2021 NFL Draft: Five potential breakout prospects

3. Jaelan Phillips, DE, Miami

Jaelan Phillips has had an unordinary journey as a former consensus five-star recruit. He began his collegiate career at UCLA and played well as a freshman tallying 7 tackles for a loss and 3.5 sacks in just seven games.

Unfortunately, four games into his sophomore year, Phillips suffered a concussion and even briefly retired from football, leaving UCLA in the process.

This ultimately led to Phillips transferring to Miami, where he had to sit out his first season due to transfer rules.

Now, Phillips is eligible and ready to finally make the impact we have all been expecting from him.

He has all the physical gifts you could ask for off the edge and although we have yet to see all that he could bring to the table as a pass-rusher, there were flashes at UCLA that point to why he was such a big-time prospect coming out of high school.

After the news that potential first-rounder, Greg Rousseau, would opt-out of the 2020 season, it should be expected that Jaelan Phillips be the one to pick up the slack in his absence.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he made an immediate impact with the Hurricanes and began rising up 2021 NFL Draft boards because of it.