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Notes and observations from 2024 Senior Bowl National Team practice Day 2
With the 2024 NFL draft just months away, the NFL world has gathered in Mobile, Ala. this week for the 2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl. Teams will be watching how some of the top draft-eligible players across the country perform as they compete against each other in practices leading up to the all-star game.
The team’s took the field for a second time as units on Wednesday. Here is our notebook for the second day from the National Team practices:
Ladd McConkey, Jackson Powers-Johnson, Taliese Fuaga, DeWayne Carter, Gabe Hall, and Quinyon Mitchell were Day 1 Senior Bowl standouts.
The Senior Bowl is but one step in the evaluation process that eventually takes the best available college players to the NFL, but it is an important step in that there’s several days of practices in which personnel people can see like as like beyond the game tape. In the evaluative sense, the practices are almost more important than the games themselves.
Tuesday marked the first practices for the 2024 Senior Bowl, and here are six players who stood out immediately, matched with their NCAA tape, and some thoughts on their ultimate NFL potential.
Notes and observations from Day 1 2024 Senior Bowl practices: Battles between the offensive and defensive lines impress right away
With the 2024 NFL draft on the horizon, the NFL world has gathered in Mobile, Ala. this week for the 2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl. Teams will be watching how some of the top draft-eligible players across the country perform as they compete against each other in practices leading up to the all-star game.
The first day of practices are always interesting. Players and coaches are just getting to know each other, so it’s more of a light practice. Here is our notebook for the day from both the National and American Team practices:
There was no shortage of standout performances Tuesday in the first Senior Bowl practices.
With scouts, coaches, and decision-makers all in Mobile, Ala., draft season kicked off Tuesday with the first practices ahead of the 2024 Senior Bowl.
While star players like quarterbacks Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye aren’t among the participants, there’s no shortage of top prospects and potential future Jacksonville Jaguars players on the Senior Bowl rosters.
The game won’t happen until Saturday, but the practices are just as, if not more, important — especially for linemen, wide receivers, and cornerbacks, who all get a chance to show what they can do in one-on-one drills against fellow prospects. That’s perfect for the Jaguars, who have needs at those positions.
With one day of practices in the books, these 11 players stood out most Tuesday:
Here are five non-quarterbacks the New York Giants should keep an eye on at the 2024 Senior Bowl.
The 2024 Senior Bowl will be held in Mobile, Alabama this Saturday, February 3 and the New York Giants — as usual — will have a heavy scouting presence at the game.
The Giants have heavily relied on the event over the years to recruit for the ensuing drafts and have even selected the MVP of the game including quarterbacks Daniel Jones, Davis Webb, and Kyle Lauletta.
This year, the Giants hold the sixth overall selection in the NFL draft and will be faced with some tough choices come April.
Here are five players the Giants could focus on this Saturday that are not named Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. — two quarterbacks with first-round grades.
Note: The list below is more Day 2 or Day 3 prospects.
List of National team offensive linemen at 2024 Senior Bowl
As we continue getting a quick look at the Senior Bowl players this year, we now check out the offensive linemen for the National team. With offensive line a major need for the Jets this offseason, this group could be heavily focused on by general manager Joe Douglas and company. A good week in Mobile for these guys will go a long way toward deciding where and when they will ultimately get drafted.
Included in this group is a name already tagged as potential option at No. 10 for the Jets, Oregon State offensive tackle Taliese Fuaga. He has a chance to really stand out this week and solidify his standing among the top offensive tackles in this class.
Coaching the National team offensive line this year are Chris Cook of the Cardinals and Jim Dray of the Bears.
There’s no consensus for what the Jaguars should do with the No. 17 pick, but a few prospects are standing out as good options.
The Jacksonville Jaguars will pick 17th in the 2024 NFL draft, but there isn’t much consensus about which direction the team should take.
At nflmockdraftdatabase.com, no one player has been paired with the Jaguars in more than 11 percent of the nearly 500 projections of the draft they’ve surveyed so far.
Still, there are a few needs that jump out as the potential top priority for the Jaguars in the offseason. Namely, the offensive and defensive lines, as well as wide receiver and cornerback.
With the draft now three months away, there are a group of prospects who experts have projected to be the likeliest candidates to be the Jaguars’ pick in April:
The Philadelphia Eagles add offensive tackle Taliese Fuaga in Mel Kiper’s first 2024 NFL mock draft of the offseason
It’s NFL draft season, and as teams around the league start preparing to head down to Mobile, Alabama, for the Reese’s Senior Bowl, the guy who created the craze surrounding the leadup to the event just released his first mock.
Mel Kiper is the gold standard for draft evaluation, and the legend from Baltimore just revealed his first mock draft of the spring.
With Lane Johnson getting closer to retirement and Jordan Mailata nearing the end of his contract extension, the Eagles add depth at offensive tackle, selecting Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga.
The Eagles were a disaster at the end of the season, and they have several roster questions to answer this offseason (with a long list of pending free agents). On defense, they have needs at cornerback and safety, and their pass rush was putrid down the stretch. On offense, their line is getting older — right tackle Lane Johnson turns 34 in May — and they’ll have to replace star center Jason Kelce. Taking Fuaga is a way to add a top-tier talent and figure out the rest later.
Cam Jurgens, a second-rounder in 2022, probably would replace Kelce, which means the right guard spot would open up. Fuaga started 25 games at right tackle for the Beavers, but he could play inside as a rookie before ultimately replacing Johnson. He is a dominant run-blocker with powerful hands and strong lower body.
Philadelphia loves to select offensive linemen who offer versatility, and Fuaga is athletic enough to slide down inside to the guard position if needed.
Fuaga was named a Second-Team All-American by Walter Camp, The Athletic, and USA Today.
He was also named a First-Team All-Pac-12 selection via a vote of the conference’s coaches and the Associated Press and was a semifinalist for the Outland Trophy.
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We can’t mock draft Pete Carroll to be more aggressive on fourth down or stop wasting timeouts, but we can mock a whole new offensive line.
One recurring theme this season when the Seattle Seahawks lose is that they have been dominated at the line of scrimmage. The last three starts for Geno Smith underscores that lesson as much as anything. While Smith has done an exceptional job of avoiding pressure and extending plays there’s only so much any quarterback can do when his pass protection collapses in less than a second. All this pressure has kept a low lid on what should be a top-five scoring offense given all the talent they have at the skill positions.
We can’t mock draft Pete Carroll to be more aggressive on fourth down or stop wasting timeouts, but we can mock a whole new offensive line. That’s the strategy we went in with for our latest seven-round 2024 mock draft. Here’s how it played out.
The Saints picked a controversial quarterback in this two-round 2024 mock draft, but not before addressing their offensive line:
The New Orleans Saints made a splash in the latest 2024 mock draft from Draft Wire’s Curt Popejoy by picking one of the most divisive quarterbacks in the upcoming class, but not before addressing their offensive line. Between Trevor Penning’s struggles to get in the lineup and Ryan Ramczyk’s worsening health, improving protection out at the tackle spots has to be a priority.
And Popejoy has the Saints picking Oregon State right tackle Taliese Fuaga in the first round at No. 11 overall. Fuaga would be a good pick — especially with Ramczyk’s degenerative knee condition slowing him down and causing him to miss more games — but the real story here centers on the second-round pick, Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
McCarthy has yet to beat the Saturday player allegations after cruising through Michigan’s 2023 schedule without facing many challenges. He was asked to throw more than 30 passes in a single game just once all year with the Wolverines’ stout defense and effective running game dominating opponents. There just wasn’t much pressure on McCarthy’s shoulders and it’s unclear how effective he’ll be in the NFL because of it.
A halfhearted (but aggravating) Heisman Trophy campaign didn’t exactly help his image. McCarthy has only thrown 19 touchdown passes in 13 games going into Michigan’s pivotal Rose Bowl matchup with Alabama. His coaches have talked him up as the next Andrew Luck, but he hasn’t produced anywhere close to the level Luck did at Stanford more than a decade ago. McCarthy does a good job reading the defense and throwing with anticipation (and protecting the football), but he hasn’t shown enough to deserve this kind of early-round buzz.
Now, the Saints do need a plan for the future at quarterback. Derek Carr hasn’t impressed anyone but the coach who convinced the front office to overpay him. It’s hard to believe that McCarthy would take a big leap in New Orleans and develop into someone the Saints can lean on as their defense continues to age out. But they lack for draft picks and may have to settle for less here or there. If that’s the case, they’d be better off looking at other positions in the second round.
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