Interesting story about the prowess of Caleb Downs

From: NY Times:
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Until Saturday

Jason Kirk
By Jason Kirk
Hey, it's NFL Draft week. As always, I think your alma mater does the best job of preparing young men for pro football — and life in general. However, every time your rival gets mentioned alongside a pick this weekend, that'll be nothing but portal-farming.
Grad School


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Pluses, minuses for NFL in new CFB world
The NFL is still catching up to the 2020s' many landmark college football changes. From COVID's extra eligibility year to NIL keeping players in school longer, drafts in this era have featured prospects ranging in age from 20-ish to 25-ish, all while transfers have made the whole thing more complicated for NFL scouts.

This year, the effects of change are particularly evident in a thin QB crop. Almost everyone believes in Indiana's Fernando Mendoza at No. 1, but after him? Well, look at who's still in school.

We can complain about Arch Manning's fame all we like, but some teams absolutely would've considered him a first-rounder. Oregon's Dante Moore was a potential top-five pick before he chose to stick around. Five years ago, players comparable to Ole Miss' Trinidad Chambliss would've gone pro, rather than fighting to stay.

On that note, one quote from our Bruce Feldman that jumped out right away in his 2026 NFL Draft confidential:

"After two months of talks with more than two dozen NFL coaches and scouts, granted anonymity for their candor, the consensus is that we’ve got a bad draft for quarterbacks, a 'not great' one for receivers and the worst draft for defensive tackles in at least a decade."

To be clear, a lag in the NFL's free talent-development pipeline is the NFL's problem, meaning it's not actually a problem. The world's richest sports league can figure out how to deal with it. As a college football partisan, I think it rocks that we get to keep star players longer, sometimes by paying them more than the NFL would. Even better, it's not my money that's being spent. ??

Interestingly, some of the biggest names that did enter this draft might be especially unfinished products. In Bruce's story, coaches used the word "raw" to describe eight prospects, which might or might not be a high amount. Multiple used that description for Ohio State linebacker Arvell Reese, the likeliest No. 2 pick, while also praising his enormous upside. (He'll likely turn out great.)

As for the likeliest No. 2 quarterback, merely a 15-game college starter:

"'There are some things about (Alabama’s) Ty Simpson I appreciate, but the lack of experience and real starter traits is a concern,' said the personnel director. 'He needed to stay in college.'"

And he certainly could've, at Bama or elsewhere, having reportedly been offered $6.5 million by Miami. That's about three times what he'll make in 2026 if he's picked in the second round. But would competing against Manning, Moore and company next year have been the bigger long-term risk? Newly complex considerations.

The NFL might also benefit from this era, however. After safety Dillon Thieneman excelled in different schemes at Purdue and Oregon, one NFL DB coach told Bruce that Thieneman is "one of the more versatile safeties I’ve seen." Similar story for No. 1 safety Caleb Downs, who "picked up Nick Saban’s system as a true freshman and led the Tide in tackles by a wide margin, and then as a leader on the Buckeyes defense."

Also, that story gave us the latest head-turning anecdote about Downs being a professor on the field, from an NFL defensive backs coach:

"This guy sat down at his formal interview and installed his defense, and then talked about how he would play it in our defense. He knew the rules of our defense before he came into the meeting. Nobody’s doing that."

What's more impressive than a young player becoming a leader on one college team? Becoming a leader on two, perhaps by having walked into Columbus as a chip off the old Saban block. Might say something about his ability to do the same at the next level, right?


Just Wow! He might end up being a HOF.