Im gonna do this periodically throughout the draft. Im gonna name some players, you give me a case for and against each player. Im going start off with potential 1st round picks
Drew Sanders: LB/Edge Rusher Arkansas
Jahmyr Gibbs: HB Alabama
Tuli Tuipulotu: DT/DE USC
Osyrus Torrence: G Florida
For Sanders: A hand in glove fit with what Dan Quinn wants to do. Sanders is a true positionless defender who can cover underneath, rush the passer, and still hold up against the run. His stats this year were eye popping... 103 tackles, 13.5 TFLs, 9.5 sacks, and 4 forced turnovers, all in his first year starting. If he came back to Arkansas and repeated that, he'd be a top 10 lock. Sanders just screams Vander Esch to me... both gigantic, super-athletic easy movers (and yes, white guys) who piled on the stat sheet for one year starting. Vander Esch destroyed the Combine, and I bet Sanders will too. What would you give for another LVE without any neck issues?
Against Sanders: His pass rushing is kind of "empty calories", and he got a lot of sacks in ways that won't translate at the next level. Sort of UCLA Anthony Barr-ish. He's just not very powerful overall, which IMO will cap out his pass rushing, and RBs take him for rides after contact. If you don't like LVE's run stuffing, you won't like Sanders either. LB tends to be a high-injury, low value position, and it's better to spend a lot of late picks on guys like Clark and Donovan Wilson rather than put your eggs in a 1st round basket.
For Gibbs: Backs with his receiving polish come around basically never. Thumbing through the draft history of RBs, the only 1st and 2nd round guys in the last 5 years who I see as comparable receivers are James Cook and Clyde Edwards-Helaire. He's also a pretty athletic rusher... not really enough to justify a top 50 pick on that alone, but he will give you some explosive changeup carries. Dude looks like an Alvin Kamara clone and is ideally built for a pass-first league.
Against Gibbs: Everyone always thinks they're going to throw to that cool new space back or seam-stretcher TE, but how many actually do? Fact is that most teams funnel their passing games through their WRs. RB passes are usually correlated with less scoring than downfield passes... they are simply less efficient. You need to throw like 60+ passes a year to Gibbs to get your money's worth out of him, and most offenses don't and shouldn't. For the right offense, he's Kamara. For the wrong one, he could be your next CEH.
For Torrance: Dude is the biggest guard prospect in memory, and can actually play ball. IIRC, he gave up something like 0 sacks and 10 pressures this season. And of course, he's just a bulldozer when you want him to run-block the guy across from him. He played Jalen Carter, who's arguably the scariest college DT since Ndamukong Suh, and held him in check. He's got 4 years of quality play and an All-American nod under his belt. Torrance is just a really solid football player and will pose unique matchup problems for DTs at the next level.... even NFL guards aren't
that big.
Against Torrance: He's huge, and he's pretty mobile for his size, but he's not that mobile overall. I don't know what MM and Schottenheimer's run scheme looks like, but if they like pulling their guards a lot, or having them hunt LBs in space, Torrance isn't the right guy. Not for the first round, anyway. There is also the problem with drafting guards in general... they are a fairly low impact position, and they are very slow to develop. It's not uncommon for the light to go on for interior linemen in like year 3 or 4. So you may end up not getting much value out of Torrance's rookie deal. If he's like a lot of former early round guards, you'll pay for his learning curve while he plays very average football, and then he'll break out right in time for a big payday. Chris Lindstrom comes to mind this year.
I haven't watched Tuipolotu.
