Biggest risers and fallers from the 2023 NFL Combine

Linebackers

Duke's Shaka Heyward

Riser: Shaka Heyward, Duke

I could, of course, go with one of the two freak athletes here. Auburn’s Owen Pappoe or Clemson’s Trenton Simpson ran a 4.39 and 4.43 respectively in the 40, along with surprisingly two of the four best marks on the bench press. But we knew coming into the week that they’d be freakishly fast at least. So, based on my expectations, I was more impressed with Duke’s Shaka Heyward.

For a pretty good inside thumper inside, Heyward's 4.53 40 while being right around an NFL-average size of 235 pounds was a great time for him. When you combine that with measuring in at 6-3 with 34-inch arms, you see the tools to be a matchup asset in coverage.

I was already pretty impressed with him at East-West Shrine practices. And he looked very smooth in the coverage drills, redirecting with the shuffle, staying low in his pedal and quickly sticking his foot in the ground to drive forward when taking directions on the wave drill. His hips looked loose, and he snatched the ball away from his body on multiple occasions when asked to open and pivot.

For a guy who was labeled as a below-average athlete who may have problems changing directions due to his longer legs, I think he had a very positive showing in an LB class without much clarity.

Tennessee's Jeremy Banks and Washington State's Daiyan Henley also ran well and made up good ground in the on-field drills, while still cleanly getting out of their transitions.

Henley, in particular, was so tight in his change-of-direction, not taking any unnecessary steps or having any delay on those. And Banks will be one of my biggest draft crushes, just continuing to tick boxes, after I thought he had a tremendous Shrine Bowl week himself.

Iowa's Jack Campbell is a guy with some of the cleanest tape you’ll find in terms of processing the game from the second level and letting his eyes take him to the ball. Even though his 4.65 in the 40 isn’t great, to easily have the best agility drills of the group at 6-5, 250 pounds – so, real old-school linebacker size – is outstanding for him.

Purdue's Jalen Graham

Faller: Jalen Graham, Purdue

There was far less of an obvious choice. I wouldn’t say there were many LBs who really stood out in a positive sense, but at least there we didn’t have anybody running in the 4.7s or have any other really bad measurements. Since I do have to talk about somebody here, I went with Purdue’s Jalen Graham.

First of all, he ran the third-slowest 40 time among linebackers at 4.64 despite coming in at only 220 pounds. That’s a bit of a red flag already – and his 10-yard split of 1.68 is six-hundredths of a second worse than anybody else from that group. Then, he also had the weakest jumps at 30.5-inches in the vert and just a 9-4 broad.

Moreover, he just seemed to be straining when changing directions during the on-field stuff and looked really sloppy going through the bag drills, when you’d like to see him properly step around or over them and not lose time when touching down on the bags. He also body-caught the ball and stumbled while trying to work around the bags off the hand-swipe moves.

So, at that weight, there’s no way you can think about making him a safety, which is what he was recruited as. What is the positive of using him as a dime backer when he doesn’t look good in those areas you’d sub him on for in place of heavier bodies?