2019 First Round In Depth

Best Players Remaining

As I type this, the second round of the draft is less than half an hour from kicking off. Most of these players will have new homes by the end of the night, and I expect the teams that grab them will be thrilled by the value they’re getting. (Players not listed in any particular order).

Will Grier, QB, West Virginia

It’s rare that I disagree so much with the rest of the league that my top quarterback doesn’t even get drafted in the first round, but that’s what happened this year. Grier isn’t the most impressive when it comes to physical tools, and the scheme he ran in college might make his transition to the NFL a bit rough. But he’s an accurate passer with an aggressive mindset, and sooner or later he will get a chance to start. It’s always an uphill climb for a quarterback who wasn’t drafted to be the guy, and there aren’t very many teams in the market for a savior right now. Grier will likely be grabbed by someone looking for a reliable backup, and I expect they are going to get a lot more.

Greedy Williams, CB, LSU

This is one I really don’t get. Williams has good size. He ran a 4.37 forty yard dash. He plays with an aggressive mindset and produced a lot of interceptions in college. So how the hell is he still on the board? I don’t think it will last that long, and some lucky team will stumble into a future star cornerback with their second selection.

DK Metcalf, WR, Ole Miss

If you had told me after Metcalf ran a 4.33 forty at 228 pounds that he would end up still being available on Day 2 of the draft, I wouldn’t have believed you. This sort of physical ability is extraordinarily rare, and at this point I really don’t care if he can’t develop a more diverse game. He has the speed, the size, and the ball skills to be a truly elite deep threat in the NFL, and that alone is worth a second round pick. The potential to develop into something more than that means he should go off the board very quickly, in what I expect will be a busy second round for wide receivers.

Dalton Risner, OT/OG, Kansas State

There seemed to be a bit of a reluctance last night to select linemen with the plan to transition them between positions, with both Risner and Cody Ford falling out of the first round. Both players are big, physical right tackles who will probably be better suited starting their careers at guard, and both have higher upsides than some of the linemen selected ahead of them. But the potential rough patch of the position change seems to have scared teams away from them, at least early on. It shouldn’t be as big a deal on the second day.

Taylor Rapp, S, Washington

This is one case where I’m not surprised that Rapp fell out of the first round. He has a lot of potential and versatility, but his tape was kind of weird, with him often being forced into a role that minimized his impact. There are rumors that he was injured at the Combine, partially explaining his disappointing (and not backed up by film) 4.78 forty yard dash. Those same injury concerns may be dissuading teams from taking a player who already carried a fair amount of risk, even if I still believe he has the upside to be a true star in the NFL.

Additional Scouting Reports

Of the 32 players drafted last night I had previously written up scouting reports for 27 of them. Which meant that there were five more players I needed to watch a couple games of and get back with my thoughts.

14) Atlanta Falcons – Chris Lindstrom, OG, Boston College

I can see pieces of what made Lindstrom the second offensive lineman off the board. He’s big, he’s strong, and he certainly tested like a good athlete. That athleticism only shows up at times on the field, but if he can harness it he can become a very good guard. His feet are solid, and once he’s engaged he can overwhelm opposing rushers. The problem is what happens before that point. He regularly loses on initial contact, letting defenders into his chest to shove him back. He doesn’t play well in space, and he doesn’t have the lateral speed to reach and shut people down.

Most of the time Lindstrom wins by scrapping and recovering after getting beaten off the snap. This is a testament to his raw ability, and it’s enough to prompt reasonable intrigue about what he can be if he can figure out how not to be beaten so regularly. But that is a lot of ifs, especially for as high as the Falcons took him. I would have seen him more as a developmental prospect in the second round, not as a plug and play starter for a team hoping to leap back to playoff contention in 2019.

21) Green Bay Packers – Darnell Savage, S, Maryland

Savage is all over the place as a player, and the only thing I can say about him with any real confidence is that he can fly. He ran a 4.36 forty and he looks every bit that fast on the field, playing as fast as humanly possible in everything he does. He makes tremendous breaks on the ball when he reads a throw coming his way, and he screams downhill against any runs that bounce outside, regularly making tackles deep in the backfield.

All that said, he doesn’t always run in the correct direction. He takes some poor angles and regularly misses tackles in the open field. He bites hard on fakes in man coverage, and he never seems to be aware of where receivers are around him when he plays in zone. A lot of people have him pegged as a potential deep middle safety thanks to his ability to cover sideline to sideline, but that was a role he never filled in college, where he was more of a box and slot safety. Maybe he can make this transition, or maybe the Packers intend to use him as he was used in college. In either case, this selection feels a little too rich for my blood, a gamble on a player who flashes a couple times each game but still shows very little feel for understanding the game of football.

23) Houston Texans – Tytus Howard, OT, Alabama State

I hadn’t studied Howard before the draft, but I had heard about him, a raw athlete from a small school in Alabama. That description made me a bit skeptical as a pick for Houston, since they’re likely going to need to count on him to protect DeShaun Watson right away. After watching him I’m a bit more confident though. He’s more polished than I expected, particularly as a pass blocker. He takes very aggressive pass sets and has a good punch that makes him next to impossible to beat around the edge. He should be capable of starting at tackle right away, and it probably wasn’t too much of a reach to take him late in the first round.

That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of weaknesses in his game. He tested as a great linear athlete, but he was brutal in the agility drills, and he struggles to change direction as the play develops. He doesn’t really do handfighting, and advanced rushers can swat his punch away and dart past him. Most of all he struggles with power. He can get bulled backwards in both the running and the passing game, and he’s going to have to work to add strength in the NFL. But this is something that can very easily be done, and if he accomplishes this he has a ceiling as high as almost any lineman in this draft.

29) Seattle Seahawks – LJ Collier, EDGE, TCU

Collier is an okay player, and just that. He’s the sort of player you’d be happy to add in the third round, a functional rotation piece who can round into a solid starter in a couple years. He isn’t a fantastic athlete, but he has good power, and in a pass rushing role he can probably be counted on to get six or seven sacks a year.

The problem is of course that the Seahawks just spent a first round pick on him, and I’m pretty sure he will never live up to that billing. He is a strong player, but he never seems to win with a pure bull rush. He doesn’t have the strength to run through blockers, and he doesn’t have the speed or bend to run around them. His only move is to aim for the narrow window on their outside shoulder, deep enough that he can drive through the contact but not so deep that they can react and shove him away. He hit this window regularly in college, but it gets a lot smaller in the NFL, and he’s going to need to grow his game to be worth the pick that was used on him. I simply don’t think he has the talent to do this, and ultimately I think Seattle will be disappointed by what they got.

31) Atlanta Falcons – Kaleb McGary, OT, Washington

Another sensational athlete at tackle, McGary has pretty much the opposite issues as Howard. He is a master of handfighting, and if a rusher comes straight at him he is able to keep him busy and stop him dead in his tracks. He’s fairly flexible moving laterally, and he can react down to handle inside moves. Of course, I’m not sure why you would try an inside move on him, considering how easy it is to run around him.

McGary’s technique dropping into a traditional pass set will likely need to be rebuilt from the ground up. He simply doesn’t use his hands, doesn’t have a punch at all, just drops back and catches the oncoming pass rusher. And once they’re engaged, his feet more or less stop, freezing him in place while the rusher’s momentum carries him upfield and around the edge. It’s perplexing to me that anyone could watch this and decide he’s a first round tackle, even while looking the part on paper. This has become one of my least favorite picks in the first round, and I’m not sure why the Falcons felt the need to leap up and grab him.

Superlatives

Best Pick

Carolina Panthers – Brian Burns, EDGE, Florida State

The draft had to be a bit nerve wracking for the Panthers, watching top players along the defensive front fly off the board ahead of them. And yet they stayed pat in the middle of the first round, and they got the second best edge rusher to fall right into their lap. Burns has the best pure speed rush in the draft, with the ability to explode up the field and bend around the corner with the best in the league. He complements that with a good understanding of how to swat away a blocker’s hands to keep himself from being pushed outside, and a spin move he’ll whip out a couple times each game to keep the opposing tackle off balance.

The concerns about Burns were largely around his weight, but he answered that by showing up at the Combine at 249 pounds and remaining dominant athletically. If he can stay at that size he will be exactly what you would draw up as an edge rusher, filling a major hole on Carolina’s front. With him coming off the edge life will be a lot easier for Kawaan Short on the inside, giving him a chance to get back to the elite pass rushing production he had a few years ago.

Honorable Mentions: Buffalo Bills – Ed Oliver, Philadelphia Eagles – Andre Dillard, Los Angeles Chargers – Jerry Tillery

Worst Pick

New York Giants – Daniel Jones, QB, Duke

I know this was rumored for weeks leading up to the draft, and I know that I actually predicted this in my mock draft. But man, part of me did believe that this was a joke, or some smoke screen to try to get Washington to sell the farm to jump ahead of them. I don’t always agree with the players taken high in the draft, and the Giants are a team that consistently goes in the opposite direction I do. But most of the time I can at least understand the reasoning behind a player being selected higher than I would take him.

That isn’t the case with Jones. I don’t know what he is supposed to do well that makes him a top ten pick. He can run decently, but he isn’t an elite athlete by any means. He doesn’t have a strong arm, and he doesn’t make pinpoint accurate throws. The system he ran in college was not particularly complex, and the statistics he put up were well below average.

I simply cannot wrap my head around what the Giants were thinking with this selection. They still seem committed to Eli Manning at quarterback, largely because ownership has a soft spot for him. He is going to be the starter for as long as he wants, and one he retires they’re going to turn to a player whose best case scenario is the exact same mediocre player Manning has been for the past three years.

Honorable mentions: New York Giants – Dexter Lawrence, New York Giants – DeAndre Baker, Oakland Raiders – Clelin Ferrell

Best Fit

Baltimore Ravens – Marquise Brown, WR, Oklahoma

The Ravens have the potential to have one of the most unique offenses the NFL has seen in a long time. They were already there by the end of last year, with a system built around Lamar Jackson’s legs that helped them ride a top notch defense to the postseason. Now they will look to expand on that, hopefully figuring out how to use his arm to open up the passing game.

A year ago they took two tight ends in the first three rounds, and the assumption is that they are going to use them in a heavy attack of underneath throws over the middle, covering for some of Jackson’s accuracy issues by giving him easy passes to big targets. But the other tool Jackson brings is plenty of arm strength to stretch the field vertically, and with Brown he has the perfect weapon to do so. If teams tighten up against the running game and the short passing attack, the Ravens are now positioned to hit them over the top, adding an explosive spark to an offense that is positioned to be one of the biggest challenges for defenses in the league.

Honorable Mentions: Minnesota Vikings – Garrett Bradbury, Pittsburgh Steelers – Devin Bush, New England Patriots – N’Keal Harry

Worst Fit

Oakland Raiders – Johnathan Abram, S, Mississippi State

Of the three first round selections by the Raiders this was my favorite value in terms of player and position, and yet it still feels like not a particularly great decision. Abram is a fantastic athlete who loves flying around the field and lighting people up, and there is still a place for a player like that in the NFL. Unfortunately, the Raiders already have one of those in Karl Joseph, their first round selection three years ago.

Joseph isn’t a star by any means, and it wouldn’t be shocking if they moved on from him after this season, especially now that they have Abram to fill his role. But he is undeniably talented, and this defense isn’t in a position to let talented players walk away. They have much more pressing needs at linebacker, cornerback, and defensive tackle that they should have tried to address before doubling down at a position of relative strength.

Honorable Mentions: Houston Texans – Tytus Howard, New York Giants – Dexter Lawrence, Green Bay Packers – Rashan Gary

Pick I am most likely to be completely wrong about

Green Bay Packers – Rashan Gary, EDGE, Michigan

It’s easy to raise an eyebrow at Gary’s lack of production in college, He was supposed to be the superstar pass rusher that lifted Michigan back to prominence, but over three seasons he didn’t even reach ten sacks total. But college production is not something I pay a lot of attention to, especially for pass rushers. The game at the NFL is so different, and there are plenty of examples of players who produced very few sacks in college becoming star pass rushers once they reach the NFL.

Gary has the athletic ability to make that sort of leap in the NFL, but the truly fascinating thing about him will be how his role could evolve at the next level. I’m not sure exactly how Green Bay plans to use him, and the answer to that question will go a long way towards determining his long term career success. At 277 pounds he is big for an edge defender, especially if the Packers continue to use a 3-4 scheme with their pass rushers playing as stand-up linebackers. And with both Preston Smith and Za’Darius Smith signing big money free agent deals, there isn’t a clear path to a starting role for Gary on the outside.

The answer might be to move Gary to more of an interior pass rushing role. He doesn’t have great bend around the outside, but on the inside his explosiveness off the line and power through contact could make him a truly disruptive force. The plan in Green Bay might be for him to use him as a rich man’s version of what they’ve had the past few years in Dean Lowry, a versatile option who can move everywhere along the front and get after the quarterback. It will be an adjustment for him, and I have no idea how it will play out. But it certainly could turn into something exciting.

Honorable Mentions: Jacksonville Jaguars – Josh Allen, Detroit Lions – TJ Hockenson