Winners and losers from Thursday’s scouting combine drills

Here’s who showed out — and who should have stayed home — during Thursday’s scouting combine drills.

Losers

Tee Higgins, WR, Clemson

(Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)

So, this was interesting. Higgins, who caught 135 passes for 2,448 yards and 27 touchdowns in his three years with the Tigers, said during his combine media session that he was excited to run the 40-yard dash in particular.

“My goal is to hit a 4.4.,” Higgins said. “A lot of guys think I’m going to run a 4.5 or 4.6 but I’m excited to change people’s minds.”

And then… this happened.

So, resting over testing? Either something popped up in Higgins’ medical evaluation that precluded him from doing the drills, or he’ll have some ‘splainin’ to do when it comes to the reason for his change of mind. Higgins did have a scary hit from Ohio State safety Jordan Fuller in the Fiesta Bowl, and he was placed in the concussion protocol. Higgins later said that he injured his ankle, but he was good to roll against LSU in the College Football Championship, catching three passes for 52 yards and taking a run 36 yards for a touchdown in Clemson’s 42-25 loss. It’s odd that Higgins, who I believe is one of the best contested-catch receivers in this class, would have this reason for not doing the drills, and we’ll have to see if the actual cause goes any deeper.

Jake Fromm, QB, Georgia

(Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)

Perhaps it’s less that Fromm was a “loser,” per se — during the throwing drills that featured short-to-intermediate accuracy and anticipation, Fromm was right on target as one would expect from one of the smarter and more thorough quarterbacks in this draft class. But Fromm wasn’t convincing when it was time to hurl the deep ball, and that’s a problem that has followed him through his collegiate career. When he wasn’t slightly overthrowing his targets on deep balls (which is more common among weaker-armed quarterbacks than you might think — look at some of Alex Smith’s career overthrows), Fromm was throwing deep balls that forced his targets to slow down to catch them. Those are generally interceptions or incompletions in the NFL.

Mitchell Wilcox, TE, USF

(Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)

It is not easy to run the gauntlet drill. You are moving your head and hands to your left and your right, trying to bring in quick, timed passes while running (hopefully) in a straight line. Any variance in geometry or timing can be very bad, as USF tight end Mitch Wilcox discovered when this football beaned him right in the head.

Wilcox ran a 4.88 40-yard dash and struggled with drops, but this is what we’re sadly going to remember. Unfortunately, Wilcox might not remember it as well.

Shake it off, kid. As John Wooden once said, “Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”

Jacob Eason, QB, Washington

(Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)

Nobody was surprised that Eason was great with the deep ball — that’s been his stock in trade, and in that particular realm, he’s able to hit receivers with timing and anticipation. But what also showed up on tape, and in the drills in Indianapolis, is that Eason tends to become more of a “see it and throw it” guy at the short and intermediate levels, especially when quick timing is the order of the day.

You want to see development in this area, especially for a quarterback who, per Pro Football Focus, had a 91.7 passing grade with a clean pocket, and a 37.6 grade when pressured. Eason looks the part if you like a big quarterback at 6-foot-6 and 231 pounds, but too many of the things that make him a tough evaluation on the field showed up here.

Everyone who had to run the new fade drill

One of the new drills this year challenged quarterbacks to throw fade routes to receivers. The fade is a very tough throw to make, and to catch. It requires patience and timing from both quarterback and receiver. There are plenty of college programs where you don’t ever see a fade, and that showed up as everyone tried to attempt it.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

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