November 13, 2021
During the college football season each year, as long as you're watching the games, we point out five players each week to keep an eye who make logical sense for the Eagles in the following year's draft.
Winfrey is a JUCO transfer who flashed in his first season at Oklahoma in 2020, but in 2021 now also has some production to go along with his obvious athletic traits. He has 18 tackles (6.5 for loss), and 4.5 sacks. He's a bit of a late bloomer, and may be something of project player, but he's one with legitimate NFL upside. A quick look:
The Eagles appear willing to move on from Fletcher Cox. Whether that happens this offseason or not, the Eagles need to add to the defensive line pipeline, both on the edge and on the interior.
Winfrey is a Day 2 guy who can probably play right away, but may take a little longer to reach his full potential.
Lloyd is a likely first-round linebacker who has filled up the stat sheet for Utah in 2021. In 9 games, he has 81 tackles (19 for loss), 6 sacks, 3 INTs (including a pick 6), 5 pass breakups, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. He's been the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week three times already this season.
Lloyd has size, speed, production, and because he was a wide receiver in high school, he has the ability to make the most out of big play opportunities when they're there. Here are some highlights from a standout game vs. Stanford this season:
Utah ILB Devin Lloyd's 5 TFL, 1 sack, 1 pick-six game against Stanford. #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/3JsG16907A
— WBG84 (@WBG84) November 8, 2021
It's time. Draft one early already.
In Strong's three years as Nevada's starting quarterback, he has posted the following numbers:
| Carson Strong | Comp-Att (Comp %) | Yards (YPA) | TD-INT |
| 2019 | 237-374 (63.4%) | 2335 (6.2) | 11-7 |
| 2020 | 249-355 (70.1%) | 2858 (8.1) | 27-4 |
| 2021 | 289-409 (70.7%) | 3197 (7.8) | 25-7 |
As you can see, he completed over 70 percent of his passes in 2020, and is on pace to do the same in 2021.
Strong has good height, a compact delivery, decent arm strength, good accuracy in the short-to-intermediate areas of the field, and he can decisively get the ball out quickly. A highlight reel:
On the downside, he's not a factor as a runner, and he has potential long-term knee issues, as described by nevadesportsnet.com:
Carson Strong missed his senior season of high school in 2017 after knee surgery when an MRI revealed an osteochondritis dissecans lesion and resulted in eight biodegradable nails being inserted to mend a crack in his lateral femoral condyle bone.
I understood a few of those words. More recently, there was concern over whether Strong would be ready for the start of the 2021 season:
In January, Strong had surgery on the same knee to clean up cartilage after he felt some uneasiness in the knee during his breakout 2020 season. Prior to the start of fall camp this month, Strong has an arthroscopy to clear out scar tissue in the knee. Strong was a full participant in Nevada's first fall camp practice Aug. 6, although his knee was bleeding heavily after the session. Strong has since had to have the knee drained a couple of times and has been limited to watching practice from a golf cart in recent sessions.
😬.
He also just looks kind of skinny to me, and watching him, he gave me some Jared Goff vibes from Goff's days at Cal.
My belief is that the Eagles want a quarterback who can make plays with his legs in addition to his arm, and they probably don't want to relive the injury-prone quarterback experience. As such, I'm not sure that Strong qualifies as a prospect who makes sense for the Eagles, but at the quarterback position, it probably makes sense to profile all the relevant names.
I think Strong is a Round 3 guy who gets overdrafted in Round 2.
Over the last two seasons (18 games) Turner has 104 catches for 1223 yards (10.8 YPC) and 17 TDs. This season, he is fourth in the nation among tight ends with 618 receiving yards, and tied for first with 8 TDs.
He is a wide receiver turned tight end with obvious passing game chops, and at 6'6 is a weapon in the red zone. He will be a move tight end in the NFL. A look:
Howie Roseman seems to love him some Tyree Jackson, but until Jackson produces in games, he can only realistically be looked at as a project as opposed to a surefire No. 2 TE compliment to Dallas Goedert.
But the tight end position aside, Turner could perhaps function in the same way as a more of a big receiver to complement the Eagles' shrimpy receivers.
Arryn Siposs is the Eagles' punter, and he's been pretty good in his first season in Philly. As such, the Eagles aren't super likely to be in the market for a punter, particularly one in they'd have to spend a relatively high pick to get. But, because I have to keep my punting brand strong, I feel obligated to profile Araiza. If you strip out positional importance, he may very well be the best player in college football. Like, this dude has some kind of bionic leg:
PUNT GOD MATT ARAIZA with a 79-yard punt. From the 12-yard line to the 1 on the fly. Cameraman clearly wasn't expecting it to go that far.
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) November 7, 2021
It's his 15th 60-yard punt of the season, which breaks the all-time record (and SDSU still has 4+ games to go) pic.twitter.com/5fojhHniA7
That punt was "only" 79 yards. He has two more this season of over 80 yards. He leads the nation with a punting average of 51.9 yards, he has the longest punt of the season (86 yards), and as the above tweet says, he has 15 (!) punts of over 60 yards this season, which is an NCAA record.
Araiza is also SDSU's kicker. He's a good college kicker, too, though he's not as good at placekicking as he is at punting. For his career, he's at 75 percent, and 81 of 82 on PATs. He has three makes of over 50 yards this season, though he probably won't kick in the pros, unless it's an emergency.
Oh, and he can also hit.
Amazingly, San Diego State’s P/K Matt Araiza leads the Aztecs in special teams TACKLES this season. pic.twitter.com/xPZjKYWJkY
— Jon Schaeffer (@jonschaeffer) September 27, 2021
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