2017 NFL Draft: Sleepers Who Could Climb into Next Year's 1st Round

Early July is the valley of the football offseason. Free agency and the draft are behind us; organized team activities have begun; training camp is on the horizon. In a fairly quiet period, one of the few we have in the year, it's the perfect time to speculate on possible key prospects in the coming offseason.

While free agents do test the market, the vast majority of franchise-changing players are acquired through the draft and don't see free agency before their second or even third contracts. This early in the draft cycle, the same names are repeated over and over, creating somewhat of an echo chamber for watch lists that fans rely on heading into the regular season.

After some deep film-digs over the last several months, though, it's clear that certain prospects aren't getting their deserved shine. We'll go over the five biggest victims to the offseason's monotony and what they can bring to NFL franchises in 2017.

Dawuane Smoot, EDGE, Illinois

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Dawuane Smoot is the most underrated pass-rusher heading into the 2016 regular season. Most didn't have a reason to watch Fighting Illini football in 2015 after they fired head coach Tim Beckman just one week before the season began. Their 2-6 record in the Big Ten didn't draw many eyes as the year rolled along.

With that being said, if you did manage to check in on Illinois, Smoot was clearly the best player on the team, which featured Jihad Ward, a defensive end who was drafted 44th overall by the Oakland Raiders in April. While Ward only made 13 tackles for a loss and 5.5 sacks in his entire career with the program, Smoot notched 14.5 tackles for a loss and seven sacks last year alone.

Smoot isn't the biggest athlete on the field, measuring in at 6'3" and 268 pounds, according to NFL Draft Scout. However, his combination of size and speed makes him an interesting projection. In many ways, he's similar to Shaq Lawson, the Buffalo Bills' first-round pick who played on the edge with the mentality of an under tackle.

Against Iowa alone, he showed the ability to bend the edge as a Wide 9 rusher, beat Power Five tackles off speed alone and blow straight into the backfield on a tackle for loss that will remind some of former first-overall pick Jadeveon Clowney's against Michigan.

Smoot is an all-around base end or stand-up rusher in the NFL. With new guidance under head coach Lovie Smith, a former NFL head coach and defensive coordinator, Hardy Nickerson at defensive coordinator, a five-time Pro Bowler and former NFL positional coach, and defensive line coach Mike Phair, who spent five years in the NFL working with defensive linemen, Smoot's already-balanced talents should only grow in his senior season.

Sam Hubbard, EDGE, Ohio State

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Last season, Sam Hubbard wasn't even a full-time starter with the Ohio State Buckeyes. In fact, the now-redshirt sophomore only has 16 solo tackles to his name in his college career.

Hubbard went to Columbus as a flexible athlete. In high school in Cincinnati, he was used as a safety, which then led to this transition to linebacker and eventually defensive end. In his first real year at the position, he was able to post 6.5 sacks and eight tackles for a loss off the bench.

He improved tremendously in-season, and by the late stretch, he was able to sync his hands, bend and speed to become a game-changing force. On NFL Draft Scout, he's listed at just over 6'4" and 265 pounds.

While the lengthy edge defender would have to forgo his last two seasons to enter the coming draft, he's eligible due to his redshirt year, and three of the seven redshirt sophomores who declared last draft—Jalin Marshall, Eli Apple and Darron Lee—were via Ohio State.

With Joey Bosa, whom the San Diego Chargers drafted third overall in 2016, out of the picture, Hubbard should be a healthy part of the Buckeyes rotation on the defensive line this season. You shouldn't be surprised if he leaves with higher marks as a pure pass-rusher than Bosa, either.

Mason Rudolph, QB, Oklahoma State

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It's 2016. It seems like NFL teams are past the idea of a developmental quarterback, mostly due to the uncertain job security of their front offices. How can you make a four-year investment in a passer when your head coach is on a two-year deal and your general manager is on a three-year deal, especially if you don't have a quarterback already in hand? No owner is calm and collected enough to sit on a staff for a half-decade to find a franchise passer anymore.

Because of that, we're always on the look for the next savior quarterback to come out of college, as those players tend to mean job security for NFL staffs.

In 2016, the only player who heads into the regular season with a consensus first-round grade at the position is Deshaun Watson, a true junior passer from Clemson who went all out in the national championship game last January. Players like Miami's Brad Kaaya are in contention for those honors, but that's based more on projection with his incoming head coach Mark Richt than what he's put on film at this point in his career.

If you're judging players by their on-film talent, Mason Rudolph of Oklahoma State has a chance to be the second passer off the board as it stands today. He plays in a stereotypical Big 12 offense, a scan-and-shoot spread, but he has translatable NFL tools.

His style of play is similar to Derek Carr, but he doesn't have quite Carr's arm or fast trigger. From a skill set standpoint, he's very close to Johnny Manziel, but Rudolph is a much more controlled player. He may never be in talks to be a top-10 pick, but Rudolph can sneak into the 20s when you juxtapose him to the rest of quarterback class.

Rudolph is a baseline passer, who can throw into space, which explains his 62.3 percent completion percentage and his 8.9 yards per pass mark. The issue with him is going to be the question of his peak ability. Is he going to be more than Alex Smith, a passer who is limited in the intermediate and deep portions of the field?

Derrick Nnadi, DL, Florida State

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Derrick Nnadi is the best-kept secret in college football. Despite a down 10-3 season from the Florida State Seminoles, they still had plenty of talent across the ball. Their big prize last year was Jalen Ramsey, a cornerback who was drafted fifth overall by the in-state Jacksonville Jaguars. At the end of this season, the next top-10 Seminole defender just may be Nnadi.

Last year, he started at nose tackle for the team, lining up as both a 1-technique and a 3-technique defensive tackle at times. According to NFL Draft Scout, Nnadi is only 6'1" and 303 pounds, which isn't going to cut it for a nose tackle or nose guard in the NFL.

We can look at Andrew Billings, who was drafted in the fourth round, despite first-round projects, due to his 6'1" and 311-pound frame, and make that statement pretty clearly.

In Florida State's spring game, though, Nnadi looked like the clear best player on the field, even above DeMarcus Walker, their defensive end whom many include in first-round mock drafts. Seeing more time as an under tackle in the spring game, Nnadi was able to use his explosiveness to make the most of his talents. Explosiveness on the defensive line is by far the more important data point on a prospect's evaluation, if they are one-gap defenders like all 4-3 linemen are. One's ability off the line of scrimmage can be the difference between going in the first round or going undrafted, and Nnadi ranks right at the top of college football with his explosion off the ball.

The most underrated position in the NFL right now is 3-technique, the interior pass-rushing role. It's why players like Mike Daniels, Geno Atkins and Jurrell Casey are constantly considered steals, undersized players who fell into the middle rounds.

Even a player like Aaron Donald, who was still taken in the first round, would go higher in a redraft of his class. Nnadi is going to head into the draft cycle with a clear size knock, but smart franchises league-wide have already realized that the trait has been over-stressed.

Kemoko Turay, EDGE, Rutgers

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Is 2016 the year that Kemoko Turay takes the next step? If you asked this question last season, many would have replied in the same way: yes.

In 2014, Turay was a freshman All-American who posted 7.5 sacks and 8.5 tackles for a loss with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Many assumed that because of his early-career flashes, he would develop into a Big Ten force of a pass-rusher. Turay, a great athlete, also came out of his redshirt freshman season as a known kick-blocker, a trait that hasn't been attributed to many defenders since the days of Margus Hunt at SMU.

Those splashy plays, his track background, his basketball background and his only one year of high school varsity football under his belt led to the assumption that he was finally "getting it" and would soon transition into an Ezekiel Ansah-type, a converted multi-sport athlete who wins big as a pass-rusher, the most physically demanding position in football.

In 2015, though, he made just one start. You could watch entire drives of Rutgers football in which Turay wasn't on the field defensively.

According to Dan Duggan of NewJersey.com, Turay also missed this past spring game due to injury. Right now, Turay has the potential to be the next Dion Jordan or Leonard Floyd, both of whom were long, fluid hybrid linebackers who were drafted in the top 10 in recent classes, but he needs to get on the field consistently as a three-down player to prove it to NFL evaluators.