Cowboys Eye: Winners and Losers from Day 1 of 2020 Combine drills

A look at the NFL Combine’s winners and losers for the first night of on field drills featuring wide receivers and tight ends.

Day 1 of the on-field testing and drills of the NFL Scouting Combine is in the books with wide receivers, tight ends and quarterbacks taking center stage in Indianapolis to demonstrate their athletic prowess in an attempt to climb draft boards league-wide.

It’s impossible to know with any certainty where the new Dallas Cowboys coaching staff’s affinity lies, so it’s worth monitoring all the action this week to try to suss out the players whose stock has risen or fallen with the draft less than two months away. Still, with a need for a Dak Prescott backup, three of their top four wideouts from 2019 being free agents as well as their top TE target, Thursday was a huge day for the Cowboys’ draft plans.

A nod to that is the fact that Kellen Moore and most of the offensive staff packed up and left Indianapolis last night. They were certainly intrigued in the top, and bottom, performances from Thursday.

Keep in mind this list is not definitive as some players did exactly what was expected of them, see: Oklahoma WR CeeDee Lamb.

Here is a recap of winners and losers from Thursday night.

Winners

Henry Ruggs III – WR, Alabama

The Alabama product blew the doors off of everyone in Indianapolis by running a 4.27 second 40-yard-dash. He also turned in the second highest vertical leap and the fourth best broad jump among wide receivers in the class. An injury to his right quad kept him out of the remainder of the night, but he certainly flashed the athleticism.

Chase Claypool – WR, Notre Dame

Claypool is a big dude. He was never going to be as fast as someone like Ruggs, however his combination of size and speed was on full display Thursday night.

That’s good company.

Denzel Mims – WR, Baylor

Mims turned in an official time of 4.38 in the 40-yard-dash, seemingly riding the wave of momentum he created for himself after a strong Senior Bowl outing. From The Athletic’s Dane Brugler:

After an outstanding week at the Senior Bowl, he entered the combine looking to separate himself in this crowded wide receiver group and he did exactly that with his workout. NFL scouts timed him in the low 4.3s and he ran the best three-cone of the night (6.66), posting great jumps with a 38.5-inch vertical and 10-11 broad jump. He also looked very comfortable catching the ball on downfield routes.

Justin Jefferson – WR, LSU

Jefferson wasn’t the fastest player on the field, but he never needed to be. From the NFL Network’s resident scout Daniel Jeremiah during the telecast Thursday night after the wide receiver turned in an official 4.43 time in the 40-yard-dash:

“That is huge. That’s the most important time that we’ve seen today. He’s a great player on tape and now you’ve got some big-time legitimate speed on record to back it up.”

Jalen Hurts – QB, Oklahoma

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

The Cowboys could easily be in the mix when it comes to adding a quarterback behind Dak Prescott. Hurts fits the bill, a prospect who isn’t expected to cost an arm and a leg in draft capital. His 40-yard-dash time of 4.59 seconds was second best among quarterbacks on the night while Daniel Jeremiah praised the Sooners product saying, “We saw the athlete that he is and you see him throw the football. The ball is live. It jumps out of his hand.”

Justin Herbert – QB, Oregon and Jordan Love – QB, Utah State

These players are of zero interest to the Cowboys except in one aspect: pushing other top prospects down the board. With Prescott in the fold, Dallas won’t be in the business of a first-round quarterback, but according to Dane Brugler, both quarterbacks did nothing to hurt their stock:

The two quarterbacks battling for the QB3 designation were impressive Thursday night, effortlessly zipping the ball around the field. Both Oregon’s Justin Herbert (6-6, 236) and Utah State’s Jordan Love (6-4, 224) stayed calm with their feet and balanced in their set-up to unleash short, intermediate and deep throws, particularly impressing on the smoke and corner routes.

Mixed Bag

Cole Kmet – TE, Notre Dame

Not only did Kmet turned in a 40-yard-dash time of 4.70, but he had great explosive testing as far as the broad jump and vertical, finishing second in the former and first in the latter among his positional group. It’s not all great news, however, as his agility leaves something to be desired. From the great Dane Brugler:

Kmet also posted the second-worst three-cone drill (7.44) at the position, which isn’t a death sentence (Eric Ebron ran a 7.49 in 2014 and still went top-10 overall), but it obviously doesn’t help his quest of being drafted in the top-40 picks.

Jalen Reagor – WR, TCU

Reagor started the day by finishing second in both the broad jump and vertical leap tests. Despite coming in heavier than his usual playing weight, his 40-yard-dash time was a respectable 4.47 seconds. However, things fell apart in agility drills, finishing with the third worst time of 7.31 seconds in the 3-cone drill and a bottom-10 showing in the 20-yard-shuttle. Daniel Jeremiah had an idea of what happened, saying “It looked like Reagor got a little too thick. I saw how well he ran on tape, but it didn’t really match up today.”

Losers

Laviska Shenault Jr. – WR, Colorado

Shenault did two drills on Thursday: the bench press and the 40-yard-dash. He was never going to be the fastest player on the field given his size, but he posted a fairly pedestrian time in the drill. NFL.com’s Chad Reuter had this to say about his night:

It was expected that Shenault would run in the 4.5s but he posted a time on the low end of the expected range (4.58 seconds) and then didn’t run a second 40 or compete in any other drills.

Jake Fromm, QB, Georgia

Testing numbers for quarterbacks don’t matter all that much. If a scout’s opinion on a signal caller changes because his athleticism is a touch better or worse, that scout probably isn’t very good. Having said that, Fromm is definitely not an athlete, and to make matters worse, Chad Reuters saw more of what was on tape in Georgia: an average arm.

There were no major surprises with Fromm’s mostly average measurements earlier this week (despite the chatter about his hand size). His arm strength during workouts was also adequate, as expected. However, his throws fluttered at times, and his deeper tosses were not as strong as those of Herbert and Washington’s Jacob Eason. When he tried to push his arm past its limits, the ball came out poorly. Again, none of this was shocking to anyone who watched Fromm play live at Georgia.

Mitchell Wilcox, TE, South Florida

His athleticism wasn’t great, but more importantly, this happened:

Tough look.

[vertical-gallery id=640098][vertical-gallery id=639104][lawrence-newsletter]