Post-Combine Mock Draft: The Risers and Fallers
In our recently published staff mock draft for the 2014 rookie class, there were definitely a few players who had the combine massively impact their stock one way or another. While this was just one draft and it is possible a player was overdrafted or drastically undervalued by our staff in comparison to the general community, I would like to believe our staff as a whole have a very good finger on the pulse of the dynasty community and we accurately reflect those views and opinions.
This article is going to take a little bit of a closer look at the players who saw a big jump up or down the draft when compared to their pre-combine selection. When I say big jump, I’m talking about more than just three or four slots in the draft as that could just be personal preference. I’m also going to ignore the players in the middle or late third round who went undrafted this time or who were undrafted previously and appeared there this time around.
The Risers
It isn’t a coincidence that all four of the big risers in this draft come from the wide receiver position. In terms of fantasy positions, wide receiver is where the talent lies in this draft. While it doesn’t have the super elite prospects of the 2011 draft class, it does have at least ten wide receivers who could come in and be productive starters on NFL teams as soon as this next season – that’s easily double the number of a normal year, making some of the players going in the early second the equivalent of middle first round picks in other years. With relatively underwhelming running backs, there is a lot of like about the wide receivers. As fantasy drafts actually approach, I expect a few of the running backs to climb again due to the running back bias a lot of leagues possess, but the four players who rose up boards all belong at their new spots.
Brandin Cooks, WR Oregon State
Rose from 2.10 up to 1.03
Originally I had some concerns about Cooks. I knew he was a very prolific pass catcher in college and won the Biletnikoff Award in 2013, but his size worried me. In general, college players are listed at heights and weights that are a little bigger than reality – that had me pretty concerned heading into the combine. When he actually measured a little bigger than his listed numbers, I was much happier. His body type, build and weight for his size put him right on par with most of the best shorter receivers in the NFL. He also has bigger than expected hands for someone of his height, which never hurts! All in all, he is a pretty close size comparison to the great Steve Smith.
When you take away the concerns about his size and you add in his 4.33 wheels along with the ability to change direction and accelerate faster than just about anyone else in the NFL, you get a top three pick in rookie drafts. Cooks’ 20 yard shuttle drill, which measures the ability of a player to accelerate, stop, change directions and accelerate again was the best in combine history and a very rare athletic feat. The combination of that stop and start ability with his straight line speed is going to make him a major threat on the outside and over the middle of the field in the NFL. Even though he’s only 5’10”, he has the tools to be a beast.
Odell Beckham, Jr., WR LSU
Rose from 2.05 up to 1.05
The tale of Beckham is fairly similar to the one for Cooks, just not quite as extreme. Beckham is one inch taller and almost ten pounds heavier than Cooks – that means he is still on the short side for an NFL receiver, but he is even more thickly built than Cooks. He also has larger than expected hands, bigger than most of the receiver who were several inches taller than him in fact. In terms of speed, Beckham definitely has it, not only in a straight line, but with elite ability to stop and start as well as the unique ability of keeping his speed through changes in direction – this will definitely help him to separate from NFL cornerbacks.
If you haven’t read our recent article on Beckham, you should go read it. There is an awful lot to like about him. The only part I disagree on is I think he’s going to go in the middle of the first round at the latest in a lot of fantasy drafts, not the end of the first or early second. He’s currently fighting with Cooks for my third receiver and third player overall in this draft.
Davante Adams, WR Fresno State
Rose from 2.08 up to 1.12
Adams is a nice prospect, and I think he was probably a little too low at 2.08 in the pre-combine draft. However, I think him sneaking into the tail end of the first round might also be a little too high for him. In the intro I mentioned there are at least ten receivers with NFL starter talent in this draft and while Adams is definitely one of them, he is towards the back of that list for me. I think his value should put him right around the early to middle second round in rookie drafts.
At 6’1”, Adams has decent height with a thick build and a wingspan of a receiver a few inches taller. His 4.56 second 40 yard dash is adequate but not great for someone of his size and his hands are extremely small for a receiver over six feet tall. The smaller hands typically indicate an issue with drops down the road, but that didn’t play out in college as he was very good at bringing the ball in. He does have the ability to go up and get jump balls and does a very nice job of running routes. I think he has the makings of a solid possession receiver in the NFL. For another man’s more detailed opinion on Adams, you can check out this article on him.
Donte Moncrief, WR Ole Miss
Rose from 2.11 up to 2.02
Much like Beckham and Cooks, those who have been doing this for a while knew Moncrief would shoot up draft boards after the combine. At 6’2” and 221 pounds, he is one of the bigger receivers in this draft class. With a 4.40 second 40 yard dash, he is also one of the fastest. He showed excellent lower body explosion in the jumps, posting some of the best distances in both the vertical and broad jumps. When you put them together, you get a very solid size-speed specimen who deserves a few more looks. The only knock against him from a physical perspective are the smaller hands. Even though he is four inches taller than Cooks, his hands are half an inch smaller.
On the field, Moncrief showed a ton of potential and promise in 2012. He was shaping up to be one of the best college receivers in the country for the 2013 season and a potential Biletnikoff finalist – that isn’t how things played out, though. He didn’t take that next step and might have even regressed a little bit during his final year in college. It is hard to tell exactly what was happening, but if an NFL team can get him back to where he was in 2012 and then get him to grow from there he could turn into an extremely good receiver in the NFL. He’s a more raw prospect than any of the others on this list but he has a pretty high upside due to his physical tools.
The Fallers
With the strength of this draft (the wide receivers) rising up the boards, it is only natural that the majority of the fallers come from the other three positions. The running back class as a whole failed to impress at the combine, either pulling up lame during drills or just posting much lower than expected times or measurements. Let’s take a more detailed look and see what there is to see.
Ka’Deem Carey, RB Arizona
Fell from 1.04 to 1.09
Let’s sum up Carey’s combine this way: When the best hand time at his pro day was a 4.66 second 40-yard dash and the headline reads Carey improved on his combine showing, you know it was bad. While the rest of his measurements weren’t as poor, none of them were very impressive – that is in stark contrast to Carey being one of the most complete and most productive running backs of the last two years in college football.
I’ve never been as high on Carey as some others and didn’t feel he belongs in the first few picks. Honestly, I’m not even sure if he belongs in the first round. It will depend on where he lands since running backs are so situational, but there is cause for concern with the young running back. While he was productive, both in the running and passing games, it is fair to wonder how much of that productivity was the system he was playing in. He isn’t the most physically gifted athlete and there are some concerns off the field as well. I expect opinions to be all over the board on him, but I ultimately expect him to be a late first or early second round draft choice.
Kelvin Benjamin, WR Florida State
Fell from 1.09 to 2.03
As I mentioned in the pick by pick analysis, this one puzzles me. Benjamin did nothing at the combine that should have resulted in his stock slipping a bit. If anything, I expected him to slide up draft boards a bit once people got to see him with their own eyes and see just how big this kid is. He checked in at 6’5” and 240 pounds. He is very solid with a wingspan and hand size pretty on par with future hall of famer Larry Fitzgerald. While it might be true that the rest of his game doesn’t compare with Fitzgerald’s, there is still a lot to like about Benjamin.
Why might he have fallen then?
My guess is due to the concerns over his poor time in the 40-yard dash, his underwhelming jumps and his struggles to keep his speed while changing directions. Those items weren’t ever a part of his game, though. When you can stand flat footed on the ground and reach almost nine feet in the air you don’t need to be able to run a 4.4 time in the 40-yard dash. The combine did nothing to change my opinion of Benjamin as a solid prospect and elite red zone target. He’s still in the middle of that pack of ten plus receivers I’ve been talking about.
Bishop Sankey, RB Washington
Fell from 1.11 to 2.04
Much like Benjamin, I’m puzzled by the drop in Sankey’s stock. Out of the top running backs at the combine, Sankey might have actually had the best day of the bunch. At 5’9” and 209 pounds with 10 inch hands, he has adequate size. He had some of the best numbers of the entire running back group in terms of bench press, jumps, cone drill and shuttle run as well. He also ran under 4.5 seconds in the 40 yard dash. In other words, he did better than I expected he would and actually climbed up my running back rankings a bit.
There are only two reasons I can come up with for his drop in our draft. The first is people going away from the entire running back group in favor of receivers. With the four receivers making big jumps from behind Sankey to in front of him, he was going to fall a bit. The other reason is Sankey doesn’t appear all that special to most. He played in the PAC-12, which doesn’t get a lot of national press outside of Oregon and USC and he doesn’t possess elite anything. He’s just very good at almost everything, but I think he’s going to end up climbing back into the first round.
Jace Amaro, TE Texas Tech
Fell from 1.12 to 2.06
I expected a little bit of a drop off in Amaro’s perceived value when his 40-yard dash time was 4.74 seconds. While that certainly isn’t a bad time for a 6’5”, 265 pound player, it isn’t quite on the level of Eric Ebron or any of the elite tight end prospects who are now tearing up the NFL. The slightly slower than expected time (I was expecting somewhere in the low to mid-4.6s) did result in me dropping Amaro from first to second on my tight end rankings, but the gap between the two was and still is pretty small.
The rest of Amaro’s combine was pretty good (especially his bench press) and I’m not as concerned as most about his 40-yard dash time. He never did strike me as a super athletic tight end in the mold of Jimmy Graham. Instead, I view him as a powerful tight end who wins at the point of the catch and gains separation with route running skills instead of pure athleticism. Think of him as more of a Jason Witten style of player. While it isn’t as flashy as the athletic tight ends, he can be just as effective at the next level. I still expect him to be a potential late first round pick in the NFL draft and he could climb back up fantasy draft boards in the next few weeks and months.
Tre Mason, RB Auburn
Fell from 1.07 to 2.09
I think Mason’s 14 pick fall was more a product of him being overdrafted prior to the combine because of his name than anything else. Mason didn’t (and still doesn’t) belong in the first round of rookie drafts in my opinion. While he does have decent speed and power, he isn’t overly explosive nor athletic. His size is good, but not great, though he has shown an ability to stand up to a heavy workload over the last few years.
I do have some concerns about how much the system helped his production at Auburn. All of the criticisms we normally hear about Alabama or Big 10 running backs fit here in that Mason was almost always running behind an offensive line noticeably better than the defense he was facing, leading to very large holes for him to run through on many occasions. His ball security is also a major concern with eight fumbles in two years. Some of this might be fixable, but his nine inch hands could also be partly to blame. He’s a decent but not great running back prospect who is likely to go in the middle of the second round.
Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M
Fell from 2.06 to 3.04
This is the true wild card of the 2014 class, both in the NFL and in fantasy circles. There are situations in which he is a first round fantasy draft pick and others where he might not even be drafted in three rounds. His value is going to be all over the board, not only based on where he goes in the NFL draft, but also based on where people view his talents and abilities. It is hard to think of a player where there are a wider range of views.
Personally, I just don’t think Manziel is going to transition to the NFL very well. He is a player who relied on good athleticism to extend plays and improvise. In the NFL when defenders are smarter and more athletic, I’m not sure how well that will work out for Manziel. I’m also not sure how NFL coaches are going to respond and react to a player who has a hard time following a game plan and executing. When your entire game is built around keeping the play alive, it is eventually going to fall apart. Then again, we said a lot of the same things about guys like Brett Favre, so who knows.
That’s it for our look at this mock draft for now. We’ll be back with another staff mock draft in about a month, just before the NFL draft gets under way! Thanks for reading.
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Three - April 28, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Two - April 26, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round One - April 25, 2021
