The first day of drills happened at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine yesterday. The quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends ran through the gauntlet in front of scouts and general managers in an effort to help their stock in the 2020 NFL Draft.
For some, they exceeded expectations and might have put themselves in a better position come draft day. For others, they failed to impress and could have pushed themselves down teams’ draft boards. So let’s see which players the Ravens could be interested in won and lost on the first day of the 2020 NFL Combine.
Winner: WR Chase Claypool, Notre Dame
As a big-bodied wide receiver with decent hands and good route running, Claypool was a prime target for Baltimore in the second or third round. But Claypool was the winner of the 2020 NFL Combine thanks to outstanding measurements.
At 6-foot-4 and 238 pounds, Claypool’s 4.42-second 40-yard dash was blisteringly fast considering his size. His 40.5-inch high jump ranked fourth among wide receivers and shows how explosive he can be in the lower half. Basically, Claypool proved he’s the big, physical receiver he showed on film but also proved he’s got deceptive speed as well.
The fact Claypool’s combine performance is being compared favorably to Clavin Johnson is probably all you actually need to hear.
Loser: TE Mitchell Wilcox, USF
A bad drill or two can hurt a player’s stock. So when you’re a tight end that gets blasted in the face with a football that’s all over the internet now, that’s pretty bad. That was exactly what happened to USF tight end Mitchell Wilcox on one drill.
It seems as though Wilcox was expecting the first pass to come from his left only to look the correct direction as the football was a few feet from his face. It would have been a really impressive catch had he hauled it in but sadly for Wilcox, he’s now the butt of a joke.
Winner: WR Justin Jefferson, LSU
Jefferson was a receiver that had a borderline first/second-round grade coming into the 2020 NFL Combine but should have firmly pushed himself into the first round with his performance.
He didn’t put up any numbers that would cause any cartoonish double takes but he showed that his tape was no fluke. He ran a 4.43-second 40-yard dash and had a 37.5-inch vertical jump, which puts him near the top of both drills among this wide receiver class.
But more importantly, he showed his skills as a wide receiver in the pass-catching drills. Jefferson was aggressive in catching the football, attacking passes and showing off a certain swagger you have to love out of a guy that projects more as a possession receiver in the NFL.
Loser: WR Tee Higgins, Clemson
In one of the deepest wide receiver draft classes we’ve seen in years, any slip-ups are magnified. But not doing anything can sometimes be even worse than running something poorly. Higgins just flat-out didn’t run any drills, which in itself is a pretty big red flag here, especially given his pretty lame excuse of needing to rest.
In what is the biggest job interview most of these prospects will ever have, claiming you didn’t have enough time to prepare and need to rest after a long season just doesn’t sit right. There could be an underlying medical issue at hand but you better believe every team that had an interest in him is now going to grill him over this.
While so many other wide receivers proved themselves at the NFL Combine, Higgins left far more questions and could see his stock plummet because of it.
Winner: WR Donovan Peoples-Jones, Michigan
Peoples-Jones wasn’t exactly the most productive wide receiver at Michigan but some of that might be able to be written off as lackluster quarterback play. At least that’s the case Peoples-Jones can make thanks to impressing at the 2020 NFL Combine.
Peoples-Jones measured out at 6-foot-2 and 212 pounds which makes his 4.48-second 40-yard dash pretty respectable. However, it was his 44.5-inch vertical jump and 139-inch broad jump that rank among the best combine performances for a wide receiver.
Peoples-Jones did exactly what should have been his goal at the 2020 NFL Combine: Force scouts and general managers to go back and look at his film a little more or at least get excited about his upside. It shouldn’t turn him into a first-round prospect but it could ensure he gets picked in the second round.
