Question and Answer with Dan Kadar of Mocking the Draft

Every week I have a little question and answer session with Dan Kadar of mocking the draft. This week I talked about players who have seen their stock rise too much or fall too much based off of the pre-draft process.

1). Who is a player or some players who are becoming very overrated during the predraft process?

Easily Georgia Tech wide receiver Stephen Hill. During the season, everyone should have figured out he’s tall and fast. What’s he done different than that? He hasn’t shown he knows a full route tree. He hasn’t shown he can fire off the line of scrimmage quicker. His stock has probably gone up some, but the plaudits he’s receiving have become sort of absurd.

2). Same question but underrated?

This whole offseason process — from the all-star games to workouts — people seem to be forgetting about Miami offensive lineman Brandon Washington. Everyone needs to realize he was playing out of position at left tackle this season. He was a dominant guard in 2010 and hopefully teams view him as an interior lineman.

3). One player who seems to be on the down-swing is LB Zach Brown, do you think at 244 pounds and with those long arms (33 1/4″) he might be able to play SAM in some systems?

No, he’s still exclusively a Will. Size does not beget toughness or an ability to shed blockers. Him bulking up is in the same fashion as Lavonte David bulking up. Brown just had a higher starting weight when he began packing on mass.

4). Last year there were more quarterbacks drafted in the first two rounds than people expected. Who are some QB you think might go much higher than people think?

Ryan Tannehill is probably going to go much higher than he should. To me, he’s a late first-round, at best, talent. Weeden and Osweiler are solid second-round players and that’s where they’ll probably land. The interesting ones to follow will be Nick Foles of Arizona and Kirk Cousins of Michigan State. If they get picked in the early or middle of the second round, you can really classify this as a trend that will likely continue. I think it may be happening for two reasons. The obvious one is the rookie wage scale making it cheaper to take a chance on quarterbacks. The second one is that the state of backup quarterbacks in the NFL is terrible. We saw it a few times last season where teams signed street free agents to be their quarterback when the starter was hurt. That’s ludicrous! The Colts backups were so bad, they signed Kerry Collins out of retirement! So you may see some teams not needing a starter but a good backup drafting these guys in the first 64 picks.

5). The player with the most to prove who still has a Pro-day left?

It’s not a pro day, per se, but on March 29 when Mark Barron and Trent Richardson run will be important. More so for Barron because it may determine if he’s a first-round athlete. Safety is an undervalued position already and if he has just average numbers, it may push him out of round one.

Thanks to Dan for his time.

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