USC edge-rusher Solomon Byrd could be a surprise rookie in Houston’s edge-rush rotation.
This offseason, the Texans got that much closer to a Super Bowl defense by adding Danielle Hunter to their edge-rush profile with a two-year, $49 million contract with $48 million guaranteed. Hunter is a perfect complement to Will Anderson, the reigning Defensive Rookie of the year, as Hunter’s game is about speed and bend, while Anderson is all about power to the pocket.
To double down on that speed/bend thing, Houston also selected USC end Solomon Byrd with the 238th pick in the seventh round. That pick could pay off far past its value. Last season for the Trojans, the Wyoming transfer totaled seven sacks and 41 total pressures on 320 pass-rushing reps. There’s not much to say about Byrd as a run defender, but then again, the Texans probably won’t line him up inside 20% of the time in 3-man fronts as the Trojans did for whatever reason.
With Byrd, you put him on the outside in a rotation and let him hunt… or you let him use his formidable gap quickness on stunts and games. No reason to overthink it.
The Texans went all in on Danielle Hunter because they want guys who can bend the edge and get under tackles. Watch out for seventh-round pick Solomon Byrd from USC. He's got that dip-and-rip and motorcycle lean (copyright @gregcosell), and he sure plays a mean pinball. pic.twitter.com/TvIYipSnVj
In this week’s “Xs and Os,” Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar get into their favorite draft picks (mostly) outside of the first round.
Now that the 2024 NFL draft is in the books, which players who were not selected in the first round have the best chances to make real impacts on their new NFL teams? In this episode of “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell,” Greg and Doug Farrar get into their favorite guys mostly outside of the first round.
Ricky Pearsall, WR, San Francisco 49ers — We’re cheating a bit here, as Pearsall was selected with the 31st overall pick, but if the 49ers keep both Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk on the roster, Pearsall can impact the passing game in ways that his new teammates will find complementary, and in ways that bring new colors to Kyle Shanahan’s playbook. Also, watch out for fourth-round receiver Jacob Cowing from Arizona as a smaller speed element.
Renardo Green, CB, San Francisco 49ers — On the defensive side, and with the 64th overall pick in the second round, the 49ers got a cornerback who showed all the athleticism and coverage skills you want at the position, and brings an absolute dawg mentality. You need look no further than Green’s tape against LSU’s Malik Nabers.
Marshawn Kneeland, DL, Dallas Cowboys — The Cowboys’ scouting staff is one of the NFL’s best, and with the 56th overall pick in the second round, Dallas picked up the Western Michigan and Senior Bowl star, who brings Khalil Mack to mind with his power-based rush, and Za’Darius Smith to mind with his effective gap versatility.
Malik Washington, WR, Miami Dolphins — Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but the Dolphins got a receiver who’s really fast in some really interesting ways. Washington, the Virginia receiver who Miami stole with the 184th overall pick in the sixth round, brings an exciting, physical style that puts defenses in severe conflict when those defenses also have to deal with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle.
Cole Bishop, S, Buffalo Bills — The Bills’ former secondary got old overnight, and a re-do is now necessary. Bishop, the Utah star, is a prefect safety with which to rebuild because he can do just about everything at a high level.
Adonai Mitchell, WR, Indianapolis Colts — Mitchell showed at Texas that he has first-round talent, and if he can put it together with the nuances of the position, he’ll give the Colts the alpha receiver that seems to be the only thing this offense was missing. Not bad for the 52nd overall pick in the second round.
Jalen McMillan, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers — McMillan may have been the lost member of the Washington receiver group from a production standpoint due to injury in 2023 (which is how the Bucs were able to get him with the 92nd overall pick in the third round), but the tape shows a valuable deep receiver who can expertly dice zone coverage downfield.
Trey Benson, RB, Arizona Cardinals — At Florida State, Benson showed the ability to run with power like a bigger man, and to evade tackles with the agility of a smaller back. The Cardinals selected Benson with the 66th overall pick in the third round, and they’ll likely avail themselves of Benson’s special skill set sooner than later.
Bub Means, WR, New Orleans Saints — At Pitt, Means displayed the ability to be a fantastic deep receiver despite a trio of quarterbacks who really struggled to do anything. Odds are, the Saints got a receiver with the 170th pick in the fifth round who can be even better in the NFL — all he needs is functional quarterback play to turn it loose.
You can watch this week’s edition of “The Xs and Os” right here:
You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…
With the scouting combine in the rear view, 4 Down Territory’s Luke Easterling and Doug Farrar recap which NFL prospects’ draft stocks rose and fell the most.
Every week in “4-Down Territory,” Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Luke Easterling of Bucs Wire and Draft Wire go over the things you need to know about, and the things you need to watch, in the NFL right now. With the 2023 scouting combine wrapped up, it’s all about how the prospects did in the medicals, in the meeting rooms with NFL teams, and of course, on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium.
This week, Doug and Luke discuss:
00:00 – Intro
01:01 – Which offensive draft prospect helped himself with the combine drills?
05:29 – Which defensive draft prospect helped himself with the combine drills?
09:18 – Which offensive prospect failed to capitalize on it when the rubber hit the road?
13:36 – Which defensive prospect didn’t meet expectations at the combine?
You can watch this week’s episode of “4-Down Territory” right here:
Touchdown Wire’s Laurie Fitzpatrick was in Lucas Oil Stadium for all the scouting combine drills, and here’s who impressed her the most.
Now that all the prospects have all gone through their interviews, measurables and drills at the 2023 scouting combine. It’s time to look at which guys won the days at their positions.
There are a few players that proved that they are valued correctly, and some other prospects who showed that they should be considered a little higher in the draft.
Let’s dive into how some of these prospects were able to show their skills and why it shouldn’t have been a surprise!
With the scouting combine in the rear view, Doug Farrar’s latest mock takes it all in — including Anthony Richardson’s rise, and Jalen Carter’s fall.
It’s amazing how much the scouting combine obscures, and how much it reveals.
For all the lie-bombs and hidden agendas you get when you’re walking around Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indianapolis Convention Center, there are other times when the truth hits you right in the face, from good and bad places.
In the case of Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter, there was the story (well, stories) about his involvement in the January 15 auto accident that cost teammate Devin Willock and Georgia staffer Chandler LeCroy their lives.
Carter is alleged to have been racing his 2021 Jeep Trackhawk against the 2021 Ford Expedition driven by recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy, leading to the crash.
“The evidence demonstrated that both vehicles switched between lanes, drove in the centre turn lane, drove in opposite lanes of travel, overtook other motorists, and drove at high rates of speed, in an apparent attempt to outdistance each other,” the Athens-Clarke County Police Department said in a statement.
This all broke about 15 minutes before Carter was supposed to take the podium for his combine presser, so that turned into a circus. When we’re talking about the loss of life, how this affects Carter’s draft status means less than nothing in the big picture. But that will still be discussed in every NFL facility.
Then, there was Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson, whose ridiculous (in a very good way) combine workout proved that he is as compelling an athlete at the position as we’ve ever seen.
🐊 Anthony Richardson's day at the NFL Combine:
▪️ QB record for broad jump (10'9") ▪️ QB record for vertical jump (40.5") ▪️ 4.44u in the 40
Which has Richardson going above Carter in this particular mock draft — and had you told me that this would be the case when I published my last mock on February 25, I would have said that a whole lot of weird things would have to happen.
And, here we are.
So, with the 2023 scouting combine in the rear view, here’s how the first three round of the 2023 NFL draft might be affected by a week that was exceptional in all the ways you’d want, and quite a few you never saw coming.
(Note: The Miami Dolphins, who were slotted with the 21st pick in the first round, forfeited that pick as punishment from the NFL for tampering).
During Saturday’s combine drills for quarterbacks, Richardson blew up the 40-yard dash with a 4.44-second time — which, per MockDraftable.com, is the fourth-fastest 40 time for a quarterback since 1999. Richardson finished behind Virginia Tech’s Michael Vick in 2001 (4.33 seconds), Texas A&M’s Reggie McNeal in 2006 (4.4 flat), and Baylor’s Robert Griffin III in 2012 (4.41).
Richardson’s 40 was faster than those of Justin Fields, Tyrod Taylor, Vince Young, Daunte Culpepper, Jake Locker, Colin Kaepernick, and Russell Wilson.
Oh, and he also made history in other ways.
🐊 Anthony Richardson's day at the NFL Combine:
▪️ QB record for broad jump (10'9") ▪️ QB record for vertical jump (40.5") ▪️ 4.44u in the 40
We’ll see how Richardson fares in the throwing drills — he has a ridiculous deep arm and can feather touch passes a bit better than his detractors think. If he aces that as well, Anthony Richardson could send the 2023 draft class into total chaos.
Tulane’s Tyjae Spears is the most explosive back in the 2023 draft class, and watching tape with him is just a series of ridiculous plays.
INDIANAPOLIS — Tulane running back Tyjae Spears is cooking, and good luck stopping him. The 5-foot-9, 204-pound back comes to the scouting combine looking to prove his worth as an every-down back (“A four-down back,” as he told me), and if you’re discounting him because of his size, you may want to check that, because Spears’ 2022 tape with the Green Wave is as full of utterly ridiculous plays as you’ll see from any back — perhaps from any player — in this draft class.
The metrics bear this out. In 2022, Spears gained 1,586 yards and scored 19 touchdowns on 231 carries. 1,052 of those yards came after contact, he averaged 4.55 yards per carry after contact, he forced 63 missed tackles, and 21 of his carries went for 15 or more yards for 793 explosive yards. He also caught 22 passes on 28 targets for 251 yards and two touchdowns, and though all of his passes were of the short-to-intermediate variety, he averaged 12.7 yards after the catch per reception.
Then, when he got to the Senior Bowl, Spears continued his penchant for ridiculousness.
I met with Spears in the lower lobby of the Indianapolis Omni Severin Hotel on Wednesday, as he was one of many EXOS clients doing final training for the combine.
It was the first time I’ve ever watched tape with a player on my phone, but I could not resist the opportunity to go over a few plays with the most explosive back in this class. Spears was eager and able to explain — to a point — how it is that he does what he does, though as he says, you just can’t plan some of this stuff. It either happens, or it doesn’t, and with Spears, it happens all the time.
Without further ado, let’s have the man himself explain some of the silliest tape you’ll see from anyone working out at the scouting combine this year.
Pitt defensive tackle Calijah Kancey is more than another small DT — his combine performance and game tape should make the NFL take notice.
INDIANAPOLIS — How many smaller defensive tackles will be disregarded due to their size before the NFL figures it out? John Randle was undrafted at 6-foot-1 and 290 pounds in 1990, and he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Aaron Donald, the best defensive player of his era in a peak value sense (I will brook no argument) fell to the 13th overall pick in the 2014 draft because of his size (6-foot-1, 280 pounds) and despite the fact that he was demolishing dudes at Pitt before he ever saw an NFL field.
Geno Atkins. Grady Jarrett. As much as we like to say, “Low man wins,” there is an obvious bias against shorter, smaller interior defensive line prospects despite the high hit rate at the position(s).
The next guy who will almost certainly deal with this bias to a greater or lesser degree is Calijah Kancey — a PItt alum like Donald, but whose game reminds me of more of an unholy combination of Jarrett and Atkins. We now have Kancey’s official measurements from the scouting combine: 6-foot-1, 281 pounds, arm length of 30 5/8’,’ hand size of 9 1/8’.”
Oh, by the way, he also ran the fastest 40-yard dash for anybody at his position in quite a few years.
Kancey’s 1.64-second 10-yard split is the fifth-fastest for any defensive tackle since 1999 — Donald had the fastest at 1.59. So, there’s that.
Now, the question is whether any or all of that shows up on tape.
The answer: Decidedly so.
In 2022, Kancey had eight sacks, nine quarterback hits, and 30 quarterback hurries in 275 pass-rushing snaps, and he had 21 stops in 179 run defense reps. Basically, wherever he lined up, anybody in the opposing backfield was in trouble.
That was one of three sacks Kancey put up against Virginia last November 12. He also had two quarterback hits and six quarterback hurries in that game, and one of those pressures resulted in a 39-yard pick-six by cornerback Marquis Williams. A block and a half isn’t going to go well against Kancey — you might want to work the full double-team in cases like this.
Does Kancey’s arm length — among the shortest for interior defensive linemen since 1999 — show up on tape? At times, like in this rep against Louisville. Kancey has to strike proactively with his hands and shoot gaps with authority to make up for the fact that he can get himself enveloped at times.
More often than not, though, Kancey’s adaptive strategies pay off with defensive win after defensive win.
“Grady Jarrett, Javon Hargrave, Quinnen Williams and Aaron Donald,” Kancey said Wednesday from the combine about the players who have inspired his play. “Those types of guys. They paved the way for smaller defensive tackles and showed we could play at the next level. Lots of quickness, speed, technique, block shedding and aggressiveness.”
Kancey has all those attributes in total, and whether he’s downgraded or not due to the NFL’s overall size bias for players at his position, he’s put up more than enough on tape — and on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium — to transcend all of that when it’s time to disrupt at the next level.
Christian Gonzalez, Clark Phillips III, Jaylon Jones, and Jammie Robinson detail their most notable college plays from the scouting combine.
INDIANAPOLIS — What’s your one defining moment?
Every prospect at the scouting combine has that one play which defines them to a degree — the highlight shot they think about over and over when it’s time to think about their collegiate careers.
As the defensive backs took the podiums in Indianapolis on Thursday, I thought it would be interesting to ask them which plays they thought best defined them as players. So, here’s Oregon cornerback Christian Gonzalez, Utah cornerback Clark Phillips III, Texas A&M cornerback Jaylon Jones, and Florida State safety Jammie Robinson on that very subject.
Draft prospects have been training for weeks to ace the combine. Here’s how it looks as the clock ticks down to the on-field drills.
INDIANAPOLIS — The scene is several rooms of the lower lobby of the Omni Severin Hotel in downtown Indy. TCU receiver Quentin Johnston and Tennessee receiver Cedric Tillman are running alternating practice 40-yard dashes in a makeshift training center. Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell is stretching on the floor next to a television replaying a Steelers-Ravens game. Down the hall, a staff of nutritionists are putting together food plans for 99 scouting combine participants in which the amount of meat is measured in actual cows.
There’s a hot tub and a cold tub in a small fitness center, and in that same 40-yard dash place, there are massage tables and exercise bikes and treadmills aplenty. Tulane running back Tyjae Spears is leaping and hopping when he’s not running his own practice dashes, and guys are burning up those treadmills in frantic shifts as everybody gets ready for the biggest set of job interviews of their young lives.
The pressure isn’t just on the prospects. It’s also on EXOS, the multi-state performance center charged with making these prospects the best they can possibly be for everything from positional drills to interviews with teams. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik has been hired as a consultant to prepare everyone for the latter, and there’s a very large staff of professionals working frantically to get those last few reps in before things get very real on the Lucas Oil Stadium turf Thursday through Sunday.
Watching combine prep at @TeamEXOS, and the experience of Quentin Johnston running a 40 ten feet away from you is… different. pic.twitter.com/7lcIYdR99t
EXOS’s list of combine participants reads like a lot of the first round of any mock draft when you filter it up top: There’s Johnston, Alabama edge-rusher Will Anderson Jr., Oregon cornerback Christian Gonzalez, Illinois cornerback Devon Witherspoon, LSU edge-rusher BJ Ojulari, Alabama safety Brian Branch, Tennessee receiver Jalin Hyatt, Ohio State receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Florida guard O’Cyrus Torrence, Ohio State offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr., and on and on.
EXOS’s efforts are just as (probably more) important for the prospects on the fringe, though — the guys who are hoping to perhaps move from the third day of the draft to the second, or from an undrafted free agent future to any part of the draft at all.
