2018 NFL Draft: Highlighting Last-Minute Fallers Down Big Boards
It's almost time for Roger Goodell's bro hugs.
We're less than 48 hours away from the beginning of the 2018 NFL draft. We'll soon know who the Cleveland Browns will make the first overall pick and how the New York teams (Giants and Jets, respectively) will follow.
In the meantime, speculation has kicked into hyperdrive. A league source told ESPN's Adam Schefter that Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield "cannot be ruled out as a possibility for the top overall selection." The MMQB's Peter King, meanwhile, reported "someone I trust, who is very often right and is very well-connected, told me Sunday" that the Browns aren't leaning toward Wyoming QB Josh Allen at No. 1.
The only thing that's certain is that nothing is certain.
Recent reports indicate some prospects are making a late push up big boards. For others, the inverse is true. Whether it's due to medical concerns or off-field issues, certain players could be experiencing a last-second drop in value.
Either that, or teams are trying hard to make it appear that way.
We'll focus on that latter group here, with a Draft Day Eve look at some prospects generating the wrong kinds of whispers as of late.
Josh Rosen, QB, UCLA
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Early in the predraft process, more than a few mock drafts had UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft.
As the big day nears, it's another story.
According to Daniel Jeremiah of NFL.com, Rosen is now the quarterback among the Big Four (Rosen, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen) most likely to fall out of the top 10 altogether.
"Part of it comes back to the durability concerns for Rosen that we've heard about throughout the process," Jeremiah wrote. "We'll continue to hear people question his intangibles as a leader, but that's far less of a concern than the fact that he missed half his sophomore year with a shoulder injury and suffered two concussions last season."
For ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit (via Jon Wilner of the Bay Area News Group), the issue is Rosen's capability to handle pressure in the pocket.
"My one concern is when he gets pressure," Herbstreit said, "he’s not quite as comfortable as some of these other guys at improvising. In the NFL, you get a lot pressure and you’ve got to be comfortable with being able to get out of the pocket and buy a little time. That’s an area where he’s going to continue to grow."
It could be smoke, or predraft nitpicking. And for all of his flaws, Rosen remains an immensely talented young signal-caller.
But his flaws are under the microscope at the moment.
Josh Jackson, CB, Iowa
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Rosen isn't the only prospect dropping on draft boards, according to Jeremiah. In his latest mock draft, Iowa cornerback Josh Jackson is nowhere to be found among the first 32 picks, even though he led all FBS players with eight interceptions in 2017.
As Pro Football Weekly's Adam Hoge reported, workouts leading up to the draft were not at all kind to the 6'0", 196-pounder.
"I've made it clear that Jackson is one of my favorite prospects in this draft, and I still believe he's going to be a top-tier NFL cornerback, but he didn't help himself by running a slow 4.56 at the combine. The reported numbers at Iowa's pro day Monday varied, but none of them seemed to prove that his combine performance was a fluke. Jackson will still get drafted in the first round, but he could go in the back half of the first round instead of in the top 10."
Jackson has become one of 2018's biggest case studies in the two camps of predraft player evaluation. The "tape don't lie" crowd points to film that shows him performing as one of the best corners in college football last year, while the workout crowd highlights his sluggish 40 and poor combine outing as reinforcement that he's an overrated prospect who had one big year.
At this point, the second crowd appears to be leading.
Minkah Fitzpatrick, S, Alabama
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There's zero doubt Alabama safety Minkah Fitzpatrick will hear his name called during the first round on Thursday. The versatile 6'0", 204-pounder likely will come off the board in the first half of the round.
However, Fitzpatrick may be experiencing something of a mini-skid.
While he once looked like a potential top-five pick, he's dropping out of the top 10 in recent mock drafts. In his latest mock, NFL.com's Bucky Brooks predicted Fitzpatrick would fall to the Green Bay Packers at No. 14.
According to Michael Casagrande of AL.com, ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper thinks Fitzpatrick's slide may be because he isn't great at any one particular thing.
"You have a true safety in Derwin James from Florida State and a true cover corner in Denzel Ward," Kiper said. "You know what they are. With Minkah, you say can he define a role and can he be great at that one spot or are you going to move him around? How are you going to utilize him? I think the defensive coordinators of these individual teams are going to have to make that call."
Fitzpatrick will be at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for Round 1, per Chase Goodbread of NFL.com.
He may be waiting in the green room a bit longer than we originally thought.
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Calvin Ridley, WR, Alabama
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Fitzpatrick isn't the only former Crimson Tide star whose grip on the top spot at his position appears to be loosening.
For most of the predraft process, Calvin Ridley looked like the head honcho in a less-than-imposing wide receiver class. But as draft day approaches, there's been speculation that the 6'0", 189-pounder might not be the first receiver drafted after all.
According to Jeremiah and Brooks, there's been increasing chatter that SMU's Courtland Sutton could be the first wideout off the board. Maryland's D.J. Moore has gotten similar pub of late.
So, what's the issue with Ridley? Upside—or, specifically, a perceived lack of it.
Ridley is the best route-runner of this year's crop, and his speed—he ran a 4.43-second 40-yard dash at the combine—isn't in question. But there's a short list of players who have gone on to establish themselves as top-flight NFL pass-catchers at his same height and weight.
Ridley didn't do himself any favors with poor numbers in many of the drills at the combine, either.
Some of this hubbub may be disinformation—a campaign to ding Ridley's stock just enough for him to drop into a waiting team's lap. He's still the most likely candidate to be the first wide receiver chosen.
However, what was once a foregone conclusion appears anything but at this point.
Derrius Guice, RB, LSU
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When it comes to the top spot among running backs in the class of 2018, Penn State's Saquon Barkley is unanimously the guy. After that, the waters muddy quickly.
A handful of tailbacks are vying for that No. 2 spot, including LSU's Derrius Guice. The bruising 5'10", 224-pounder rushed for nearly 1,400 yards in 2016 before injuries caused his production to tail off a bit last year.
Given his physical running style, those injuries are reason for concern. They aren't the only one.
According to NFL.com's Tom Pelissero, a handful of teams have expressed concerns about Guice's maturity level and ability to adjust to life in the pros.
"He's a high-maintenance kid," one NFC executive said. "He's not a bad kid at heart, at all, but will need structure and mentorship to help him grow up and learn how to be a pro."
"There's a lot of personality stuff there that I'll be interested to see if somebody takes a shot on him in the first round," an AFC scout added.
These concerns aren't a death knell for Guice's stock by any means. Some team still could make him the second tailback drafted this year.
But with Guice in a tightly grouped pack with players like Georgia's Sony Michel, all it takes is one small ding to act as a tiebreaker of sorts.
Sony Michel, RB, Georgia
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Speaking of Michel, Guice isn't the only running back vying to be second fiddle behind Barkley who may be experiencing a late slide.
At Georgia, Michel was a threat to score every time he touched the football. The 5'11", 214-pounder gained 1,227 yards on the ground, averaged almost eight yards a carry and found the end zone a total of 17 times.
However, Michel also touched the ball north of 550 times over the last three years—a workload that Michael Lombardi of The Ringer reported (via Joe Rodgers of Sporting News) has spooked some teams.
"There's a lot of teams telling me there's a medical concern here, so he could slip a little bit," Lombardi said. "His medical grade is a little iffy."
This may be another example of predraft hijinks, where a team tries to cause Michel to slip on draft day by leaking strategically placed (mis)information. Per Glen Macnow of 610 WIP, longtime Eagles writer Ray Didinger believes Philly will take Michel if he's still on the board at No. 32.
In any event, the predraft posturing at running back behind Barkley is becoming more intriguing by the day. And who will be No. 2 after Saquon is the biggest unanswered question at the position.
Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, EDGE, Oklahoma
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Oklahoma edge-rusher Ogbonnia Okoronkwo is a productive defender who tallied 17 sacks over the last two seasons. He shared the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2017 with Texas linebacker Malik Jefferson.
But according to Chad Reuter of NFL.com, many teams are lukewarm on Okoronkwo this spring. He appears to have contracted a fairly common ailment this time of year: tweener fever.
"Okoronkwo was a very good college player," Reuter wrote, "but teams aren't sure how well his game projects to the next level. He lacks the pure speed and height of a typical NFL edge-rusher (where he excelled in college), but does not have great speed or agility to handle coverage responsibilities."
Talented players slide every year because they don't have a readily apparent fit in the NFL. At just 253 pounds, Okoronkwo isn't likely to slot in as a defensive end unless it's as a "Leo" end in the 4-3 "Under" front of a team like Seattle, Jacksonville or Atlanta.
At 6'1", Okoronkwo is also short for a defensive end. In fact, he's short by rush linebacker standards, too. And his 4.77-second 40-yard dash time raises real concerns about his ability to both rush the passer from outside and hold up in coverage, as Reuter mentioned.
Back in February, Okoronkwo projected as a potential first-round pick. At this point, it appears equally likely that he'll drop into the second half of Day 2.
Leighton Vander Esch, LB, Boise State
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Boise State's Leighton Vander Esch is a wildly athletic and rangy 6'4", 256-pound linebacker who piled up a jaw-dropping 141 total tackles for the Broncos in 2017.
However, there has been speculation surrounding his health dating back to February's scouting combine.
Vander Esch suffered a neck impingement (a fancy way of saying "stinger") in 2016 against Oregon State, per Eric Edholm of Pro Football Weekly. But Vander Esch was given a four out of five in his combine medical exam, according to Edholm, which indicates his injury concerns are relatively minor.
Or so we thought.
Mike Mayock of NFL Network again voiced concerns about Vander Esch's neck in a predraft conference call, according to Paul Emery of NFL Draft Line.
"He wears that neck brace for a reason," Mayock said. "He's got a cervical issue, and teams around the league right now are having the conversation about how bad or good is it really and at what level should we draft him?"
This news doesn't torpedo Vander Esch's chances of going in Round 1. But it doesn't help those chances, either.
Antonio Callaway, WR, Florida
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Once upon a time, Florida wide receiver Antonio Callaway might have been mentioned among the top wide receiver prospects in this draft class. Based on his explosiveness off the line and ability to change it up quickly in space, the 5'11", 200-pounder may have been the No. 1 wide receiver prospect in 2018.
ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper was talking up his talent (via Alex Martin Lewis of SEC Country) in a big way earlier this month.
"It's a hard call," Kiper said. "Antonio Callaway, on talent, is a first-round draft choice. He entered the year as one of the elite 15 best players at any position, possibly, that were draft eligible. So, the off-field concerns are what's going to be impacting him. We saw what's happened with some players over the years that get pushed down, and once the light goes on, they mature and they put that in the past and they move on. They can evolve and develop."
There's the rub. Those "off-field concerns."
For everything Callaway accomplished on the field with the Gators, there was a bigger scandal off of it. As ESPN's Adam Schefter reported, Callaway has been the subject of a sexual assault investigation, was embroiled in the credit card fraud scandal that rocked Gainesville in 2017 and got busted for drug possession.
He then flunked the drug test at the combine, according to Schefter.
Kiper was talking about Callaway as a fifth-round pick before this latest off-field issue.
Now? He may not get drafted at all.
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