2021 NFL Draft: Five mid-round prospects to target
By Kyle Edmond
Paddy Fisher, LB, Northwestern
After his sophomore campaign, it seemed like Paddy Fisher was a first-round pick in the making and a possible NFL star. During his freshman season, he logged 111 tackles before raising the bar to 116 during his sophomore season in 2018. However, a step down to just 88 tackles hurt Fisher’s draft stock heading into the 2020 season.
Given the shortened season, it’s a bit difficult to compare tackles this year to the past season, but tackles per game is a different story. In 2017, Fisher averaged 8.5 tackles per game. In 2018 that number actually went down just a bit to 8.3 and in 2019 it went down again to 7.3. The 2020 season on the other hand has painted a new picture of Fisher, now averaging almost 9.7 tackles per game.
Now, tackles are just one part of the defense, but’s an incredibly important part especially for linebackers. For Fisher, he hasn’t done much beyond the tackles, but that might be all he has to do. Given the shortened season, stats could be taken lightly this year, but for the teams that take a close look and see that Fisher is at the top of his game, they could walk away with an incredible pick.