Mind Twist to empty his hand. He pays life to Sylvan Library to get some extra cards, going down to 5 life. He plays a Su-Chi. I kill Gwen with a Fireball.
Semi-final: Alex Rutten playing WUR Shahrazad
Alex plays turn 1 Lion, turn 2 Order of Leitbur, but I have 2 Swords to Plowshares for them. He plays Shahrazad, which I am fortunate enough to counter. I play a book and have to Recall to get back Counterspells for his creatures. I kill him with 2 Factories.
Game 2 is different: this time Alex has a REB to protect Shahrazad, and we go to a first subgame, which I win thanks to Serra Angel, putting him at 9 life (as he took 2 damages from City of Brass earlier). A bit later in the main game, Alex manages to Shahrazad again (he plays 3), and we start the second subgame. Good that elimination rounds are untimed! I manage to take the subgame again (killing him with a Fireball for 9), putting Alex down to 4 life. Extra cards on my side make sure that I have the game in hand, and Alex cannot overwhelm me.
Finals: Jeff de Nijs playing UWB Deadguy ale
Jeff beat Baptist in the quarters, so I know what to expect: Order of the Ebon Hand is difficult to remove due to protection from black, and Underworld Dreams is a slow clock, but it has to be dealt with.
Game 1, I have to mulligan and keep a hand with a sketchy mana base since I don't want to go down to a 5-card hand: I have Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, one non-blue land and Fireball. I use the Fireball to kill an Order of the Ebon Hand, but he then managed to play 2 Hypnotic Specters just before I draw Mind Twist. The two flyers empty my hand then kill me.
Game 2, Jeff does not have a fast start, I have UU to counter any threat. Then Jeff plays Demonic Tutor, and I somehow allow it, thinking that he cannot get Strip Mine since he already played it. As soon as Jeff grabs his library, I blame myself: he will get the Library of Alexandria, and indeed, he does. But he does not get his fourth mana for many turns (he has to discard down to seven several times), then I have a few Counterspell for the first threats, then creatures start pouring. That is when I peel THE card I need: Balance. Then Moat. My third Serra Angel and a Fireball win me the game. Better lucky than good!
Game 3 is a repeat of game 1, I mulligan into a hand which doesn't have enough blue mana sources, but a Library of Alexandria (which is far from great after a mulligan on the play), so I keep it rather than to opt for a 5-card hand. Jeff plays a turn 2 Underworld Dreams thanks to Mox Jet. He later plays an Order of the Ebon Hand. I finally get a Disenchant when I am at 5 life, but can't get rid of the Order and die.
A happy end with the villain from the dark side playing The Deck defeated by the champion playing with Fallen Empires cards.
Congrats Chefke!
The tournament ran extremely smoothly, the software (melee.gg) worked without a glitch.
We go back to the hotel after that to get some sleep and hopefully be fit for the main event the day after. The three of us in the top 8 makes it a great day.
A nice shower and a big breakfast make sure we are all radiant when reaching the Catshuis on Saturday morning. The queue to register (and to get the tickets for the excellent meals) stretches out to the street, we meet some known faces, mainly Dutchmen, even some from Friesland :-) The fauna is different from the day before, all the Northmen have arrived, some Italians, many Germans and a few Swiss: 133 players for 7 Swiss rounds followed by top 16 single elimination. This will be a long day. That is why I didn't want to play The Deck again, especially the mirror match which I don't feel confortable with. So, I took Thomas Nilsen's Chains of Mephistopheles deck from Raging Bull 2023, which aims to empty hands with Winds of Change and deals damage with The Rack, along with blue for the restricted cards and some Psionic Blast.
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The deck I played in the main event: Chains of Mephistopheles by Thomas Nilsen
Round 1: Erwin Demmer - UR Robots
This happened last year in Groningen too (where we went 1-1, no time for game 3): I have to play my good friend Erwin in the opening round.
He plays a Library of Alexandria on the play. Fortunately, I peel Strip Mine from the top of my deck to get rid of it. He then proceeds to drop creature after creature in a combination of Su-Chi (which I kill with Chaos Orb), Triskelion and Copy Artifact. I am able to block a Trike with a Su-Chi, but he manages to get 2 more Triskelion out which is too much for me.
Game 2 is in the same vein as Erwin plays Trikelion and no less than 3 Copy Artifacts. I am able to play a Copy Artifact on my own and a Su-Chi, but Erwin has the perfect answer: Hurkyl's Recall. Oh yes, he also had 4 Factories out to make sure the game ends immediately. Brutal.
0-2, 0 point
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Round 2: Evert Vissers - UWB aggro control
After Erwin, I now have to play Evert, which is one of the top Dutch old school players.
Evert has to mulligan and gets severly mana screwed. This allows me to plays the combo: Chains of Mephistopheles (which I tutored for) followed by Winds of Change so that we are both empty-handed. Too bad I didn't manage to get The Rack in play to hurt Evert. He plays a Lion and a Factory that I can't stop (my Dib being sent farming).
Game 2 starts slowly, we both play Su-Chi, but he has 2 Plowshares. I play Wheel of Fortune, getting a Psionic Blast for the Su-Chi. Evert plays Balance with one card in hand. I have to choose between Su-Chi and The Abyss and go for the former. Evert plays the Angel he kept in hand, then a Su-Chi and finally Psionic Blast for the final blow.
0-2, 0 point
Round 3: Chris Houweling - Disco Troll (URB)
Chris, on the play, starts with land, Lotus, Guardian Beast. I have a good answer though: Library of Alexandria. He hits me once, then plays a Factory, and hits me for 4 on turn 3. I play a Dib to hold his creatures at bay, then Chaos Orb and a second one thanks to Copy Artifact. Chris is stuck at 2 lands for some time. I empty his hand with Mind Twist. He later plays Wheel of Fortune which gets me a second Dib so I can hit him with it, Psionic Blast and the 2 Chaos Orb make sur that I control the battlefield and kill him.
Game 2 starts with a strong turn 1 from Chris: the dreaded Library of Alexandria. Fortunately, a Chains of Mephistopheles keep it in check. Chris plays a Sedge Troll and I drop Su-Chi. Chris pops a Disk, so I get Su-Chi back in my hand (along with a Mox) thanks to Hurkyl's Recall. My Su-Chi meets its fate with a Psionic Blast. I get another Chains of Mephistopheles out and empty our hands with Winds of Change, this time with The Rack in play inflicting some damage. I also have a Factory to keep the Troll at bay, since I am ahead in life. I then play Wheel of Fortune, Chris loses 3 life next turn, then 2, then 1 and goes to 2 life. A second Factory goes unblocked to put Chris exactly to 0 life.
2-0, 3 points
Round 4: Jaap Brouwer - Disco Troll (BR)
I know Jaap from his judging days (having been one myself for a short time). He is very friendly and quite clear about what he does. He plays a black and red deck with Nevinyrral's Disk, Hypnotic Specter, Juzam Djinn, Sedge Troll and Su-Chi.
Jaap is stuck at two lands and concedes after drawing a total of 18 cards and not finding a third mana source. I had Chains of Mephistopheles and The Rack out, so he knows what I play.
In Game 2, Jaap is able to develop his game with a Sedge Troll and a Disk, then another Troll and another Disk, followed by a Su-Chi. That is too much for me.
Game 3, Jaap has to mulligan twice. He plays a Disk which he takes a long time to pop, forcing me to hold my creatures in hand. Then I play a Su-Chi (and 2 Winds of Change without Chains of Mephistopheles in play, just to get more business cards) he can't cope with.
2-1, 6 points
Round 5: Edwin Zuidema - Deadguy Ale
Game 1, I lose a lot of life to my 2 City of Brass and 2 Psionic Blast that I use as removal on Su-Chi and Sengir Vampire. Edwin then plays 2 Underworld Dreams and a Factory to take the game.
Game 2, I get aggressive with Su-Chis and Edwin cannot find removal to get rid of them.
In the decider, Edwin starts with Dark Ritual and Underworld Dreams, which put me on a clock. He also plays 3 Su-Chis, which is one to many for me.
1-2, 6 points
Round 6: Juriaan Feverwee - UWB Robots with Serra Angel
I get a very aggressive start with turn 1 Time Walk, turn 2 Serendib Efreet, turn 3 Copy Artifact my Mishra's Factory (and hit for 6), turn 4 a second Dib. Juriaan starts is not bad with turn 1 Mana Vault, turn 2 Serra Angel, but with so many attackers (and the damage from the Mana Vault), he dies.
Game 2, I play The Abyss (from the sideboard), he counters, so I am able to play black Lotus and Mind Twist for 5 (he has one card left in hand). I then play my second Abyss to kill his Sage of Lat-Nam. He plays a Triskelion which I copy. He has Divine Offering, so I ping Juriaan, his Trike (followed by a Bolt) and my trike itself so that Juriaan doesn't gain life. I get some creatures out and a Rack, he Demonic Tutors to get Mind Twist: I am holding 4 or 5 cards, two of them Lightning Bolts to get him down to 2 life. I then draw my own Tutor to get my 4th Bolt to kill him.
2-1, 9 points
Round 7: Misha de Jonge - Monored
He plays a turn 1 Black Vise on the draw followed by an Atog and Ankh of Mishra while I drop two Su-Chis. Atog eats two of his artifacts to kill a Su-Chi. I Mind Twist his hand away (4 cards). He plays Blood Moon. My second Su-Chi goes all the way.
In game 2, Misha plays another early Ankh and I play a Rack. When he starts playing lands with me at 6 life (getting damage from Ankh and Rack), I know he is holding Fireball. With me holding 3 lands, this is a good time to play Winds of Change (and indeed, Misha was holding a Fireball). He plays Relic Barrier and Su-Chi. I have a Su-Chi myself and play Chaos Orb that I Copy Artifact. Misha Shatters the first Chaos Orb, and the second hits the Relic Barrier. We trade our Su-Chi. I kill him with a Fatory hit, a Bolt and 2 damages from the Rack on his upkeep while being at 2 life myself. What a tense game to finish the tournament, even if nothing was at stake.
2-0, 12 points
I am happy to finish with a 4-3-0 record. I see that Thomas Nilsen is also playing in the tournament, but I don't know whether he played his Chains of Mephistopheles deck. He finishes on a 2-4-1 score.
Top 16 is posted, Baptist (2nd seed with 6-0-1 playing The Deck again, drawing against Leo Bruder, no time for the 3rd game) and Gwen (14th with 5-2-0 playing Triple S) are in. I watch both of them winning their first single-elimination match (Gwen won his second game by putting his opponent on exactly 0 life with no card left in his library), then lose in the quarter-finals: Baptist to the eventual winner, Leo Bruder, and Gwen against Jordan Boyle who was playing an aggro BWU with pesky Black Knights, Juzam Djinn, Sengir Vampire and I believe Hyppie.
We then watch the semi-final between Antti Turtiainen (playing RWU Atog) and Svante Landgraf (playing his zoo deck), then the finals (Leo vs Antti): in game 2, Leo probably won thanks to a sideboarded Chains of Mephistopheles, since Antti has Tutored for Timetwister to refill his hand and hurt Leo with Black Vise he had in play. Impressive!
Baptist and I go get a Kebab while Gwen is chatting with Dutchmen. When we are back, it is almost 1 AM, Gwen decides to stay longer and Baptist and me go back to the hotel.
On Sunday, we get another good breakfast then Gwen drives us back to Ghent where I get a train to go home immediately.
Uthden Troll Cup 5th edition was a success again.
Many thanks to Ron and his crew for organising an excellent weekend (actually one evening and 3 full days), to Gwen and Baptist for the good spirit and good laughs and to Svante and Thomas Nilsen for their decklists.

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We’ve spent a ton of time talking about all these highly-rated prospects for the NFL Draft and where they landed. So I wanted to once again show love to the guys who didn’t hear their names called, but have now been signed as UDFAs and have a chance to still make their mark on the league.
I settled on six players on offense and defense each, who I thought are in a situation to quickly make an impact – whether that’s actually having a chance to start at some point this this year or just fill a certain role for their new team. I tried to not include players that are widely considered to have gone undrafted due to medical red flags, although I added (at least) one more name for all the teams I didn’t mention among these twelve, at the end of this piece.
Here’s the list:
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Chicago Bears – Tyson Bagent, QB, Shepherd

Considering Tyson Bagent received a Senior Bowl invite and at least showed that he has talent during that week, I thought he’d hear his name called late on day three. He left Shepherd with an NCAA record across all leagues and divisions with 159(!) passing touchdowns, along with 17.000 yards through the air, and was named the Division II Player of the Year in back-to-back seasons. However, this is not one of those guys with a noodle arm, who had a far superior group of weapons than his opponents and he just flipped it to wide-open targets constantly.
The first thing that sticks out when you watch this kid is the way the ball pops out of his hand. He’s got a quick release and flexible arm, to alter release points and put different trajectories on throws. Plenty of his production came within the structure of the offense, where he hit guys in stride off their RPO game, layer the ball between zone-defenders in the seam area, lead his targets away from their defender or drill it to them in-between crowded areas. Yet, he’s also very twitchy inside the pocket and seems unfazed by arms swinging at him it seems like, while not needing a ton of space to get his feet aligned perfectly. His ability to manipulate rush angles, add in pump-fakes, extend plays and get enough velocity on the ball without a clean platform is impressive. I posted a clip a couple of weeks ago of Bagent, where’s drifting one way and wraps his arm around an oncoming defender in order to get the ball to a crosser working away from him, where I said this at least gives you Mahomes vibes.
While there are a couple of mechanical things I think can still be ironed out, where Bagent gets himself in trouble is being uber-confident in his ability to force plays. He will need to re-wire his brain to some degree in terms of being able to squeeze in balls a tad late, tight windows he can test and some of the schoolyard-type plays where he gets too loose with the ball away from his body. That won’t fly in the pros. Obviously, I’m not expecting Bagent to just de-throne Justin Fields, after the Bears just passed on the rest of this year’s quarterback class, instead trading back from the first overall pick and selecting an offensive tackle. I think at the very least, this guy has the talent to at least deliver some spark when he gets put out there as a backup. Chicago is a place where if Justin gets banged up and he gets a chance to show off his skills for an extended stretch, he can certainly hang around the NFL for several years, although he now goes back to being an underdog after being the king of D2 for a while.
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Buffalo Bills – Jordan Mims, RB, Fresno State

As always, there are several quality running backs who went undrafted, due to the sheer volume of options and the fact you can find rotational players, capable of taking on touches early on. I mentioned a few of those at the bottom, but the one that clearly stands out is Syracuse’s Sean Tucker, who probably would have been a mid-round pick without any medical concerns and has a chance to still show off his explosive skill-set with the Buccaneers, if he can stay healthy. Now, the name I wanted to talk about here however is Jordan Mims joining the Bills. It took him a while to step into the starting role with Fresno State, but he already impressed as a rotational player, before putting up career-highs in rushing yards (1372) and total touchdowns (19) in 2022, making him a first-team All-Mountain West selection.
What stands out with Mims is how he seems to always hit the hole at full speed and regularly clears the reach of defenders trying to get a piece on him as he blows across the line of scrimmage. He’s a decisive runner, who plants the outside foot with conviction in order to get vertical on zone concepts, but also utilizes jump-cuts effectively in order to get to the opposite edge of blockers if defenders overrun the play. He consistently runs with his pads over his knees and is looking to churn out yards through contact, while rarely allowing tacklers to get a straight shot on him, pulling his feet out of their grasp, yet maintaining great fundamentals of keeping the ball high and tight (just one fumble across 434 touches since ’21). What really has me bullish about Mims’ pro outlook is that he was in the role of a pass-catching back early in his career, with 91 total catches for nearly 1000 yards and eight TDs to show for himself. He confidently snatches the ball and has innate feel for people around him as he secure the catch, even if his back is turned towards the defense. Along with that, he was one of the better pass-protectors I watched at the position this year, stone-walling some blitzing linebackers by stepping up and bringing the punch to them.
The reason Mims might not have seen selected is that while he does gain yards through contact regularly, he rarely makes tacklers flat-out miss and allowed the safety to bring him down frequently after exploding into the third level. Plus, then he lacks that extra gear to pull away from defenses and rip off 40-plus yard gains. Mims was extremely impressive to me during Shrine Bowl week and the more I watched of his tape, I just had a tough time finding many negatives, outside of the few that I already knew about on the surface. Buffalo has quite a few bodies in that backfield, but James Cook is better suited to split time with a bigger back, Nyheim Hines was rarely used as something more than a return specialist after they traded for him at the deadline last season and then you’re looking at a couple of power backs with injury history in Damien Harris and Latavius Murray. I’m not sure if Mims can make it through the final roster cuts, since the Bills will likely only carry four guys, but if he gets elevated from the practice squad and gets extended run, he may not give that role back.
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Dallas Cowboys – Hunter Luepke, FB, North Dakota State

Yeah, it’s time to talk about a fullback! While this has been a dying position for about the last decade now, there are still teams out there, who use these guys in creative ways to gain advantages on the ground, the personnel they can force defenses to put out there and also get these guys involved in the pass game. A two-way standout in high school, Luepke received interest from nearby Wisconsin but instead joined the Bison, where over the past three seasons as a do-it-all RB/FB/TE, he racked up 1622 yards rushing and another 398 through the air, whilst reaching the end-zone a total of 31 times. He was recognized as first-team FCS All-American in each of those.
At NDSU, Luepke was asked to line up in the dot, as a wing/H-back, true fullback and in the slot. You could feel the effect this guy had as a big back, who they handed the ball to right up the gut, where he looks like a locomotive, taking shots from the side and refusing to go down. Yet, while he displays relentless leg-drive and consistently churns out extra yards after contact, he also has better burst to get around the corner than you’d expect, if defense didn’t take care of contain responsibilities – showcased by a 4.58 at 230 pounds. Yet, what he was best at is just pancaking linebackers when leading in the hole from off-set alignments and wrapping around bodies as an H-back. However, since he did a lot of sift-blocking across the formation to kick out the backside edge defender, he also leaked into the flats off bootlegs, they targeted him on some shot plays, such as wheel routes or drag-and-ups towards the front-side of where they faked zone runs and they even handed him some jet sweeps. This is a versatile weapon, who has enough juice to where you want to put the ball in his hands, but may do his best work without it.
There’s only a couple of players in the NFL that fulfill a similar multi-faceted role like Luepke did at NDSU and I didn’t see any routes that afford precise breaks or whatever to consistently benefit from using him detached from the line/not in the backfield. With that being said, now with Mike McCarthy taking back over as the Cowboys’ offensive play-caller, during his time in Green Bay, he utilized John Kuhn and even Aaron Ripkowski later on quite frequently. Since 12 personnel was their most effective grouping last season, Dallas made it a priority to find Dalton Schultz’s replacement with second-round pick Luke Schoonmaker from Michigan, but I absolutely believe Luepke’s ability to play in-line and add another element to that offense can be useful. Malik Davis is the only legit power back on that roster right now. So even as this organization moves on from the “everything runs through Zeke” mindset and Tony Pollard becomes the lead guy, for the oldschool approach of McCarthy, having a player that can bridge that gap to being personnel-diverse and still taking it to defense with that big O-line, I think makes a lot of sense.
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Washington Commanders – Mitchell Tinsley, WR, Penn State

We saw 33 wide receivers selected in this year’s NFL Draft. So that would signal to some people that all the talent must be exhausted. Yet, I’m telling you – this was such a deep class, that there’s a couple of quality players who didn’t end up hearing their names called. One of those is Mitchell Tinsley, who started his career at junior college before joining Western Kentucky, where he put up 87 catches for 1402 yards and 14 touchdowns during Bailey Zappe’s all-time recording-setting 2021 season. He transferred to Penn State for his final season of eligibility, to show he can be a productive player in a Power-Five conference, yet due to inconsistent quarterback play by Sean Clifford and an even less capable passer having to jump in as a backup, Tinsley was limited to 51 catches for 577 yards and five TDs.
This guy has good size at 6’1”, right around 200 pounds, yet for a longer build, he features impressive burst out of his breaks, can easily roll off the inside foot on speed-outs and is capable of using elongated steps outside his frame to affect defenders with his body-language. He really excels at attacking the blind-spot of his man with the way he sells the vertical release before snapping off routes or opens up the middle of the field for himself. He really snatches the ball out of the air and has some impressive high-point grabs in-between defenders on tape, where he aggressively rips the ball into his frame. After securing the catch, he quickly pulls the ball into his body, instantly turns upfield and packs a quick turn, after hauling in curls and hitches, to get positive yardage. Plus, then he has some nice wiggle after the catch and packs an effective stiff-arm to keep defenders away from his lower half.
The reason he didn’t get selected throughout all seven rounds is that he doesn’t have any athletic trump-card to hang his hat on. There’s some wasted movement trying to release from press-coverage, because he doesn’t have that sudden explosion to get to the edges of the defender’s frame and allows light-footed guys to slide in front of him, while lacks the top gear to regularly detach on vertical routes against NFL speed (ran a 4.6 flat at the combine). With that being said, he can be a very productive pass-catcher in the short-to-intermedia range. Looking at that Commanders depth chart, with Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson and Dyami Brown, you have three guys most dangerous going down the field. Curtis Samuel is a guy they use on shallow crossers, a variety of designated touches and even straight-up handing the ball to him. However, other than Scary Terry and an okay group of tight-ends, they don’t have much in terms of guys who make their mark between the numbers and win through contact over the middle of the field. In think Tinsley can play the Z for them, but Eric Bienemy having Juju Smith-Schuster in Kansas City last year, he may want that bigger slot profile this UDFA presents as an element to their offense.
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Dallas Cowboys – Jalen Moreno-Cropper, WR, Fresno State

I just mentioned the crazy amount of pass-catchers selected throughout seven rounds. One of my personal favorites and somebody who didn’t get a call until the final names were announced is this kid from Fresno State – a program, of which I already highlighted another skill-position player earlier – and the Cowboys get a second mention here. Moreno-Cropper was a top-500 overall recruit, who put up nearly 1100 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns as more of a gadget player in his first two seasons with the Bulldogs, before combining for 2080 yards and 18 touchdowns from scrimmage over his latter two year there, improving from second- to first-team All-Mountain West in 2022.
What really drew me towards Moreno-Cropper were his advanced skills to incorporate different tempo and footwork, along with manipulating defenders with his body language. He’s so jittery off the line and rarely allows guys to impede his release, frequently utilizing split releases, to give himself a two-way go and then reducing that shoulder, to avoid getting hung up with contact. He displays the awareness to float towards and sit or slow down in open space versus zone coverage. You see great hand-eye coordination when he ball is put right on him out of the break and tremendous body when adjusting to targets down the field. Once the ball is in his hands, Moreno-Cropper recognizes defenders around him, instantly gets upfield with excellent awareness for where the first-down marker, but also has that slipperiness to make people miss in the open field. The reason I am still surprised that he went undrafted, considering being 5’11” and 175 pounds is certainly not an outlier in this class, is that he actually ran a 4.4 flat at the combine and has been an effective vertical receiver.
Now, he doesn’t have much physicality to his game, whether it’s playing through contact or taking care of blocking assignments, combining his lack of height with arms barely cracking 30 inches in length, that ability to win at the catch-point is even less than and something he certainly needs to clean up is ball-security, as he had seven(!) career fumbles across 270 total touches. With that out of the way, I think this can still be a productive NFL receiver as part of a rotation. With the trade for Brandin Cooks, to join Ceedee Lamb and Michael Gallup, I’m obviously not expecting Moreno-Cropper to crack the starting three in 11 personnel sets. Yet, if you look at the roster beyond that, you have return specialist KaVontae Turpin, who only touched the ball four times on offense, along with third-rounder Jalen Tolbert from last year and 2021 fifth-rounder Simi Fehoko, who despite injury problems at the position, combined for only 125 offensive snaps and five receptions this past season. To me, while I did like Tolbert, even if they do show interest in getting him onto the field, he’s more of an outside option, and I could easily see Moreno-Cropper see extended workload in the slot as a de-facto WR4, when they don’t have one of that starting three and they move Ceedee to the outside or that guy gets banged up at some point.
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Indianapolis Colts – Emil Ekiyor Jr., IOL, Alabama

The one name that absolutely shocked me how he wasn’t selected at all, is this Alabama first-team All-SEC guard. Just outside the top-100 overall recruits in 2018, Ekiyor played in 24 and started 13 games heading into his junior year, when he started all 15 games and helped Alabama finish top-six in terms of scoring offense (39.9). This past season he became a first-team all-conference selection by the AP and league coaches, once again being a full-time starter at right guard.
At 6’3”, 325 pounds, Ekiyor features a powerful, compact build and basically played 2600 snaps in the SEC these last three years. This guy wants to bring the pain in the run game, with a thick lower half and easy ability to create flexion in his joints, where he is consistently to center blocks and create movement. Yet, while he can ride people down the line in the zone run game, he’s also capable of bucket-stepping and scooping nose-tackles on the backside of wide zone, was frequently utilized on different pulling assignments and the reactionary skills to secure blocks in space are impressive for a man his size are pretty darn impressive. In the pass-game, he has the strong lower body to stymie powerful interior rushers, keeps re-fitting his hands and once he gets them latched inside the chest of guys across from him, their rush completely dies out a lot of times. Ekiyor displays excellent awareness for second-level rushers and is capable of tossing them to the turf, whilst delivering some nasty rib-shots if he doesn’t have a direct assignment in pass-pro. That’s how he didn’t surrender a single sack or QB hit this past season across 414 pass-blocking snaps.
The two areas he still needs to work on are not allowing his head to drop as regularly and allow defenders to slip him because of it, along with becoming more effective with his hand-usage as a protector, being slightly off in his timing and relying heavily on two-handed strikes, which makes it easier for defenders to knock them away. Yet, I’m still flabbergasted how he didn’t get his name called at all, as part of an interior O-line class that lacked many starting quality players beyond the top-five. Especially after seeing him move over the center at times during Senior Bowl week and being equally effective with his strong base to negate pass-rushers during one-on-ones. The Colts O-line took a big step back as a unit last season, in part due to some pieces struggling individually and them having to make up for it in some way. They’re hoping Bernhard Raimann can settle in at left tackle after an up-and-down rookie campaign, considering it was only his third season playing on the front-five. Right guard however is still a question mark, where I think Ekiyor has a legit chance to beat out Will Fries and Danny Pinter for a starting spot in training already.
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Atlanta Falcons – Ikenna Enechukwu, EDGE/IDL, Rice

Now switching over to the defensive side of the ball, this is a player I saw a path for how he would the NFL might talk themselves out. Having that sort of tweener size at 6’4”, 265 pounds, even at Rice, Enechukwu switched primarily lining up in the B-gap in 2021 to spending 71.2% of his snaps on the edge this past season. Across those two years, he combined for 86 tackles, 18.5 of those for loss, nine sacks and a couple of forced fumbles, which surprisingly was only good for honorable mention All-AAC mention respectively.
This guy packs some violent hands and you see him ride tight-ends into the pile off the backside on a regular basis, when they try to seal him off. You also see him regularly free himself from blocks later on with a rapid arm-over. He showcases good burst off the ball and the ability to run down plays as the unblocked edge defender or tightly follow pullers in order to blow up plays before they even get set up. The line I wrote down when watching Enechukwu rush the passer was “he’s approaching it as if he was fighting for his food, yanking blockers to the side and slapping down their hands in his path”. He brings a sudden shoulder-dip to go underneath two-handed punches and is extremely forceful with pulling the inside arm through on rip moves, in order to corner his rushes. Enechukwu displays impressive flexibility to contort his body and run at an angle with his shoulders not being level and his feet outside his frame, without landing on the ground. And there were a lot of “wasted” reps on passing downs, where he was supposed to crash into the outside shoulder of the guard and pull the tackle with him, in order for the linebacker behind him to be free on loops or just flush the QB in the direction of his teammates. Yet. while the sacks numbers didn’t really stand out Enechukwu did put up another 31 pressures across 308 pass-rush snaps this past season.
Now, while you love the violence this guy plays with, he needs to learn being under more control and actually set up pass-rush moves, too often running into and getting hung up with blockers. His hand-placement and ability to deconstruct blocks in the run game and he doesn’t change directions very smoothly, I believe. Nevertheless, he had a very impressive showcase during East-West Shrine week, where he would routinely blow through the reach of blockers with the rip and flash up the field. That’s why I still believed somebody would take a chance on this guy in the later rounds, as a moveable piece, who can create disruption along the D-line. Looking at Atlanta’s roster, they did bring back a solid early-down player in Lorenzo Carter on an economic two-year deal and took a one-year flyer on Bud Dupree for just three million dollars. Other than that, you’re looking at a couple of guys from last year’s draft – of which I could see Arnold Ebiketie have a pretty good sophomore campaign – and a third-year from Ohio State in Zach Harrison this year. Having fortified the interior of their D-line, I could see the Falcons get to more long downs defensively, where a guy like Enechukwu can bring some chaos to set up different games and be allowed to rush from different alignments.
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Seattle Seahawks – Jonah Tavai, IDL, San Diego State

Let’s get to one of the favorite guys I watched during the pre-draft process. The younger brother of now-Patriot linebacker Jahlani Tavai, Jonah turned himself into a different beast over the past two seasons with the Azetcs, when he combined for 106 tackles, 28 of those for loss and 19 sacks, going from honorable mention to first-team All-Mountain West in 2022. This is another name I expected to drop further than where I had him in my rankings, because he doesn’t quite scratch the six-foot mark and comes in just short of the 30-inch arm mark in terms of arm length, but this kid is a bowling ball of butcher knives, who I want to see what he can do out there on the field.
Tavai is quick off the ball and can penetrate in a gap-attack style of front, where he consistently is able to play super-low, reduce his surface area for blockers and not allow himself to be shielded off. While he is slippery to create disruption in the backfield and that’s where he will mostly make his mark in the league, he also has the strong core and arms that allowed him to stack-and-shed at SDSU, even with the length deficiencies. There are plays where he’s lined up at the nose, stays square and just drives the center a couple of yards into the field, not even allowing the ball to press front-side on zone schemes. Plus, he uses his hands exceptionally well to swat down the reach of blockers and create angles towards the ball for himself. Not only does his natural leverage allow him to work underneath and around blockers in pass-pro, but it also allows him to transfer force from the ground up and put linemen on rollerblades quite frequently with the bull-rush. Off, that he seamlessly transitions into the dip-and-ride, where he also shows the ankle flexibility to corner his rushes through contact. On top of that, he flashes a tight, rapid spin move that looks like its sped up when you watch it. That’s how he was able to put up an insane 22.4% pass-rush win rate, with 69 total pressures across 408 rush snaps, and received an elite PFF grade overall (92.0).
Of course having those T-rex like arms with just a 73-inch wingspan forces him to work overtime constantly and it becomes an issue when trying to disengage from blocks once guys get their hands into his frame. He also hasn’t been a very disciplined run defender, trying to get around blockers when he should hold the point and spinning off contact, which opens up voids on the interior, and I thought some teams would be turned off, simply because they didn’t know where he fits. With that being said, I absolutely love that he landed in Seattle, because the guy he reminded me of when watching the tape was Poona Ford – of course that guy’s arms are about three inches longer. So understand the limitations here, but I also believe beyond Jarran Reed being brought back and Dre’Mont Jones being signed as this long guy with inside-out flexibility, there’s very little to get excited about on the interior D-line. The Hawks did draft a couple of guys on day three – Mississippi State’s Cameron Young and Michigan’s Mike Morris – who both have the profile of base D-ends in an even front, but neither excite you with their ability to “win the gap”. I think Tavai has a chance to get on the field for passing downs quite regularly and wreak some havoc.
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Minnesota Vikings – Ivan Pace Jr., LB, Cincinnati

What if I told you two of my top-ten linebacker prospects didn’t hear their names called. This was a relatively weak class, especially beyond the top three or four, with a bunch of likely backups and special teamers. Ivan Pace was a lowly-recruited, undersized LB, who broke out at Miami of Ohio in 2021, when he was named first-team All-MAC thanks to leading the conference with 125 total tackles, with 13 of those for loss and four sacks. Then he transferred to Cincinnati and put his name more in the national spotlight, as the AAC Defensive Player of the Year and a first-team All-American, thanks to 136 combined stops, 20.5 of those for loss, nine sacks, four PBUs and a couple of forced fumbles. So how the hell did he go undrafted? Well, he’s only 5’11” with and 30 and ¼-inch arms. Also well, he absolutely should have been picked.
This guy has good thickness throughout his frame and plays way bigger than his size would indicate, even though the 230 pounds he packs are actually slightly above-average for this year’s crop of backers. The way he can step to the hip and rip through the reach of offensive linemen and sort of slip through traffic in order to get to the ball is highly impressive. He has uncanny contact balance and flexibility to contort his body and stay upright versus much larger bodies, consistently winning the leverage battle and maximizing that low center of gravity. Plus, this past season I thought his diagnosing skills and willingness to just “make a play” really stood out. In coverage, he makes sure to disrupt targets in his vicinity and whether it’s some shallow crossers being thrown in front of him or the quarterback deciding to take off on a bootleg, this kid will get there in a hurry and proceed to lay the wood. With all that being said, his best quality I think is actually what he can provide as a pressure player. This guy’s quick-twitch to make blockers freeze their feet and get to their edges with a little wiggle, along with linking his upper and lower half with excellent timing of his hand-swipes, make him extremely tough to slow down. During Senior Bowl in particular, he was pretty much unblocked for the running backs during one-on-one, cross-facing them over and over again. That’s how he led all off-ball linebackers with 55 total pressures last season.
Pace is an obvious outlier in terms of size, ranking in the 1st percentile in height and arm length, which will limit his ability to punch off blockers and finish tackles as consistently at the pro level. Wider bodies can cover him up, when able to climb straight up to him and we have very little tape of him being asked to play true man-coverage against backs and tight-ends, where we don’t know if he’s capable of carrying guys down the middle of the field. However, that’s also not what he should be tasked with. Even with the size limitations in mind, I think watching Malcolm Rodriguez coming out of Oklahoma State and excelling as a rookie for the Lions should give us some comfort in guys with great instincts and violence to their game being able to overcome those. With how sturdy Pace is in traffic, I think he can definitely play on some early downs and where I really want to see him unleashed is as a blitzing specialist in passing situations. Jordan Hicks and Troy Reeder aren’t guys you want to keep on the field in those spots. So with how aggressive Brian Flores wants to be with all the cover-zero rain, a guy that has great awareness and can win his matchups as a blitzer with a regularity seems like a beautiful fit, even if it’s just a specific role he fulfills.
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Christian Izien, DB, Rutgers

In terms outside cornerbacks, there are a couple of guys who went undrafted, that I had higher in my personal rankings and were more highly valued on consensus boards. Alabama’s Eli Ricks (now with the Eagles) would’ve probably been a mid-round pick at least without any medical concerns and Oregon State’s Rejzohn Wright was around the top-20 players at the position, but is now stuck behind three highly-drafted guys and another one from a couple of years ago that I’m still pretty high on in Carolina. However, there’s a guy primarily looked at as a nickel, who I think has a chance to make his mark in Tampa Bay. Christian Izien became a starter mid-way through his redshirt freshman season and logged a total of 41 career starts. Across that time, he amassed 303 total tackles, 15.5 of those for loss, four interceptions (all in 2020) and 19 PBUs. He made honorable mention All-Big Ten twice.
This dude is a rocked-up little ball of muscle at 5’9” and 200 pounds, who has regularly been praised for his crazy work in the weight room. He can take a punch by receivers and will fight blockers, in order to get to the football, regularly crashing through one shoulder or showing the quick burst to beat them to a spot, while his lack of height allow him to underneath. Rutgers played a lot of shell coverages, where Izien’s physicality to guide receivers towards the deep safety before positioning himself between routes really stood out. However, you also lose the springy feet to stay square to receivers in man, not commit his hips prematurely and then stick at the hip-pocket of guys in trail position. There may be some size limitations, but running a 4.42 in the 40 and jumping 41-and-½ inches in the vert at his pro day, combined with his feisty play-style, he’s not going to give you anything easy one-on-one.
Due to the measurables, he’s most likely a pure nickel, whose frame is pretty much maxed out already, and with the NFL putting taller bodies in the slot more regularly, there may be some limitations with who exactly he can match up with. There’s definitely a tendency of getting a bit grabby as receivers are about to separate from him and due to his aggressive mind-set trying to get a finger on the ball despite the shrinked reach, he did give up an average of 6.6 yards after the catch last season. Having expressed my concerns, let me say that this dude is a freaking baller and for all the love Utah’s Clark Phillips III received from the draft community, I thought Izien deserved some more pop. At the very least, he should be a special teams demon, where he already has an extensive resume (572 snaps). Yet, looking at the Bucs’ depth chart, unless they decide to drop Antoine Winfield Jr. down into the slot, they’re options for that role are Dee Delaney, who allowed a passer rating of 111.1 this past season, a fifth-rounder from a year ago in Zyon McCollum or a sixth-rounder from this draft in Kansas State’s Josh Hayes. I would not be shocked if Todd Bowles falls in love with Izien’s physicality and mind-set to put him out there as a starting nickel against 11 personnel-heavy teams at least, where he can disrupt receivers in their release and the Bucs can bring the heat now that the timing of routes are thrown off.
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Los Angeles Rams – Quindell Johnson, SAF, Memphis

While I wanted to wax poetic about Illinois safety Sydney Brown as one of “my guy”, I did mention Quindell Johnson as a guy I’m much higher on than consensus. He did rise a little bit throughout the draft process and was right on the fringe of being drafted as safety 23, but I had him 12th in my personal position rankings. A three-star recruit in 2018, he decided to redshirt that year, but entered the starting lineup midway through the following season and didn’t leave it from that point on, being named second-team All-AAC in 2020 and ’21, before rising to first-team this past season. Across his 49 career games, he racked up 320 total tackles (226 solo), 15.5 of those for loss, ten interceptions, 24 PBUs, four fumbles forced and three more recovered.
This is a smooth, fluid athlete, who was used pretty evenly between deep safety, slot and in the box for his career with the Tigers. He processes the game and fulfills his assignments at a high level, with excellent instincts and good size (6’0”, 200 pounds) for the position. He sees the field well to decipher through passing pattern, identifies the biggest threat and doesn’t allow the quarterback’s eyes to move him off his landmarks. Plus, then he’s consistent with his angles from depth to stop completions for minimal yardage. Yet, when asked to play more man-coverage in the slot, he understands what to expect based on who he’s facing, stays locked in on their hips, anticipates breaks and rakes through the catch-point. With 33-inch arms and a solid frame, he projects pretty well as somebody matching up with tight-ends for extended stretches. The Memphis coaches called him the “heartbeat” of the defense, thanks in part to his physicality and the way he would attack against the run, playing to his leverage, confidently fills extra gaps being created when being down in the box and quickly IDs reverses, screen passes and such.
I don’t think he’s very explosive or snappy in his hips, to range out to throws outside his area, when playing press-man, he lacks the recovery burst to get back into phase if he misses the initial jam and what really hurt him I believe, was that his missed-tackle number went up by nearly 10% this past season, although I think that will return to being a strong-suit of his game, like it was for the majority of his career. So while he might not be a high-level athlete, his ability to take up and work through information, the way he works upfield against the run and his versatility to fulfill different roles, make me believe he can excel in a split-safety based defensive scheme, which the Rams will run under DC Raheem Morris. In that way, he reminds me very much of a guy L.A. selected in the sixth round last year out of UCLA in Quentin Lake. They still had Jordan Fuller, but other than, it’s two seventh-rounders from the last couple of years in Russ Yeast and Jason Taylor II – who I had right there in my rankings with Johnson – and a late-round pick by the Browns from two years ago in Richard LeCounte. So this depth chart isn’t settled at all yet and I think Quindell has a chance to play significant snaps for the Rams.
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Cleveland Browns – Ronnie Hickman, SAF, Ohio State

Talking about safeties and having mentioned the Browns, they actually picked up the guy I put just above Quindell Johnson in my positional rankings. Even being a four-star recruit at Ohio State, Hickman didn’t enter the starting lineup until his third season in Columbus. However, he’s been a very productive player over those two seasons since, earning second- and third-team All-Big Ten accolades respectively, with 152 combined tackles, three interceptions, seven passes broken up and two fumbles forced. Even though I was once again higher on Hickman than the consensus, he was considered a fifth-to-sixth-round pick.
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The rest of the analysis can be found here!

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One more UDFA to track for each team:

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Arizona Cardinals – Blake Whiteheart, TE, Wake Forest
Baltimore Ravens – Keaton Mitchell, RB, East Carolina
Buffalo Bills – Richard Gouraige, OT, Florida
Carolina Panthers – Camerun Peoples, RB, Appalachian State
Cincinnati Bengals – Jaxson Kirkland, IOL, Washington & Shaka Heyward, LB, Duke
Cleveland Browns – Mohamoud Diabate, LB, Utah
Dallas Cowboys – Myles Brooks, CB, Louisiana Tech
Denver Broncos – Thomas Incoom, EDGE, Central Michigan
Detroit Lions – Mohamed Ibrahim, RB, Minnesota &
Green Bay Packers – Benny Sapp III, SAF, Northern Iowa
Houston Texans – Xazavian Valladay, RB, Arizona State
Jacksonville Jaguars – Kaleb Hayes, CB, BYU
Kansas City Chiefs – Deneric Prince, RB, Tulsa
Las Vegas Raiders – McClendon Curtis, IOL, Chattanooga & Drake Thomas, LB, N.C. State
Los Angeles Chargers – Jerrod Clark, IDL, Coastal Carolina & A.J. Finley, SAF, Ole Miss
Los Angeles Rams – Xavier Smith, Florida A&M
Miami Dolphins – Michael Turk, P, Oklahoma
Minnesota Vikings – Andre Carter II, EDGE, Army
New England Patriots – Malik Cunningham, QB, Louisville
New Orleans Saints – Anfernee Orji, LB, Vanderbilt & Jerron Cage, IDL, Ohio State
New York Giants – Habakkuk Baldonado, DE, Pittsburgh
New York Jets – Jason Brownlee, WR, Southern Miss & Trey Dean III, SAF, Florida
Philadelphia Eagles – Eli Ricks, CB, Alabama
Pittsburgh Steelers – David Perales, EDGE, Fresno State
San Francisco 49ers – Joey Fisher, OL, Shepherd
Seattle Seahawks – C.J. Johnson, WR, East Carolina
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Sean Tucker, RB, Syracuse & Jeremy Banks, LB, Tennessee
Tennessee Titans – Caleb Murphy, EDGE, Ferris State
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