recently mocked to the 49ers<\/a>. Faulk\u2019s arm length is in the 83rd percentile, and his broad jump was in the 78th percentile. We\u2019ll keep him around.<\/p>\nThe next player on the board is the embodiment of an outlier. Miami\u2019s Akheem Msidor will be 25 on draft day. He\u2019s 6\u20193\u201d, 259 pounds, but has a wingspan in the 24th percentile. Mesidor was a freshman in 2020. Last season was the first time he reached double digits in sacks and quarterback hits. Ask yourself why it took until his sixth season and playing alongside a top-10 pick to produce? That\u2019s a player you let another team be right about.<\/p>\n
Clemson\u2019s T.J. Parker is next on the list. You would\u2019ve gotten laughed at in preseason if you mocked Parker at the end of the first round. He was supposed to be a top-5 player in this class. Parker\u2019s broad jump was in the 71st percentile, but his wingspan is in the 32nd percentile. Parker is a good player, but is a three-year junior, suggesting he\u2019s not done improving. He\u2019s a 49ers-type player with the ability to set the edge and play through the whistle, but he does not stand out in this exercise.<\/p>\n
Cashius Howell is up next. We have ourselves another outlier. While his 4.59 40-yard dash might be tempting, Howell\u2019s in the 1st percentile in wingspan. It would be less concerning if Howell were a power player like Bain–who you can\u2019t mention without bringing up arm length. In Howell\u2019s case, he falls under the finesse player umbrella.<\/p>\n
Howell ran a 4.59 40, but neglected to do any of the shuttle drills. That\u2019s telling. If you\u2019re an elite athlete, you would think he\u2019d want to show that off. But a 44th percentile broad jump shows up when you watch him, and there\u2019s enough evidence during Texas A&M games that Howell isn\u2019t the most fluid of athletes.<\/p>\n
The next player is Missouri\u2019s Zion Young, who weighed five pounds heavier at the Tigers\u2019 Pro Day, where he ran a 4.77 40-yard dash with a 1.72 10-yard split. As an athlete, Young\u2019s 33\u201d arms put him in the 67th percentile. But as an edge rusher, that\u2019s only good for the 31st percentile. How much of a difference does an inch make? Remember Aaron Lynch back in 2014? His 34\u201d arms put him in the 71st percentile. Young looks like a 49ers player.<\/p>\n
There are two other players in the top 50 at the position. One is R Mason Thomas out of Oklahoma. he ran a 4.67 40, but is only 241 pounds. He is another outlier with arm length in the fifth percentile and hand size in the second percentile. Great college player, but unlikely to have a similar impact in the pros. It\u2019s difficult to imagine Thomas holding up on early downs.<\/p>\n
The second player is Malachi Lawrence out of Central Florida. If the 49ers go wide receiver in the first round, this is likely the pass rusher they look at on Day 2. Lawrence fits this study fairly well. He\u2019s 253 pounds, but he\u2019s also 6\u20194\u201d with 33 5\/8\u201d arms.<\/p>\n
Lawrence tested quite well, with a 40 time in the 95th percentile and a broad jump in the 97th percentile. That is an explosive athlete. I have questions about him \u201crunning the hoop\u201d and \u201cdying on contact.\u201d A lot of those issues are there with Thomas. Still, there are positives to Lawrence\u2019s game, and you can see his speed when it\u2019s time to chase the ball-carrier.<\/p>\n
The prospect that best fits the 49ers in the first round<\/p>\n
If we had full testing numbers, I believe Zion Young would be here. But we can\u2019t guess, even if the qualities are there on film. The process of elimination leads us to the player mocked to the 49ers.<\/p>\n
Faulk lined up in a three-point stance on 75 percent of his snaps last season. As the NFL trends more and more toward playing 2-high defense, the need for a Faulk-type linemen becomes just as pressing. You can\u2019t get mad at Tatum Bethune and Dee Winters last season when they are playing behind edge rushers who can\u2019t stand their ground at the point of attack.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Faulk shines. If you try to block him with a tight end, he will embarrass them, almost instantaneously on contact. When a player takes advantage of a mismatch like that consistently, the alarm bells should go off.<\/p>\n
Faulk playing 4i at Auburn allows you to see how he\u2019ll hold his own against different blocking schemes. Down blocks are tough for interior linemen, but Faulk showed zero signs that he has issues there. If anything, Faulk showed the ability to routinely stand his ground, locate the ball, and find a way to impact the play.<\/p>\n
Lost in the 49ers\u2019 low-pressure and sack-rate numbers last season was their inability to get to obvious passing downs. You\u2019re not going to put up gaudy numbers when you\u2019re getting blown off the ball on first down. Faulk has numerous reps where he looks tenacious, to the point where he has no interest in being blocked.<\/p>\n
Two sacks won\u2019t impress anybody, but 31 and 32 pressures in back-to-back seasons should. And these aren\u2019t empty pressures, either. Faulk had 13 and 15 quarterback hits in the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Sports Info Solutions had Faulk\u2019s pressure rate at 11% and 13% in the previous two seasons. His quick pressure percentage jumped to 5%, while his pressure rate was one and three percent above expectation in each of the past two seasons. As a 4i, that\u2019s pretty impressive\u2014especially when you are at the top of every scouting report.<\/p>\n
The ways Faulk wins as a run defender are encouraging signs for what the 3-year junior can become as a pass rusher. Faulk wins with pad level, strength, and length. That\u2019s what wins in the NFL today. Will he fall to No. 27? Who knows? He\u2019s been as high as No. 8 in some mocks.<\/p>\n
This exercise was to eliminate some players who could potentially fall to the 49ers. Ideally, Faulk does. If Faulk doesn\u2019t make it, Young would be the second-best fit for the 49ers.<\/p>\n
This defense was dominant when they had an Arik Armstead presence on the field. You weren\u2019t running at him, and you damn sure weren\u2019t running at Nick Bosa. Adding impact run defenders like Faulk or Young would get the 49ers back to the days when they were stout across the board along their defensive line. It\u2019s no coincidence that that\u2019s when the defense peaked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers\u2019 loss of Bryce Huff to retirement opens the door for a need at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,104509,1138,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-831434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-mock-drafts","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-draft","15":"tag-sanfrancisco","16":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116285626787090332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}