2018 NFL Draft: Who are the five biggest fallers in this year’s draft class? We discuss some of the players whose stock has gone down…
Who are the biggest fallers in the 2018 NFL Draft class?
We’re here to call some people out. These players either didn’t live up to big time hype or weren’t the players we thought they were at all going into the 2017 season.
Let’s have a look…
5. Bo Scarbrough, RB, Alabama
Heading into the 2017 season, perhaps no running back carried more mystique, more intrigue than Bo Scarbrough at Alabama.
The way the Crimson Tide churn out running backs, it was widely expected that — despite concerns in the durability department — the physical freak of nature Scarbrough would blossom into this year’s Heisman Trophy flavor of the season for Alabama.
Scarbrough has impressive measurables, and is obviously cut like a statue, but he’s failed to live up to the hype for me when it comes to his NFL prospects.
So far this season, Scarbrough has carried the ball 108 times with a respectable 5.1 yard per carry average, and eight touchdowns, but he’s not the game-changer we all expected.
To me, Scarbrough is a player that had some first or second round hype going into this season that will now be a day three flier pick.
4. Arden Key, EDGE, LSU
Arden Key. One of the supposed contenders for the top overall pick in 2018 after a 2016 season where he finished with 56 tackles, 12 sacks, 14 tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles.
The production was certainly there, as was the potential. As good as Key was in 2016, there existed a potential that made him a worthy preseason candidate to be the top player selected in the 2018 NFL Draft as an early entry.
Key came into the 2017 season looking a bit bigger and that was one of the major critiques about him. After all, we wouldn’t want another Barkevious Mingo situation here.
The potential still exists for Key, but the production has taken such a significant dip in 2017 that I think general managers and decision makers across the league will take a bit of a pause when considering him with a top 32 selection.
In eight games, he has just 33 tackles, four sacks, and 5.5 tackles for loss with one forced fumble.
Can this guy do more than just provide speed around the edge? Is he durable? Can he defend the run?
Those are all questions that have led to his fall, in my opinion. I would pick Key in the second or third round based more on potential than anything else.
3. Deon Cain, WR, Clemson
Losing arguably the best quarterback in the country certainly factors in here a bit for Deon Cain, but the deep threat for Clemson has proven to be pretty much only that —
a deep threat.
Clemson has actually forced the ball to Cain quite a bit more this year than they did in previous years where he was really a supplementary piece of their offense, and his yards per reception has taken a significant dip.
Last season, Cain averaged over 19 yards per catch. The year before that, he averaged over 17 yards a catch. This season, he’s averaging just over 12 yards per reception.
That’s not terrible, but it’s also not what we expected from the player that many considered to be the top receiver in this year’s draft class. Cain has gone from potentially WR1 in this year’s draft to a fringe second round pick with high upside as a vertical threat.
He’s just not as complete of a prospect as you’d like, but many of these Clemson receivers aren’t coming out of college. He can still be very good, but for me, his stock has dipped this year.
2. Harold Landry, EDGE, Boston College
Harold Landry was an early favorite — not unlike Arden Key of LSU — to contend for the top overall spot in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Landry had a massive 2016 season with Boston College, racking up 50 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss, and 16.5 sacks. He showed the type of elite edge bending ability that so many have coveted since Von Miller came into the league in 2011, and proved he could do everything at the edge spot in terms of rushing the passer with speed, power, and defending against the run.
Landry may not have been on that level even with his great production, but he certainly flashed it at times.
His inclusion on this list is not necessarily a matter of ability, but a matter of staying healthy and continuing to produce at a high level.
There can always be a variety of factors to that, but I don’t know that Landry is going to be a top five selection like many assumed he could be at the start of the season.
His skill is still there but one of the big questions we had going into this year was whether or not he could maintain such a high level of production, and so far he hasn’t been able to. In eight games, he had 8.5 tackles for loss and five sacks.
1. Josh Allen, QB, Wyoming
No player has gone off the rails this season more than Josh Allen, the quarterback at Wyoming.
After a sophomore season where he showed off a stellar set of skills with his arm strength, mobility, and NFL size, he has completely taken a turn in the opposite direction as a junior.
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Allen was receiving hype as the number one overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft going into this year, and honestly the hype was easy to buy into. Allen gets the ball downfield effortlessly and can make all of the throws while running really well for a 6-foot-5, 240 pound kid.
The skills are all still there, but Allen has a few issues with accuracy, as he’s been unable to complete more than 56 percent of his passes over the past two seasons. There are a few factors going into that, not the least of which is his supporting cast, but Allen has been erratic with his throws.
Allen also has failed to live up to the hype against top competition he’s faced, playing some of his worst games against teams like Iowa and Oregon.
This is a player that’s going to take time to develop in the NFL. He has to learn to process things more quickly, but he’s not beyond repair. He’s just not a day one pick to me at this point in time.