Three weeks and counting to go … The start of the NFL draft is just three weeks away. That’s 21 days and counting. And we don’t know whether its because of covid or whatever, but there’s really not a whole lot of buzz out there right now. There are a couple of players, though, that people are talking about as potential top ten surprises in South Carolina CB Jaycee Horn and Penn State DE Jayson Oweh after really athletic performances at their respective pro days. And while it would be a huge upset, there are some whispers that Horn could actually be the first corner off the board on the 29th. At 6-0, 205 with 33-inch arms, Horn is the prototype size for an NFL press corner and while he still isn’t as technically polished as Alabama’s Patrick Surtain, the consensus #1 CB in this year’s draft, Horn is a better athlete who ran a 4.39 40 at his combine last month while posting explosive leaps of 41.5 in the vertical and 11-1 in the long jump. The production was there too this past season, as he limited his opponents to less than a 35% completion rate. Meanwhile, Oweh is the poster child for the draft homily that ‘you don’t draft players to play in college!’ after he went sackless in 2020. Oweh, though, was just a redshirt sophomore that did have an impressive enough 7 sacks as a rotational player as a freshman. Oweh is also a generational type athlete for a DE. He’s 6-5, 257 with impressive 34.5-inch arms and ran an off-the-charts 4.36 40 at the Lions’ pro day while he also posted a 3-cone drill time of 6.83 seconds that would have been a full three-tenths faster than the fastest figure for DEs at last year’s combine. As they say in the trades, ‘time will tell!’ Hang in there!
