Eight most overrated NFL draft prospects heading into combine

With the NFL Draft rapidly approaching and the combine coming this week, now is the perfect time to evaluate which players are a touch overrated.

Overrated doesn’t mean they’ll be terrible, bad, or even that they won’t be good NFL players. It only means that the perception of their value doesn’t quite meet the reality. Or, at the least, they have to answer some questions.

With that out of the way, who are some of the most notable overrated players as we head into the deadline?

Joey Bosa

Okay, you’ve got a Top-10 pick in the NFL Draft. If you’re looking to draft a pass-rusher, you’re looking for a guy that you know will come in and be an impact player who will pressure and sack quarterbacks from Day 1 onward.

Are we really sure that Bosa is that guy? While Bosa certainly drew plenty of attention from blockers, he managed only five sacks in 2015.

It’s also difficult to see Bosa fitting in anywhere as anything other than as a 4-3 defensive end. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place he’d fit in, but you should be looking for someone a little more versatile with that high of a pick.

We also can’t forget that Bosa was suspended for Ohio State’s first game. How significant that is at it relates to his NFL prospects remains to be seen, but it’s not a good thing.

At this point, Bosa would is being called a lock as a Top-10 pick. A few too many questions linger with the former Buckeye for that to be the case.

Paxton Lynch

The physical tools are certainly there with Lynch. Unfortunately, his performances against the best opponents on Memphis’ schedule last year left an awful lot to be desired.

Those are the kind of performances that led to Lynch being being labeled as “overrated” by a college scouting director.

As was the case with Bosa (or anyone else, for that matter), overrated depends as much on how he’s perceived as it does his actual skill. Lynch has been projected going to the 49ers at No. 7.

A quarterback taken at No. 7, or anywhere in the first round, needs to hit big. If he doesn’t, it really hurts a franchise that, by nature of picking that high, probably wasn’t in that great a shape to begin with. If Lynch is going to a team picking in a spot that can’t afford to miss, he’s badly overrated.

Will Fuller

Will Fuller is an immensely talented player. But he’s got a nasty habit that a receiver simply can not have: He drops the ball too much. Michael Renner of Pro Football Focus detailed just how bad Fuller’s drops have been.

“…his ball skills are a tad worrisome. He led the FBS in drops on deep passes (five), and his 21 drops over the past two seasons were the most of any receiver.”

The glass-is-half-full fans will likely point out that Fuller dropping a lot of passes is a product of being targeted a lot, which is a product of getting open. That’s of course true, but 21 dropped passes in two seasons is just not good enough for a potential first-round pick.

Defensive backs in the NFL are, of course, better than their college counterparts. If Fuller was dropping an abundance of passes in college, why are we supposed to believe he’ll do better against better competition?

Fuller’s other talents may be good enough that we can’t call his dropped passes a red flag, but they are a concern.

Shawn Oakman

As Eric Edholm of Yahoo Sports detailed, Oakman has an abundance of physical gifts, but he packs just as many questions.

“But seriously, what do you do with a player who crushes the eye test but consistently underperforms despite rare ability and a frame to die for? Oakman dipped from 11 sacks as a junior to 4.5 as a senior. In his final game, Baylor’s bowl win over North Carolina, Oakman didn’t make a single tackle but did pick up a 15-yard penalty for continuing to play with his helmet off, a no-no in college football.”

Well, being a pass-rusher who can’t even rack up five sacks in a season is a problem. Not playing well in the big games is a problem. Yes, the physical tools are a notch in Oakman’s belt, but the majority of his NFL opponents will have the ideal physical tools for their positions, too.

Oakman also had some discipline issues in college, getting kicked off of Penn State’s team before transferring to Baylor. While I wouldn’t say that the “hoagie incident” amounts to much more than a young kid being immature, it did set Oakman back. Now, he’ll be 24 on draft day, which isn’t the end of the world. But his game isn’t refined enough for someone that old.

Robert Nkemdiche

From a physical standpoint, Nkemdiche doesn’t lack anything. Unlike some other players listed here, he doesn’t have a history of under-performing in big games, or demonstrating flaws that are less than ideal for his position.

What Nkemdiche does have is a disturbing and downright scary incident which kept him from playing in Ole Miss’ bowl game, detailed by ESPN’s David Ching.

According to the incident report released Monday, police say Nkemdiche went through his hotel room window and fell onto a ledge that encircles the building. He then fell from that ledge to the ground.

Police estimated Sunday that both falls were about 15 feet.

The incident was way more frightening than Oakman’s, but since Nkemdiche is okay, it can be easy to dismiss as a youthful mistake. But, the fact that synthetic marijuana was allegedly involved definitely speaks to poor judgment.

Nkemdiche is a great athlete and may well show great at the combine and in other workouts. But if teams are taking him in the first round — which is a popular prediction — they’re taking on a real risk.

Christian Hackenberg

At best, Hackenberg is a developmental pick that should be taken no earlier than the mid-late second round.

While he’s got the prototypical build for the quarterback position, Hackernberg never completed 60 percent of his passes in any college season. He also finished at Penn State a rather unimpressive 48 touchdown to 31 interception ratio and never threw for 3,000 yards in a single season.

It’s been speculated that Hackenberg might go in the first round to the Houston Texans, coached by Hackenberg’s former college coach, Bill O’Brien. The Texans are a team that can contend for a Super Bowl in a wide open AFC, but they need a quarterback to do it. It’s hard to see Hackenberg being that guy, especially not in 2016.

In the modern game with a hard salary cap, first round quarterbacks simply can’t be projects. The numbers just aren’t there to justify Hackenberg being one of the first 50 picks in the draft, let alone a first rounder.

Vernon Hargreaves

It’s very likely that Hargreaves will be one of the first two corners taken this year, which would probably place him in the front half of the first round. Generally speaking, someone going in that part of the draft would be expected to be a team’s top corner almost immediately. That’s where two noticeable issues with Hargreaves come into focus.

One, his Florida teams played zone most of the time. That at least provides a double-take for any team that plays primarily man-to-man. Can Hargreaves handle the best receivers from the opposing teams if he’s out on an island?

Two, Hargreaves is not a big guy, coming it at 5-foot-11 and 192 pounds. If he’s going against the best receivers in the league, Hargreaves will be the smaller man in nearly every battle. In several battles, he’ll be the significantly smaller man.

That’s not uncommon, but most of the best corners that have come into the NFL over the last five years have been guys who play physical off of the line. That’s about the only place the rules of the modern NFL allow defensive backs to excel. This will be a challenge for Hargreaves.

He’s certainly an NFL-caliber player and probably a worthy first-round pick. But if we’re talking about a relatively early first-round corner to combat the best receivers in a pass-happy NFL, Hargreaves has some big questions he’ll need to answer.

Connor Cook

Sure, quarterbacks tend to be taken a little ahead of their projections, but there’s no way that Connor Cook is a first round pick, right?

Okay, then, maybe he will be.

Cook did not play against Ohio State, so his three best opponents in the 2015-16 season were Michigan, Iowa, and Alabama. In those three games, he completed just over 48 percent of his passes, threw one touchdown, and three interceptions.

As good as they were, those teams had only some players that will one day be selected in the NFL Draft. Naturally, NFL opponents have rosters full of guys that have already been selected.

Even if quarterbacks are reached for, Cook hasn’t shown enough to be taken before the third round, let alone the first.