Honestly y’all I’m doin a 180 here Jaguars select Evan Neal, T, Alabama he’s just stupid good. Good teams prioritize the offensive line, especially when they draft a quarterback - look at LAC and Slater. Trevor Lawrence has a line with good interior pieces (Scherff, Linder) but I see 3 question marks at tackle. One of Cam / Little is probably good enough to stick around, but I guarantee you we franchised Cam again because we aren’t sure about him. Outside of that, Jawaan Taylor sucks and is not a solution. And neither Cam nor Little is that “stud” offensive tackle that transforms your offense. Neal has played left tackle, right tackle, and guard each for a season, and pulled it off with aplomb - only allowed one single sack per year at each position. He stands out as a pass blocker, and although he’s just okay as a stationary run blocker, his experience at guard helped him become very good at pull blocks, reach blocks, and combo blocks at the second level. This gives us a lot of options running the ball. His versatility is rich, his personality is great, his strength and size are off the charts while he leaves nothing on the table in terms of quickness. Full package imo, gimme. I honestly think much of the criticism of Neal is nitpicking: - I totally disagree that he struggles with speed - he handled Travon Walker excellently. I think that’s a phantom critique that came up because colleges over-list their players weights. At 335 pounds and an 84 inch wingspan he’s more Trent Williams than Orlando Brown, and is every bit as powerful and nasty as Trent was coming out too. You’re not gonna find many guys this size hot off the press who can move like that - a clean shuffle and kickslides are his PBJ. -Yeah he’s a little aggressive with his upper-body lunges, sometimes ends up leaning/off balance, but even those occasional snaps he still wins ugly! So consistently in fact, that there’s no question his athleticism can cover some of his mistakes. And that “flaw” only shows up in the first place because of one of his biggest strengths - the dude is mean and spends the game sitting grown men down on the turf. He’s never passive or lazy about blocking and that’s why I compare him to Trent. Neal’s technique impressed me but his recovery and intensity the whole dogfight even despite making mistakes impresses me even more, and that’s the shit that really makes a guy adjust to the league. He’s competitive as shit, visibly. -likewise, he may be tall af, but he definitely has shown the ability to bend against 6’2-6’3 defenders, not to mention extreme strength to win high when he has to. The length makes him hard to beat around the corner as well. If he’s this good even while we can say he’s over-eager and will reach and block high at times, imagine what his ceiling looks like with coaching. the NFL has been blessed with good tackles the last few drafts (Sewell, Slater, Wirfs) but before that 2016 is the only year in recent memory that had talent that good (Tunsil / Stanley). Otherwise: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, were all average to bad T classes with very few exceptions, so when you got a chance at a guy like this? You take it. I was salivating about Thibs and Allen all off-season but I can’t just assume Trevor is gonna be okay, especially when we let his best weapon sign for $12M per season somewhere else. I want him to have all day and I want Robinson / Etienne to be able to take on most of the pressure. Is he as good as Sewell / Slater, who knows, and coaching will have a lot to do with how he pans out. But I feel certain he’s in that tier and is as good of a prospect as a team can hope for in modern football.
I wonder how big the evaluation scouts wrote on prospects actually is. I can see a funny universe where Randall writes 75 paragraph essays on each prospect and the dude for the Ravens is just like “yeah he’s good.”
Definitely good with Neal. Makes the Robinson stuff seem weird but whatever. Definitely gonna have FOMO with Aidan too.
Lions select Kayvon Thibodeaux, DE Oregon. Need to improve the d line badly. Almost went Walker here, but stick to Kayvon for now.
Imagine this: Josh Allen vs Evan Neal Kayvon Thibodeaux vs Penei Sewell honing each other’s skills in practice
Patriots trade pick 201 to Washington for Curtis Samuel. Here’s my thing, I think the Patriots have a unique idea in mind with not having a FB. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Jonnu Smith lineup all over the place. So I grab Samuel to be both a slot guy and also a formation versatile piece so Bill can really just create whatever formation he feels like depending on the matchups.