Love it or hate it the practices at the annual Senior Bowl are always eye-catching to NFL scouts and draft analysts.
Perform well and your draft position can fly up. Perform poorly and risk your name falling significantly on draft weekend.
Former Notre Dame Troy Pride, Jr. appears to be in that first group after an impressive couple of days in Mobile.
Pride checked in at 5-11.3″ and 193 pounds Tuesday while having 31 3/8″ arms, 8 3/8″ hands and a 73 3/4″ wingspan. Since then he’s impressed on the practice field.
Bradlee Anae would have gotten Patterson here. I love that Anae hustled for the ball afterwards. Also, Troy Pride vs. Michael Pittman at the bottom of the screen pic.twitter.com/fzQ0PXsokA
— Russell Brown (@RussNFLDraft) January 22, 2020
Mike Renner of Pro Football Focus shared this thought on Wednesday night:
I’m not sure anyone has risen their draft stock more with their performance this week than the Notre Dame cornerback. In a fairly weak cornerback group here in Mobile, Pride has been the clear cream of the crop. He’s locked down Michael Pittman Jr., James Proche and Quartney Davis on highly impressive reps through the first couple days. His elite speed and smooth hips have him completely unafraid of getting beaten deep. With question marks about his press technique and ability to play the catch point heading into the week, Pride has been fantastic in both.
Although a bit surprising how well he’s performed its really not shocking to me that Pride has turned heads quite like this. After all as Notre Dame fans know, Pride was playing at a level near that of All-American Julian Love by the end of 2018 and was an incredibly valuable piece of a great secondary this season. Playing well has sort of been his thing for a good amount of time now.
How high might Pride go? I have no idea but him performing this well against an extremely talented draft class of receivers certainly doesn’t hurt his cause, either.