2023 Offensive Line Prospects

Paris Johnson, OT, Ohio State

Physically Johnson is everything you could want from a tackle. He combines excellent size with impressive athleticism to make everything he does on the field look remarkably easy. He drops comfortably into every pass set, and with his long arms it is difficult to run around him, even if he rarely uses them to their full effectiveness. He’s only 313 pounds, but he plays with a heavy weight on his feet, making it difficult for even defenders with a full head of steam to get any movement backwards. I think he probably can and will add weight at the next level to make this even more difficult.

There isn’t any one thing that Johnson struggles with consistently. He’ll have a couple of lapses every game, sometimes mental and sometimes physical. Last year was his first season playing left tackle, and there were some rough moments as he transitioned that seemed to go away as the season went along. This may have also explained why he was less aggressive than I would have liked, never really playing downhill in the running game or punching aggressively in his pass sets. He has the physical tools to do these things, but he never really dominated on film that way he should have.

If Johnson is just the player he showed in college, then he’s probably a middle-tier starting tackle in the NFL. Someone you can count on most of the time, but with enough lapses to keep him from ever being a Pro Bowl or All Pro caliber player. But he’s still young, and still figuring out the position, and there’s a chance that with more coaching he can fill in the gaps in his game. The upside is enough that I could justify sneaking him into the top-ten, even if right now on film he doesn’t look like that kind of player.

 

Broderick Jones, OT, Georgia

 

Jones is another phenomenally gifted tackle prospect who is just a little ways away from putting it all together. During his best plays he looks like a top-five pick, showing tremendous balance and strength used in unison to shut down opposing pass rushers. But there are enough gaps in his game right now to make me wary, and he has enough bust potential to make me reluctant to actually spend a top-ten selection on him.

Jones is a sensational athlete who moves well in space. As a run blocker he can make very impressive plays either pulling to lead the ball carrier or reaching to seal a defender off from the play. At times he can be a little stiff in motion, sticking to his choreographed footwork rather than adjusting to what defenders are doing on the fly. This issue doesn’t show up at all in pass protection though. He has a varied set of drops to handle opposing rushers, and he’s almost always balanced enough to react to counter-moves thrown his way. His footwork is excellent, and that’s the most important tool an offensive lineman can have.

Where Jones gets in trouble is with his upper body. In the running game he has the strength to bend and seal defenders, but this doesn’t show up often during his pass sets. He doesn’t deploy much of a punch, preferring to sit back and catch rushers in his chest. He can play too high and be vulnerable to bull rushes, or lean too far forward and let the rushers yank him aside and come screaming off the edge.

2022 was Jones’s first season as a starter, and he showed progress as the year went along. If this growth continues in the NFL, he’ll become one of the best tackles in the league in a couple of seasons. But I think he’ll probably struggle early on, and there’s a risk he never puts it all together. He probably has the highest upside of any tackle I studied, but enough downside to push him down my board.

 

Peter Skoronski, OT/OG, Northwestern

Skoronski doesn’t have the size you would typically want from a tackle. His height of 6-4 is right at the edge of tolerable, and his arm length of 32.25 inches is well below any normal threshold. Simply put, we have not seen a tackle with arms this short be successful in the NFL. And the arm length does show up as an occasional problem on film. Speed rushers can occasionally fight around the corner and cut down the distance to the quarterback, and power rushers can get into his chest and leverage him up onto his heels. At the college level he was almost always strong or quick enough to prevent these from becoming pressures, but in the NFL it could be a different story.

Skoronski has a wide array of tools at his disposal to compensate for his underwhelming arms, and I don’t think he’d be totally lost as an NFL tackle. He gets very good depth on his pass sets that make it difficult for even the fastest rushers to get the edge on him, and he does so while remaining balanced enough that he can react back underneath against inside moves. And while the length of his arms may be an issue, the way he uses them certainly is not. He has a broad array of moves that he uses to keep himself at an advantage and knock defenders off balance, and when he gets his hands on an opposing player, he latches firmly enough that it’s basically impossible to break free.

Skoronski is very skilled, if flawed, as a pass protector. He is absolutely dominant as a run blocker. He drives defenders down the field and buries them into the dirt, opening huge holes behind him for a ball carrier to plunge through. He’s agile heading to the second level, and he keeps his feet constantly moving as the play wears on, constantly taking advantage of his leverage to seal off the play.

So what we have with Skoronski is a player who could either be a boom-or-bust tackle or a sure thing at guard. I’d probably lean towards making him a guard, but it wouldn’t be the worst idea to give him a year or two at tackle, to see if the arm issue is enough to cause consistent problems. In either case, I think his value is pretty much the same, worth selecting in the middle of the first round but with enough concerns to keep him out of the top ten.

 

Darnell Wright, OT, Tennessee

The top four linemen in this class are pretty tightly bunched, and I wouldn’t object too hard to them coming off in any order. Wright is a phenomenal talent as well who should also go in the middle of the first round, and it’s only a few small things that had me bump him down to the bottom of this tier. He tested as an elite athlete, but I don’t quite see that on the field. He moves well when everything is running on schedule, but he’s less effective when he’s forced to react. He’s vulnerable to counter moves and doesn’t have great recovery ability, so if you can get an edge on him, you can usually find your way into the backfield.

The thing is, it’s very hard to get an edge on Wright. He’s one of the more experienced tackles in this class, and that shows up with the wide variety of techniques he uses. He varies his pass sets from play to play to keep the opposing rushers off guard, and he has active hands to keep his chest clean. At 330 pounds he’s heavier than most of the other linemen in this class as well, and as long as he stays in front of the pass rusher, he is difficult to move backwards.

Wright feels like a more complete prospect with a lower ceiling than Johnson or Jones. There are certainly areas he can improve—he’s sometimes slow off the ball and doesn’t have much of a punch, occasionally opening lanes around the edge, and he has little experience as a run blocker, though he looked impressive when asked. And the fact that he tested so well suggests he may have better movement skills than he showed on the field. So even though he is likely to be the fourth lineman off the board, whoever selects him is still going to wind up with a quality tackle.

 

Anton Harrison, OT, Oklahoma

Harrison is a very good football player who is held back by being just an okay athlete. When everything is working smoothly, he can be a shutdown player in pass protection. He has an excellent punch that he uses to knock pass rushers up the field, with long arms that keep them from getting into his chest. This allows him to avoid being too aggressive on his pass sets, which makes it easy to absorb inside moves. He’s very good at keeping his chest clean and strong enough that he never gives any ground to a bull rush.

This strength shows up in the running game as well when he can attack straight downhill and bury defenders into the scrum in the middle of the field. He struggles more when he’s asked to move, whether this is reaching a defender outside of him, advancing to the second level, or pulling around as a lead blocker. This last piece is why I would worry about any plan to transition him to guard, even though that would cover up some of his shortcomings. In the right scheme he could be an elite guard, but there will still be some limitations to what he can do there.

In college Harrison’s length and power were enough to overcome his limited movement skills, and they will help in the NFL as well, even if they can’t completely wash it away. It isn’t that he’s completely immobile, but when he’s asked to take a deep pass set or react in space, it strains him enough that he doesn’t arrive in balance to utilize the power that forms the foundation of his game. It will cause problems here and there through his career, particularly against the fastest edge rushers, but I still think he’ll be a solid starting tackle, though maybe one better suited to switching to the right side. I’d be fine taking him late in the first round, at which point his limited upside is no longer a major concern.

 

O’Cyrus Torrence, OG, Florida

Torrence is what you would get if you asked Harrison to play guard. He’s a downhill attacking force who will be reliable in pass protection but will be limited to certain schemes as a run blocker. He moves well in small areas, which gives him the ability to stay in front of defenders as a pass blocker, and he does so without losing his anchor, making him nearly impossible to bull rush. But he struggles some when he’s asked to move a lot in the running game, particularly on reach blocks where he has to cover a lot of ground and flip his hips without losing track of the defender.

Torrence is good as a run blocker in downhill schemes, though he isn’t as dominant as I would like to see a first-round guard be. He can twist defenders and seal them from the play, but he doesn’t get a lot of push down the field to open wide lanes behind him. For this reason he’s better as a backside option than someone you can run behind. I think he has the tools to get stronger and more physical in the NFL, and to play with better leverage to truly excel in this part of the game.

But what makes him most valuable is his skill as a pass blocker. He has active feet that allow him to react to any move across from him, and he’s a very smart player who always has his eyes up to be ready to react to stunts and blitzes. I’d like to see him use his hands a little more aggressively, as elite defenders were able to get into his chest and yank him to the side. But players with the skill and strength to pull that off are rare even in the NFL, and I don’t see anything stopping Torrence from being able to start immediately. It’s enough to maybe get him into the very end of the first round, though for a guard with his limitations it’s probably more reasonable to wait until the second.