Tag Archives: NFL

NFL Draft

Top 10 linebackers in the 2021 NFL Draft:

Continuing our series of the top ten prospects at each position in the draft – we already broke down the best available running backs earlier this week, so now it’s time look at their defensive counterparts. Once again, I evaluated the talent on the field and how I think these players project to the next level, without consideration of injuries and off-the-field concerns that may be hurt these names when NFL front offices make their decisions come late April.

In this edition, we are looking at the linebacker position, which I categorize as all off-ball second level defenders. So this won’t include edge rushers, like 3-4 outside backers, even though some of them may have been used as that to some degree. This class might not be very deep necessarily, but in terms of this top ten in particular, it might actually be an underrated one.

Here is how I have these names stacked up:

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NFL Draft

Top 10 running backs in the 2021 NFL Draft:

We have finally reached the point, where I’m ready to put out my final positional rankings and break down the top ten (plus) prospects at each spot. For all these analyses, I purely evaluated what I saw on tape, in terms of requirements for the position, how their skill-set will translate to the next level and then explain what kind of scheme they would fit best, as well as how diverse they are.

We’ll start with the running backs today and then talk about linebackers later on in the week. And that’s how we’ll kind of go position by position, switching between offense and their defensive counterparts (so offensive tackles and edge rushers one week, then wide receivers and cornerbacks, etc.). I studied between 20 and 30 players of every group, depending on deep that class was and if you want to hear my thoughts on any of the players not mentioned, just comment down below or contact me on my social media outlets (links up in the top bar) and I will share my notes with you.

I will also have at least one video per week coming out, where I talk about one of these position groups and will likely do either side of the ball on an alternate basis, like I did last year. So make sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel!

 

Now let’s get into our first list:

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NFL Draft

Favorite team-prospect fits for the 2021 NFL Draft:

Now that we have really entered the offseason and with free agency in sight, which should offer us some good content as well, I wanted to focus on some of the most logical connections between certain draft prospects and the teams I could see target them in a certain range. I will not discuss Trevor Lawrence going number one overall to the Jaguars, because that’s obviously been a done deal for a while and a great fit. Instead, I want to dive more into the area of the draft, where it gets more interesting, which you can argue really starts at second overall with the Jets, but I would strongly guess that three of the first four picks will end up being quarterbacks. So from that point on is really where we look at potential landing spots for all of these prospects, working our way down the board and projecting which picks are actually reasonable, in regard to the position of the team’s selection and the player’s expected range of outcome.

Make sure to check back here or on my Youtube channel next week for a detailed preview of free agency, where we will discuss some of the specifics for this year, break down different position groups and maybe look at some of the fits I see for those names about to hit the market.

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NFL Draft

Biggest standouts from the 2021 Senior Bowl:

Since I invested so much time into my Super Bowl preview and a video on the ten biggest questions heading into the big game, I only got around to re-watching all the practice footage from Senior Bowl this week and with this being the only really meaningful event in this year’s pre-draft process – since the combine has already been canceled and pro days will be pretty limited as well – I think it was certainly worth studying in more detail and point out the college prospects, that impressed me the most.

This has nothing to do with any ranking or who the best players were overall, but rather who helped themselves the most with their week of practice and the actual game down in Mobile. I’m going to work through this position-by-position and explain what these young men did to make the scouts go back and watch what they might have missed originally on tape, showed in terms of something they weren’t really asked at their respective schools or in the case of smaller school prospects – how they proved that they can perform against more talented competition.

Here’s the guys that really stood out to me:

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Game Previews

Super Bowl LV preview:

We have made it! All 256 regular season and – since this year – twelve playoff games are in the books and there is just one matchup left to decide who will be crowned NFL champions. There are so many storylines leading up to the big game – the GOAT Tom Brady versus the kid Patrick Mahomes, two of the all-time great tight-ends on either side of the ball wearing number 87, the Buccaneers becoming the first ever team to host a Super Bowl in their home stadium, Andy Reid after all this time of coming up short, potentially winning back-to-back titles, while Bruce Arians is looking to finally get his first ring as a head coach and potentially becoming the oldest one to earn one in history, and many others.

As I do every year, I wanted to give a detailed look ahead to the big game, where I break down who these teams are, kind of how they got here and how they match up against each other. To do so I put together analysis of each offense and defense, plus where each could have the advantage, then I take a look back at when these two teams first met back in week 12, explain what they have and/or should have learned from it, give you an X-factor on either side of the ball for both and finally hand out my score prediction, while explaining what I believe will happen.

Let’s dive into it!

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