2021 NFL Draft In Depth

The first round of the NFL Draft was last night, and before things move on to day two, I figured I’d take a deeper dive into some of what we saw.

For more on any of these players, click these links.
Wide Receivers
Cornerbacks
Linebackers and Safeties
Running Backs
Offensive Linemen
Defensive Tackles
Edge Defenders
Quarterbacks

The Quarterback Fits

The biggest stories of the first half of draft night were the quarterbacks. For only the third time in NFL history the first three selections were all quarterbacks, and two more went in the top fifteen. Jacksonville, the Jets, San Francisco, Chicago, and New England all grabbed players they hope will be the foundations of their franchises for years to come.

I broke down all these quarterbacks prior to the draft, and you can find more details if you want by clicking one of the links above. But as a quick refresher, my top quarterback was Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence, followed closely by Chicago’s Justin Fields. After that I thought there was a decent drop to New York’s Zach Wilson, though he is still a very good prospect. I was less bullish on San Francisco’s Trey Lance and New England’s Mac Jones for very different reasons, but I still thought each was deserving of being a first round selection.

Of course, as we’ve seen in the past, pure talent isn’t the only deciding factor in a quarterback’s career. Situation goes a long way towards deciding how a quarterback turns out. So now that we know where each of these quarterbacks is going, what do their destinations tell us about projecting the paths of their careers?

We’ll start in the obvious place, with Lawrence in Jacksonville. In terms of supporting offensive cast, the Jaguars are actually in a surprisingly good position for a team selecting first overall. DJ Chark has shown flashes of being a legitimate number one receiving option, and hopefully he’ll be able to stay healthier in 2021 than he was in 2020. Toss in Marvin Jones, Laviska Shenault, Phillip Dorsett, and Tyler Eiffert, and the Jaguars have a fairly deep and very diverse set of receiving options. They can attack down the field, they can use designed plays to get the ball out of their quarterback’s hands quickly, and they have security blankets if the play breaks down. I didn’t love the selection of Travis Etienne later in the first round, but he does bring more receiving ability and a familiarity with Lawrence.

The coaching staff is a bit of a question mark. I didn’t think much of the Urban Meyer hiring, and while I like Darrell Bevell as an offensive coordinator, I’m still unclear who will really be calling the shots on offense. Meyer and Bevell have run very different offensive systems in the past, and the combination of the two of them could either lead to something unique and innovative or to a mismatched scheme that doesn’t really have any coherent plan.

Meyer struggled in college when trying to run an offense with a quarterback who wasn’t a running threat, and while Lawrence is a good runner, I don’t think the Jaguars will want him pounding it between the tackles fifteen times a game. Bevell on the other hand has typically run a system that leans heavily on the running game with the quarterback under center and attacks down the field rather than with quick passes on the outside, which will be a large adjustment for Lawrence coming from a spread-out, quick-hitting passing game at Clemson. He has the skills and the intelligence to work in any scheme, but it might take him more time to adjust than people are expecting.

The next two quarterbacks selected are headed to very similar offensive systems. Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur spent the past four seasons as the passing game coordinator in San Francisco, and at least early on I expect him to run mostly the same stuff as Kyle Shanahan. The responsibilities given to both Wilson and Lance will be very similar, even though they are two quarterbacks coming from very different backgrounds and being paired with very different supporting casts.

Of all the quarterbacks selected this year, Lance is clearly headed to the best situation. The 49ers have a pair of talented young receivers in Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk, plus one of the best tight ends in the league in George Kittle. They have a strong offensive line as well, and they are just a year removed from a Super Bowl run with Jimmy Garoppolo under center. Lance clearly has the potential to take this offense to the next level, even if I’m skeptical that he can do so right away.

I’m not a believer in letting quarterbacks learn from the bench. I think experience on the field and in practice is the best teacher, and the only way to get that is by making a rookie the starter as soon as possible. The 49ers will likely try to hold off on rushing Lance onto the field given how raw he is, but he will almost certainly make it out there sometime his rookie season.

I was maybe a bit harsh on San Francisco yesterday when I first broke down this pick. Lance is the riskiest selection in the draft, and trying to integrate him with a team ready to compete now could be an issue. But I do think there is a way to make it work. The offense he ran at North Dakota State is not dramatically different from what he’ll run in San Francisco, and he seemed to have an advanced understanding of that despite only one season as a starter.

The key to making Lance work right away will be to lean on his skills as a runner. This is a potentially tricky task, since much of Shanahan’s offense is built around the quarterback being under center, while quarterback runs are more effective from a shotgun setup. But North Dakota State ran a lot of their offense from under center as well, and the 49ers should be able to lift a lot of the concepts straight from there. And don’t forget, Shanahan was the offensive coordinator during Robert Griffin III’s stellar rookie season in Washington. This isn’t his first experience with a mobile quarterback, and he’ll find a way to tweak his scheme to take advantage of Lance’s rushing ability.

The Jets will require less changes to their offense for Wilson, but he’ll have to bear more responsibility with a weaker supporting cast around him. The scheme he’s going into will be a fairly easy transition from what he ran at BYU, just with more plays designed to get him outside the pocket where he is at his best.

The biggest concern will be how effectively the Jets can protect him when he stays in the pocket. Wilson did not handle pressure well at BYU, and he was fortunate that he was behind one of the best offensive lines in college football. The Jets have a couple of good young pieces up front in Mekhi Becton and Alijah Vera-Tucker, but right now they are both better as downhill run blockers than as pass protectors. If they can’t keep Wilson clean, he has a tendency to try to do too much to try to escape and make life more difficult for everyone on the offense.

Fields was the best value of the entire draft, and it’s unfortunate he’s headed to a destination where there is very little in place to help him succeed. The scheme in Chicago won’t be a dramatic departure from what he ran at Ohio State, and it can be set up to play to his strengths as a down the field passer. I haven’t been impressed by anything Matt Nagy has done since leaving Kansas City, but he has the opportunity here to work with a quarterback who is well suited to what he wants to do on offense.

The bigger issue is the supporting talent. Allen Robinson is a very good receiver, but past him there isn’t much on this offense to like. I guess Darnell Mooney showed some promise a year ago, but I’m not particularly excited about Anthony Miller or Cole Kmet as their other receiving options. Fields is another quarterback who will need some time to learn how to handle pressure, and Chicago’s offensive line isn’t a top tier unit by any means either.

Even more concerning is the current status of the coaching staff. Nagy is as close to a lame duck as you can get with an NFL head coach. If he doesn’t make the playoffs this year, it’s almost certain that he won’t be back. That will likely mean Fields will have to learn another new system in 2022, potentially slowing his development further.

It’s a situation reminiscent of the last Ohio State quarterback to go in the first round, Dwayne Haskins, who went to a Washington team coached by Jay Gruden clinging desperately to his job. Fields is a better prospect than Haskins, and it seems like the situation in Chicago is slightly more stable than it was in Washington, where Gruden was fundamentally opposed to bringing in a rookie quarterback and did basically nothing to prepare Haskins to play. But tumultuous early career coaching circumstances are never good for a young quarterback, and that’s the situation Fields will likely find himself in soon.

People generally seem to like the fit of Mac Jones going to New England. I’m not sure I really see the reason, except for the side-by-side photos of Jones and Tom Brady looking doughy and unathletic (if that was what they wanted in a quarterback, they should have just drafted me). Jones is not Tom Brady, and he never will be, and people need to stop drawing this weird comparison.

Jones is a smart and accurate player who can run the offense to the letter, but won’t give you anything more than the supporting cast gives him. And right now in New England, they have no supporting cast. They just lost their best offensive lineman in Joe Thuney, and they tried to build up a nonexistent receiving corps through free agency by signing mediocre veterans Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne to unnecessarily large contracts. Transitioning to the NFL, Jones is going to have worse protection and worse receivers than he had in college. And I don’t really see a path forward to near-term success, besides perhaps some Bill Belichick wizardry.

 

Best Players Remaining

Heading into night two of the draft, there are still a handful of very good players on the board. Here are a few of my favorites.

Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoah, LB/S/CB, Notre Dame

Owusu-Koromoah is the best player left on the board. He has the talent to be a top ten player, but his size and questions about positional fit seem to have scared quite a few teams into drafting lesser players. In the second round though, someone is going to find a playmaking force on the defense as an edge safety or a slot cornerback or whatever they want him to play. He flies all over the field, he has tremendous instincts, and he is excellent in coverage. In short, he is the perfect player for the modern NFL.

Rondale Moore, WR, Purdue

It’s clear why Moore is still available. Injuries meant that he barely played his last two years in college, and never really developed as a wide receiver. For the first couple years of his career, his team is going to have to find ways to feed him the ball. But Moore is one of those rare athletes that actually justifies this kind of role in an offense. He’s basically a more dangerous and more explosive version of Kadarius Toney, who the Giants took with the 20^th pick last night.

Terrace Marshall, WR, LSU

Marshall will be a very solid receiver wherever he ends up. He has some issues with concentration drops, and there are reportedly some medical red flags that were raised. But he has the speed to challenge defenses down the field and the body control to make some difficult catches. He’s probably not going to be a superstar, but he’ll be a starting receiver for a long time.

Christian Barmore, DT, Alabama

No defensive tackles went in the first round, and now we’ve reached a point where I kind of like the value for Barmore. He is still a developing player, but he has the physical tools to be a dangerous interior pass rusher. He’s not ready for more than a situational role yet, and there’s a chance that this is all he’ll ever be good for. But in the second round the burst and strength he shows is hard to find, and it’s worth a gamble.

Trevon Moehrig, S, TCU

Moehrig is the top pure safety on the board, an excellent straight-line athlete who will slide in as a solid piece on the back end of a defense. He isn’t much of a run defender, and he’s not going to be a piece that a defensive coordinator can throw anywhere on the field, or a true eraser at the top end of the defense. He’s just a solid safety, and the second round is a good place for him.

Teven Jenkins, OG/OT, Oklahoma State

I think Jenkins will spend most of his career at guard, but he has just enough athletic ability to have some upside as a tackle. He doesn’t move as well as his testing numbers suggest, but as a downhill blocker he is capable of dominating defenders. He’s the sort of player you routinely see driving people deep into the bench area, pushing the boundaries between aggressive and insane. Properly used, he can be a building block of a quality running game.

 

Additional Scouting Reports

I did pretty well this year, having pre-written scouting reports for 30 of the 32 players selected last night. Still, that leaves two I haven’t yet broken down in detail. So here they are.

17) Las Vegas Raiders – Alex Leatherwood, OT/OG, Alabama

Leatherwood played tackle in college, but I don’t think there’s any chance he can do that in the NFL. He has the athleticism to play on the edge, but he never seems to harness that athleticism after his initial drop. He gets good depth and makes it into good position, and then he freezes in place, his feet dead beneath him. Pass rushers can run circles around him with double moves, and his only real hope is to reach outside his frame and grab them. But it’s not like his hands are that effective either. He doesn’t have any power on his punch, and when he tries to use it half the times he ends up missing his target and tipping forward. His mobility was enough to get him into position to stop pass rushers at the college level, but in the NFL he will be eaten alive if he plays on the edge.

It’s not that these weaknesses won’t be concerns if he plays guard, but they’ll at least be mitigated somewhat on the inside. There’s less space for defenders to run around him, and the rushers he faces will be less agile than on the edge. He’s decent at absorbing contact and not being driven backwards, though at times he does let his shoulders get turned too easily, which could open up lanes to get to the quarterback.

The best thing Leatherwood has going is his run blocking. He can be effective in any scheme, with the power to move people straight backwards and the athleticism to reach and seal defenders. He isn’t as physically overwhelming or consistent as I would like to see from a first round guard, but he has the tools to develop at this position down the line.

In terms of value, this was yet another major reach by the Raiders. Leatherwood would have been a decent pick in the second round, and he very well could have been available for them at that point. Christian Darrisaw is better if they wanted a tackle, and Teven Jenkins was a better option if they were going for a guard. Once again, I’m not really sure what the Raiders are doing when running the draft.

 

28) New Orleans Saints – Payton Turner, EDGE, Houston

Turner was the biggest surprise of all the names called last night. He was considered a second or third round player for most of the process, before making some small buzz over the final few days leading into the draft. And after watching three games from him in the past day, the biggest question I have is, why the hell did it take so long? Seriously, what am I missing? He’s got great size at 6-6 and 268 pounds. He was productive with 10.5 sacks in five games his final year in college. He tested well athletically and looks like a fantastic athlete on the field. On paper he has basically everything you could want from a pass rusher.

On tape, most of what you look for is there too. His burst off the ball isn’t elite, but it is good enough, especially since he is the best edge rusher in the class at turning the corner. Despite his height he plays low to the ground, sweeping beneath a tackle’s arms and playing through contact to cut at almost a ninety degree angle to the quarterback. He has insane flexibility for someone his size, and it shows up on every play. He has the ability to twist and bend his upper body to avoid punches from an opposing lineman, and because of his he almost never gets caught up on blocks. His effort is relentless as well, and even if he doesn’t get there with his initial rush he will find a way to the ball.

Turner is still occasionally inconsistent, particularly against the run. He can make some great plays shooting into the backfield and playing through traffic to disrupt things from the backside, but he can also leave himself exposed trying to swim through a gap and get buried into the middle of the pile. He also needs to be better about maintaining his rushing lanes when going after the quarterback, especially when he takes an interior route or is lined up as a defensive tackle.

Even with these faults, if I had studied him before the draft he probably would have been my highest rated edge defender. He definitely should have gone in the top half of the first round, and the Saints got insane value where they selected him. Their defense was a different unit without Trey Hendrickson on the field a year ago, and they needed to find a way to replace him after he left in free agency. They did just that, and they may have even gotten someone better.

 

Awards

Best First Round Selection: Devonta Smith, WR, Philadelphia Eagles

I should probably make this Justin Fields, since getting a quarterback of this caliber at pick 11 is basically unheard of. But the Bears did pay a lot to slide up to get him, and I have concerns about where they are in their team-building process. Also, I already talked about Fields above. So let’s go with the player selected one pick before him.

Smith is really, really good, and he’s headed to a team in desperate need of a wide receiver. He’ll be the top threat in that offense from day one, and he already has some familiarity with the quarterback after playing two years in college with Jalen Hurts. I still think last year’s first round pick Jalen Reagor will turn into a good receiver, but he’s probably better as a deep threat playing off of a more complete wide receiver. Well Smith is as complete as they come, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he was contending for a Pro Bowl spot this year.

 

Worst First Round Selection: Travis Etienne, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

There weren’t any totally ridiculous reaches this year (it helped that Seattle didn’t have a first round pick), but there are a handful of selections I didn’t care for. Taking Wilson and Lance over Fields was a mistake for both teams. Jaylen Waddle over his teammate Smith doesn’t really make sense to me. I’m not a fan of Gregory Rousseau or Eric Stokes, though at that point in the first round a reach is a bit more understandable.

At one point I thought this pick was going to be Najee Harris, the running back selected by the Steelers. Then the Jaguars jumped in and took a worse running back one pick later with even less need at the position. A year ago they got fantastic production from a rookie running back they grabbed as an undrafted free agent, and it’s baffling that they decided to follow that up with investing a first round pick at the position. The Jaguars have so many bigger needs, and it’s borderline malpractice that they decided to take a player at a position with minimal value where they already have talent on the roster.

 

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Trevor Lawrence, QB, Jacksonville Jaguars

As we saw with Justin Herbert’s win last year, if there’s even a decent rookie quarterback he’s going to win the award. So as much as I would like to entertain someone like Smith or Ja’Marr Chase, it has to be one of the quarterbacks. As I discussed above, I don’t have high expectations with the situations Wilson, Fields, and Jones are headed into. That leaves Lawrence and Lance, and while I think Lance could get some love if he powers the 49ers to the playoffs with his legs, Lawrence seems like the safer bet.

Lawrence is as pro-ready as any quarterback that has entered the league since Andrew Luck, and he’s headed into an offense that has the pieces he needs to succeed. He’s also the quarterback I’m most confident will be a starter from day one. The Jaguars won’t make a playoff run this year, but that isn’t necessary for this award, and simply winning six or seven games will be a massive step forward for this team.

 

Defensive Rookie of the Year: Jaelan Phillips, EDGE, Miami Dolphins

This field feels particularly wide open this year. The first two defensive players off the board were cornerbacks, but cornerback is always a hard position to translate from college to the NFL, and I’m not sure I feel great about either Jaycee Horn or Patrick Surtain being an exception to that rule. After that came a run of linebackers, any of which I could see winning the award. My best bet would be Jamin Davis, who is in position to rack up a lot of tackles behind a quality defensive line in Washington. But people seem to have rightly realized that tackles are a meaningless stat, which makes it hard for a linebacker to compete.

Phillips is the most immediately ready of the pass rushers drafted last night, and he’s going to a good situation in Miami. The Dolphins don’t have any other pass rushers to take away his reps, and he will have plenty of opportunities to earn a spot on the field. And with the secondary they’ve put together in Miami, quarterbacks will likely be stuck sitting in the pocket with nowhere to go with the ball. Phillips has the speed to produce several quick-hitting sacks, as well as the supporting cast to let him clean things up even when he doesn’t get immediate pressure.

 

Odell Beckham/Justin Herbert Award for Selection I am Most Likely to be Wrong About: Zaven Collins, LB, Arizona Cardinals

I was very harsh on this pick last night, and I still don’t particularly like Collins. I don’t see anything he does at a particularly high level, which is pretty much the same thing I said about Isaiah Simmons, the linebacker the Cardinals took in the top ten last year. The two are different players, but they have similarities in some ways. They are both very big, and they are both extremely fast. And it’s hard not to have at least some reason for hope about prospects with this sort of physical ability.

Collins struggles to play through traffic in the box, but that isn’t as important for a linebacker these days. His ability to make plays towards the sidelines will help corral quick screens and lateral runss, making up for the occasional plays he allows on the interior. And while I didn’t love what I saw from him in pass coverage, other people have generally praised this part of his game. It’s possible that I missed something here, and that Collins will be a perfect new-age linebacker in the center of Arizona’s defense.