Now that this draft is over and I probably won't do another devy draft until August, I can share some more of my thoughts on the current pool of players. I think Chubb and Elliott are both likely first rounders, but I knew they wouldn't fall to me and that the price for trading up would be prohibitive. That left me with the challenge of sifting through dozens of names in hopes of finding some other guys with high NFL potential. It was really easy to find players who had several good qualities, but it was very difficult to find players that were totally convincing. Most of the guys had 3-4 good traits and then maybe 1-2 bad things that worried me.
In general, I'm not that high on the devy WR pool right now. I'm sure players will emerge and end up being very good NFL prospects. However, when I looked at the alleged top guys I didn't see anyone who completely convinced me. I was not going to use a pick on DeRunnya Wilson, Mike Williams, Duke Williams, or Tyler Boyd. A lot of people have Malachi Dupre rated highly and I think that's premature. He's toothpick skinny and despite being an explosive leaper, I just don't see enough there yet to justify a high devy pick. I think he's coasting on his high school hype still. I took a long look at Speedy Noil, KD Cannon, Tyreek Hill, Artavis Scott, and Demarcus Robinson. Some thoughts on them...
WR Speedy Noil, Texas A&M - Quick and athletic. Good jump ball skills. From what I could see, he's a very good route runner. Ironically, the biggest question mark for me was his speed. Despite his nickname, he strikes me as being quicker than fast. I know that he ran track in high school and was a member of his school's 4x100m relay team, but I can't find a 100m time for him anywhere, which strongly suggests that his times were not good enough to shine individually. That means he's probably a low 11 guy. That wouldn't be a problem on its own. Noil's game and movement remind me of Dez Bryant and Dez was only a 4.52 guy at the combine. The problem is that Dez is 6'2" 224 whereas Noil is listed at 5'11" 185. I don't know if he'll be able to shine in the NFL at his size without exceptional speed. I know he ran in the 4.4 range at the Nike SPARQ combines, but it wasn't reflected in the clips I could find from his freshman season at A&M and there are no track times to fall back on for reassurance. So add it all up and I couldn't quite justify spending a pick on him, though he'll be high on my watch list for next season.
WR KD Cannon, Baylor - He was rated really highly out of HS and he made a big splash as a freshman, topping the 1000+ yard mark. His wind-illegal PR of 10.32 in the 100m suggests that he has ELITE wheels, but his wind-legal best is just 10.86 and his best 200m time was 21.42. Those are certainly not bad times, but you expect a true burner to do better in the 200. For the sake of comparison, Jahvid Best did 10.36 / 20.65 in the 100m / 200m in high school. Reggie Bush did 10.42 / 21.07 as a HS junior. Cannon's 200m time is slow relative to his 100m time, which suggests that he's more of a fast starter with a modest top speed than a guy with a blazing top speed. That's not a huge deal, but you'd like to see a better 200 time from a player whose game is heavily predicated on speed. On the football field, he explodes off the line of scrimmage and was a lethal deep threat in his first college season. Though we didn't see much of it last year at Baylor, his high school highlights suggest that he has very good ball skills to win jump balls and that he also has good agility. He is quite light and skinny at maybe 5'11"-6'0" and 175-185 pounds, which is a negative. There aren't a lot of skinny deep threats lighting up the NFL right now, but you could look towards DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin as encouraging comparisons. Overall, I liked Cannon quite a bit. He would be in my top 15 and he was one of the 4-5 finalists that I heavily considered for my picks.
WR Tyreek Hill, Oklahoma State - The fastest man in college football, with legit sub 10 second speed in the 100m.
Really athletic on the field with good agility and overall movement. Bit of a tweener. Likely too small to play RB. Lacks size and experience at WR. Still, he's much better than other track star types like Jacoby Ford and Marquise Goodwin. I think there's a pretty good chance he would've been a first round pick eventually. The biggest issue is that he's facing a potential 1-3 years in prison due to a domestic incident with his girlfriend. Maybe he gets off clean and is playing in the NFL next year. Maybe not. Add that risk to the tweener factor and it just seemed like too big of a boom-or-bust risk to take. Athletically, he's one of the top prospects available though.
WR Artavis Scott, Clemson - Good athlete. Big impact as a freshman. He was a long jumper in high school, but I don't have any 100m/200m times to help gauge his speed. Not a huge guy. Below 6'0" and not that bulky. Numbers were padded by a lot of "catches" that were basically glorified handoffs on fly sweeps and reverses. Almost all of his big plays fall into that category. Interesting name to monitor, but not enough there yet to justify a first round dev pick.
WR Demarcus Robinson, Florida - Liked his high school highlights a couple years back, but he had a slow debut season due to immaturity and off-field issues. Showed good progress as a sophomore. Seems to have good speed and agility. Pretty good size, but not a true "big" receiver. One to watch for the 2016 draft, but at this point projecting him as anything more than a 2nd-3rd rounder would be a stretch. He's a good all-around receiver, but doesn't appear to have any one single elite athletic trait.
OTHERS: Corey Coleman, Cam Sims, Pharoh Cooper, Mike Williams, George Campbell (HS), Christian Kirk (HS)
As for the RBs, I had Chubb and Elliott as a clear top 2. Both guys look legit. I have Perine as the #3 in a lower tier. I said a lot about him previously, so I'll keep it simple: Unique talent with a genuine freak trait (power). Not a burner, but more mobile than people think and the metrics love him too because of his high YPC, consistency, and high big play rate. The 4-5 spots is where things start to get wide open for me. Some thoughts on the prime candidates for me:
RB Royce Freeman, Oregon - On paper, he's a no-brainer. 5* recruit with NFL-ready size who rushed for 1300+ yards in a BCS conference in his first year of eligibility. However, I just didn't like his film much. His speed is pretty mediocre. He's not overly elusive. He had a disappointing long run % compared with the other top RB candidates:
Chubb - 8.2%
Elliott - 5.1%
Perine - 7.6%
Hunt - 9.8%
Freeman - 4.7%
Maybe he will get better in future seasons, but from my perspective he was surprisingly average in terms of his actual running skills. Nice frame, but he is not dynamic in terms of his cuts or speed. I had two chances to pick him for a reasonably low price (#8 and #11) and wasn't really interested.
RB Kareem Hunt, Toledo - I'm surprised he isn't higher on most devy boards by virtue of his metrics alone. He's a big back at approximately 5'11" 220. He ran an automatic 10.8 in the 100m as a high schooler. He also high jumped 6'8". So he's an explosive athlete for his size. On the field, he ranked third in the country in rushing yards per game behind Melvin Gordon and Tevin Coleman and topped 100+ in every game. He also had an obscene long run percentage, busting 20 plays of 20+ yards on just 205 carries. I was strongly tempted to draft him and he was probably the next guy up on my board after the two that I took in this draft. What ultimately dissuaded me from making the pick was his clips. I felt like he lacked good east-west plant-and-drive quickness. He was more of a musclebound straight-line runner sort of in the mold of Rashard Mendenhall.
Practically looks like a Mendy clone on this run, spin move and all. When running through the line of scrimmage, he seemed to struggle to make hard lateral cuts and instead would sort of jump or shuffle to the side. It's hard to explain, but it ended up getting him tackled in weird and stressful ways. Beyond that, the MAC is a creampuff conference and Toledo has a friendly system that inflates RB production (look at David Fluellen's numbers from the last few years). Hunt is a better prospect than Fluellen and I could see him going in the 2nd-4th round of the draft next year, but ultimately I did not see the crisp movement of a first round back.
RB Stanley "Boom" Williams, Kentucky - Almost a polar opposite from Hunt. Smaller back (5'9" 200), but
extremely fluid runner with elite east-west quickness. He had a strong freshman season and began to emerge more at the end of the year. I think he's a prime candidate for a breakout season in 2015. His game speed looked pretty good, but the best time I could find from his high school track days was just 11.07 in the 100m. That's not slow, but it's not what you'd hope to see from a smaller RB. Good versatility and receiving skills. He's not tiny, but he's not a big or powerful runner either, so mobility will be everything with him. He was one of my finalists. I couldn't quite justify picking him yet because he's a little bit of a size/speed tweener, but he's an undervalued prospect at the moment.
RB Dalvin Cook, Florida State - Big time HS recruit who made an instant splash with 1000+ yards as a freshman. Nice cuts and agility. Tiny frame. Good speed, but not "wow" speed. He's probably a high 4.4 guy right now. I think he will have to get bigger and/or faster to be a great prospect for the next level.
OTHERS: JaMycal Hasty (HS), Damien Harris (HS), Demario Richard, Nick Wilson, Derrick Green, Jarvion Franklin, Elijah Hood
Didn't spend a whole lot of time on tight ends because I wasn't going to draft one unless he looked downright amazing. Bucky Hodges had some pretty good clips and seems like he might be the best guy for next year overall. Hunter Henry is solid, but not very explosive. OJ Howard has yet to really live up to his measurables. Steven Scheu looks like he could be a decent mid round guy, maybe in the mold of Owen Daniels.
Didn't really spend any time on the QBs. Brad Kaaya looks promising.
