General Draft Buzz about Edge Rushers, etc

With less than to weeks to go until the draft, there still appears to considerable fluidity among the top echelons of the draft. The latest ‘hot’ guy appears to be Kentucky OLB Bud Dupree, who reportedly has moved into the top 10 of a lot of teams around the league and may now be the 2nd rated edge rushing LB on a lot of teams’ boards behind Florida’s Dante Fowler, especially those teams running 3-4 schemes. Teams still like guys like Vic Beasley and Randy Gregory, despite his issues with marijuana, as potential top ten candidates, but whereas neither of those guys is more than 245 pounds, Dupree is bigger at over 260, plus he’s just as athletic. Teams still question Dupree’s natural football instincts and he may never be real agile playing in reverse, but there is no denying his upside as a pure pass rusher coming off the edge. Most NFL people one talks to don’t believe that Louisville WR Devante Parker will get out of this year’s top ten. Parker is still not quite in the same level as fellow WRs Amari Cooper of Alabama and West Virginia’s Kevin White, who are expected to be taken within the first 6-7 picks, but with so many teams looking at WR as a primary need in this year’s draft, he’ll be a hot commodity as the next best guy at the position with a drop-off to the next level.

Meanwhile, it appears that Miami’s Ereck Flowers may have edged ahead of the pack as the top pure OT in this year’s draft class. Flowers has the kind of length many teams feel is essential in protecting the edge, and while he is still somewhat raw technically he has decent enough athletic skills, although there is still a question whether he has the elite agility to play LT at the next level. At the same time, Iowa G/T Brandon Scherff still appears to be the consensus top OL out there, but if one is looking for a candidate to possibly slide come April 30th it may be the former Hawkeyes’ LT who is a dominating run blocker with good athletic skills, but was never that consistent protecting the edge. One also wonders if the fact that NFL.com ace analyst Mike Mayock ranks Arizona State FS Damarious Randall head of Alabama’s Landon Collins in his latest top 5 positional rankings may also signal something of a slide for the latter, because Randall, who was a baseball player as recently as 3-4 years ago, is way too raw with inconsistent instincts o figure in the first round mix.

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