A lot of football fans look at the NFL Combine as more of show, rather than a meaningful opportunity for players. While it’s sometimes important to see how fast a player can run, how far they can jump, or how much weight they can bench press, it often doesn’t give us a perfect comparison to what they can do on the field when actually playing the game of football.
However, we’ve seen in the past how valuable the combine can be when you perform to the best of your abilities, and we’re seeing it once again with Oregon Ducks cornerback Christian Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was named one of the biggest winners at the combine last week, and he’s seen a drastic change in his projected draft position because of that. On Tuesday morning in ESPN’s latest mock draft from Todd McShay, Gonzalez moved up to the No. 6 overall pick, going to the Detroit Lions.
I know I keep using the 6.2 yards allowed per play number for the Lions, but it was the NFL’s sixth-worst number for the past decade. Armed with a pair of first-rounders and a chunk of cap space, Detroit has to get better on that side of the ball. It has gotten up-and-down production from Jeff Okudah, the team’s top-three pick in 2020, and the other corner spot is open with Amani Oruwariye primed to be a free agent next week.
At 6-1 and 197 pounds, Gonzalez confirmed the speed and explosion we saw on tape during the combine. He posted a 4.38 in the 40-yard dash and jumped 41.5 inches in the vertical and 11-foot-1 in the broad. And with four interceptions in 2022, he can make plays on the ball.
This is a notable improvement, with McShay previously projecting that Gonzo would be drafted with the No. 17 pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers a few weeks ago.
We are still over a month away from the 2023 NFL Draft taking place, but it will be interesting to see how Gonzalez moves throughout the first round until then. We will also see how he performs at Oregon’s Pro Day on March 14th, and whether or not that has an impact as well.
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