Undrafted Free Agents 2017: Which Players Can Still Make an Impact?
Thirty-two NFL franchises drafted 253 prospects since Thursday evening. We saw two players from West Georgia, a Division II program, go in the draft Saturday. That's when you know the cupboard is starting to get bare.
To say the least, after 253 selections and years of early declarations, there isn't all that much senior talent on the open market for teams to sign as undrafted free agents. With that in mind, we'll go through the eight best candidates to make impacts as undrafted prospects, even just as situational players, developmental players or simple backups.
We'll try to explain why a player was overlooked in the college draft and why he still provides value to an NFL team. If you read seven-round mock drafts, these players were involved in the vast majority of them, but they just didn't match up well with boards when the draft started rolling.
Carroll Phillips, EDGE/LB, Illinois
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Coming into the season, Carroll Phillips had 3.0 sacks and 5.5 tackles for a loss over two years at Illinois. Last year, he had 9.0 sacks and 20 tackles for a loss, which most credit to development from the NFL-style staff that former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith brought to the program in 2016.
He was a one-year wonder, but so was the second overall pick in this class, Mitchell Trubisky. Phillips is a bit over-age because he sat out a year after not playing football at Cincinnati, his original college football destination. From there he played in the Mississippi junior college system that was highlighted in the Netflix series Last Chance U, eventually landing at Illinois, where he turned one year of production into a Senior Bowl and NFL Scouting Combine invite.
With all of that in mind, it's a bit surprising that Phillips, who was listed as a fourth- or fifth-round pick by NFL Draft Scout, slipped out of the draft entirely. He's a bit on the smaller side, at 242 pounds, but we've seen the likes of Clay Matthews, another one-year wonder, overcome that to become a first-round pick.
Jerod Evans, QB, Virginia Tech
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There were times that it seemed like Jerod Evans of Virginia Tech was going to be drafted before any senior quarterback prospect coming out of college football. The early declarer went undrafted after a weekend of selections, however.
Part of the reason could be his history of bouncing around. Coming out of high school, he was an option quarterback at Air Force, but a knee injury forced him to a junior college before he transferred to Virginia Tech under first-year head coach Justin Fuente, formerly of Memphis.
Like other Virginia Tech offensive players in tight end Bucky Hodges and receiver Isaiah Ford, Evans slipped in the draft despite a productive season offensively—one in which he posted 3,552 passing yards with a quarterback rating of 153.1 and 846 rushing yards with 12 rushing touchdowns.
Mitchell Trubisky of North Carolina parlayed his one year of production at North Carolina into the second overall pick, while Evans, whose coach, Fuente, saw a first-round quarterback get drafted in Paxton Lynch last year, wasn't able to get enough momentum going to even get drafted.
Lorenzo Jerome, DB, St. Francis
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Lorenzo Jerome ran a 4.70-second 40-yard dash at the combine, with a defensive back-worst 7.63-second three-cone time—by more than a half of a second. He played at an FCS school whose best era of football was over 70 years ago. He also is under 5'11". He's still a great safety prospect.
As a freshman, he was the defensive rookie of the year in the Northeast Conference, and since then he's been all over all-conference lists and All-American lists at the FCS level. At the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, usually considered the third-best college all-star game, Jerome recorded two interceptions and was named the game's MVP.
That led to a call-up to the Senior Bowl—viewed as the best college all-star game—a week later. He had a pair of interceptions again and forced a fumble. He's a gamer. At some point, if a player checks off every box other than athleticism, he's at least worth getting into camp.
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Joe Mathis, EDGE, Washington
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Joe Mathis of Washington is a talented pass-rusher with a limited amount of on-field play. He never really saw significant playing time until 2016 with the Washington Huskies, and even then, he was limited by a foot injury.
How good was he in limited time? If you watch him against Oregon or Stanford, it would be hard to not call him a top-100 talent. For example, Pro Football Focus had him as their third-ranked prospect still on the board at the start of Day 3. He is clearly its top undrafted player in the class, as its 46th overall prospect.
It took him a while to get on the field. He only starred in a few games against top talent. He's recovering from an injury that kept him out of the combine and all-star game circuit. He was a player lost in the shuffle in a deep edge-defender class. In light of those mitigating circumstances, a franchise would do well to give his talent a shot.
Hunter Dimick, EDGE, Utah
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Hunter Dimick wasn't invited to the combine, so it's not a surprise that he wasn't drafted. With that said, the Utah pass-rusher went unselected while teammate Pita Taumoepenu was drafted in the sixth round by the San Francisco 49ers.
For reference, Dimick had 14.5 sacks this season and 21.0 tackles for a loss, while Taumoepenu had 12.0 and 9.0. In their careers, Dimick had 29.5 sacks and 45.0 tackles for a loss, while Taumoepenu had 20 and 24.
At the Utah pro day, according to NFL Draft Scout, Dimick ran a 4.75-second 40-yard dash and a 7.15-second three-cone time, great numbers for someone who is 6'3" and 268 pounds. There were 250-pound pass-rushers going off the board in the first two days who didn't have his production or testing numbers.
NFL Draft Scout had him labeled as a fifth- or sixth-round pick and the 17th defensive end in the class. Taumoepenu wasn't even listed as draftable by the website.
Amba Etta-Tawo, WR, Syracuse
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It's not often that a first-team all-conference receiver in a Power Five conference goes undrafted. That's exactly what happened to Amba Etta-Tawo of Syracuse, who ran a 4.49-second 40-yard dash and a 6.95-second three-cone time at 6'1" and 208 pounds.
Entering the season, Etta-Tawo had a total of 30 receptions in his college career after using three years of eligibility at the University of Maryland. He was a graduate transfer for Dino Babers, a former assistant at Baylor and head coach of the Jimmy Garoppolo-led Eastern Illinois program.
Babers has a wide-open system in which Etta-Tawo only had to run a handful of routes, which is why he was able to rake in 94 receptions for 1,482 yards and 14 touchdowns as a first-year player at Syracuse. But the system also hurt his NFL projection.
He has the talent, but he's going to need to develop, almost like a high school recruit, coming out of that offense. Really, outside of Josh Gordon, we haven't seen one of those Baylor-style receivers succeed in the NFL.
Jason Thompson, DB, Utah
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Jason Thompson is one of the more interesting stories in this draft season. For the most part, late risers are players the media is just catching up on, but the Utah defensive back wasn't even on NFL radars until he ran a 4.45-second 40-yard dash and a 6.57-second three-cone time at his pro day, per NFL Draft Scout.
Thompson started off as a quarterback and running back with the Wyoming Cowboys as a true freshman. He then took a redshirt and transferred when Wyoming was turning over its staff. He sat out a year at Utah and contributed for two seasons as a special teamer, as he missed two years of regular-season time.
He was the highlight of Seattle's regional combine, and the converted safety might get a shot to develop as a cornerback for an NFL team, as most safeties who run in the 4.4s do. Think "next Sam Shields" when Thompson's name comes up.
Storm Norton, OT, Toledo
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There are only so many large, agile offensive linemen. There is a talent drought at offensive tackle in the NFL, and it's because of the type of prospects coming out of college football.
Second-round offensive linemen are no longer safe, finished products. They're now projects. My question is this: If there were only about five plug-and-play tackles in this draft, why on earth did so many go before Storm Norton of Toledo?
Offensive linemen close to 6'4" with great agility numbers are about the safest projects that you can pick, based on recent history. Norton is a 6'8" bookend with a 7.4-second three-cone and a 4.64-second short shuttle, which are amazing numbers for his size.
He was a first-team MAC selection in back-to-back years and did well in the East-West Shrine Game. He absolutely should make a 53-man roster.
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