LSU safety Grant Delpit officially declares for 2020 NFL Draft

LSU safety Grant Delpit has declared for the 2020 NFL Draft.

It’s been a busy today for the 2020 NFL Draft, as many LSU Tigers have declared, including Justin Jefferson, Lloyd Cushenberry, and Patrick Queen. The biggest of those is surely safety Grant Delpit, who confirmed he would enter on Twitter earlier today.

Delpit joins a safety class that isn’t super deep but has a few big names at the top, including Alabama’s Xavier McKinney and California’s Ashtyn Davis.

Back in August, many draft analysts (including myself) had Delpit ranked inside the top ten prospects for 2020 after his outstanding sophomore season, which featured five picks, nine passes defended, five sacks, and 9.5 tackles for loss.

Delpit looked like a safety who could play deep and in the box in 2018. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the year many were expecting, and with great defensive backs preceding him like Jamal Adams, perhaps the expectations were far too high.

Delpit showed the elite range and good ball skills he has in 2019, coming away with two picks and seven passes defensed. The numbers don’t tell the full story, as he put himself in a position to come away with many more interceptions.

Delpit’s one issue in 2019 was tackling. While it looked like that was a strength of his game as a sophomore, he missed a lot of tackles in 2019, especially in big games against Texas and Alabama. Some of that could be attributed to injury, but something was off in that area. The good news is that in his two playoff games, he didn’t miss a tackle in double-digit tries. He also looked effective as a blitzer.

Is he the elite prospect we thought at the beginning of the year? Perhaps not. But, he’s still a first-round talent who could go somewhere in the late teens and early 20s.