2020 NFL Draft: 10 Prospects being valued way too high
By Samuel Teets
While many players in the 2020 NFL Draft deserve the hype and love they receive from analysts, people must not over-value these 10 players.
The NFL Draft offers an annual opportunity for college football’s best players to enter the most prestigious football league in the world. NFL teams also get a chance to change their fortunes or continue their dominance. However, at its most basic level, the NFL Draft is a giant guessing game where executives and scouts bet on the futures of young men.
NFL teams draft players whose games they believe will translate well into the pros. While some prospects turn heads throughout the process and become All-Pros, others turn into busts. No matter how much film scouts study, some team always reaches for a prospect and drafts a bust in the first round.
Usually, busts receive too much hype going into the draft process, and a team reaches for them in the draft. If executives and scouts grow too attached to physical attributes and combine numbers, these 10 players available in the 2020 NFL Draft could get drafted too high and potentially earn the “bust” moniker.
10. Henry Ruggs III, WR, Alabama
Defensive backs better not blink because Henry Ruggs III can blow through coverages with wicked speed. The Alabama product ran the 40-yard dash in a blistering 4.27 seconds, trailing John Ross‘ 4.22-second record. However, speed can blind writers to skill and production. Consider how other speedsters have panned out over the years.
Since 2003, only six other wide receivers have run the 40 in under 4.3 seconds. The only one of those receivers to get selected in the first round, Ross, can’t even put together a complete season. Overall, Marquise Goodwin boasts the best career of the six speedsters, which begs the question, can receivers survive on speed alone?
Luckily for Ruggs, he possesses much more than speed. He should become the best pro of the sub-4.3 group, but that doesn’t mean he should go in the top 15 picks. Ruggs will come off of the board following Jerry Jeudy and CeeDee Lamb. If teams evaluate him correctly, the deep-threat should hear his name in the late 20s.