Draft stock of returning and opt out players

It’s really impossible to know what these players actual stock was at any point prior to being drafted so we can sort of write our own history on most of these

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Stevens is the type of dude who will play 10 years in the NFL, regardless if he plays OLB or SS, he’ll make a roster as a special teams player.

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In my mind he’s what Jamal Adam’s worst critics claim Adam’s is. An absolute “box” safety.

Put him close to the LOS and let good things happen.

It’s almost like people who needed to show things and cement their stock, yet opted out instead, dropped.

Again, not just an LSU problem, there were other opt outs that dropped like a brick too. Jamie Newman from WF/UGA being one.

It’s not a good look when you opted out with something left to prove and everyone else played.

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We had a good idea with Marshall and Chase.

I also think Stevens would have gone higher than the 6th round if he left as a Jr.

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But that’s my point, we really have no idea. There’s mocks, and analysts that guess, but outside of the very cream of the crop guys, it’s hard to have any real feeling on how NFL teams view those prospects and how another season or one less season would’ve made a huge difference for where they get drafted. I mean hell we don’t even get access to 90 percent of the info they are looking at in terms of film, interviews, background from coaches and staff, etc etc

So it’s easy to go “well we all thought this guy was gonna be a 1st rounder, but he ended up not going there so clearly xxxxxx effected his stock” when it’s entirely possibly the same result would’ve been had after that player went through the draft process and got dissected for 6 months

And teams do advanced scouting for future years, but for the most part they are singular focused on the current year, and they constantly review the same tape and info on these players to reveal any and all flaws. That’s how guys “drop”, teams might think “hey that guy I saw on film as a sophomore looks really talented keep an eye on him” which turns into “after watching that tape, that guy tends to disappear the more playing time they get so I don’t think his play matches his talent” and things like that

Buts it’s also possible to put terrible tape last year on the field and get picked even lower than they did, but we don’t know either way which way it was effected

I just have a problem of trying to use hindsight for these things when we don’t even have a viable starting point to use

So it seems opting out helped players. That must piss of the right wing fan base. They swore it would hurt them.

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My point is if you’re worried you’re gonna out out terrible tape, why even come back? The year guys could have gone in the draft last year (Vincent and Shelvin

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I’m sure the uncertainty of the entire season played a part in that change of direction by them. Spare me your thoughts on the virus but I could also see players having real concern about it based on what they were reading or believed about it. That concern could be Heath related or just development related if they felt like a season was unlikely. Especially a kid like Shelvin with his weight.

At the end of the day, they weighed their own personal risk/reward with this thing and have to live with that decision. People make the same kind of decisions every day for their family or their careers.

It’s a lot cleaner to be able to go “this guy was RIGHT, and this guy was WRONG” but rarely is life that simple

Shelvin & Vincent had poor combines. That hurt more than tape

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You definitely can hurt your stock if you come back and stink.

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I know this is about LSU players, but Dylan Moses is the poster child for this. If he wasn't 100%, it could only hurt and it did.

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Following Moses' announcement of his intentions to play for Alabama in 2020, head coach Nick Saban expressed that he believed it was in Moses' best interest to return in order to create value for himself.

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