The GBN Big Board ranking of the top 150 prospects for the 2020 draft has been updated with data included from last weekend’s scouting combine in Indianapolis, as well as the latest intelligence from around the league. In fact, the top 7 or so positions on the Big Board remain essentially unchanged; however, there have been a number of moves farther on down the top 10 and beyond. Arguably, the biggest change sees Utah State QB Jordan Love moved ahead of Oregon’s Justin Herbert as the #3 QB on the board. Love is now #10, though Herbert isn’t far behind at #12. This change simply reflects what we are hearing from around the league that teams are really intrigued by Love’s elite arm talent and are willing to write off last fall’s inconsistent season as largely a product of the fact Love was working with a completely rebuilt offensive line-up in an already less-than top-tier program.
At the same time, in one of those ‘tape versus time’ debates, WRs Jerry Jeudy of Alabama and Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb were dropped into the teens, while Henry Ruggs, Jeudy’s Tide teammate, was promoted into the top 10 after he ran a sizzling 4.27 40 at the combine. The issue for Jeudy and Lamb is that while both are silky smooth possession receivers, NFL teams are concerned they may lack the overall athleticism to be big-play game changers, whereas Ruggs will stretch the field as soon as he steps on the field, although he still needs to polish his overall receiving game. We also wonder if all three of the top wideouts could ultimately slide a bit on April 23rd as teams will be well aware that the second round will be loaded with talented receivers including players such as Chase Claypool of Notre Dame, who had a terrific combine, Colorado’s Laviska Shenault, Justin Jefferson of LSU, TCU’s Jalen Reagor, Brandon Aiyuk of Arizona State, Penn State’s KJ Hamler, Denzel Mims of Baylor and Southern Cal’s Michael Pittman. Wow!
The other positional group that remains really tough to get a feel for is the offensive line, especially the OTs. Talk to four scouts around the league and you’re just as likely to get four different guys mentioned as the top OT in the 2020 draft class among Louisville’s Mehki Becton, Tristan Wirfs of Iowa, Georgia’s Andrew Thomas and Jedrick Wills of Alabama. However, ask those same four scouts if any of the 4 top OTs has the kind of elite potential to go in the first 4-5 picks and the only name that gets mentioned is Becton. Teams would have to be convinced that the sometimes sloppy elements to his game can be coached up, but you just can’t teach Becton’s combination of size, length, strength and athleticism. Indeed, we had fully expected Becton to run in the 5.45-5.50 range at the combine, instead he shocked the room with a 5.10 clocking which is just freakish for a 364-pound guy. Its also the kind of stuff NFL teams fall in love with so we have moved him into the top 5. Becton is followed by Wirfs, who turned in a most athletic performance at the combine including a 4.85 40 clocking and a record-setting 36-inch vertical, but didn’t really put to bed concerns that he is still a little stiff and mechanical, just outside the top ten, followed by Thomas a couple of spots later. For us, the most polarizing of the top OT prospects was Bama’s Wills, who ended up dropping all the way to 19th on our board. Wills did have a very productive year at Alabama last fall, but really was kind of underwhelming at the combine. Wills was a little undersized for a possible elite OT at 6-4, 312 with just 34″ arms, an inch or two short of ideal. Wills did run reasonably with a 5.05 40 clocking, but that masked a very middle-of-the-packish 10-yard split; in fact, his 1.81 second get-off was tied for 16th among OTs in Indianapolis. Wills then was almost 2/10s slower than both Wirfs and Thomas in the shuttle drills.
There weren’t as many changes on the defensive side of the ball, but a couple worth noting. Iowa DE A J Epenesa slipped deeper into the teens after he wobbled to an almost disastrous 5-second plus 40 clocking. Speed was never his game, but that’s awfully slow for a first-round DE. On the other hand, Florida CB C J Henderson vaulted all the way up into the top half of the opening round after an outstanding combine that included a sub-4.4 40 clocking.
