Biggest risers and fallers from the 2023 NFL Combine

Offensive tackles

BYU's Blake Freeland

Riser: Blake Freeland, BYU

This is a position where I considered a couple of names, but I ultimately went with BYU’s Blake Freeland. Whenever you break a record for your position, I believe you deserve to be mentioned on a list like this, and Freeland’s 37-inch vertical jump is pretty insane for a guy just above the 300-pound treshold.

He also hit the 10-foot mark for the broad jump, which was five inches better than the next-closest O-lineman and was just one-hundredth of a second off the top mark in the 40 for the position – with a 4.98 to his name – while the more important 10-yard split at 1.68 led the group.

Freeland’s height led to him still being a little tall during the change-of-direction stuff in the actual on-field portion, but he covered good ground with those long strides on pulls. There wasn’t really any wasted movement, and you saw that explosiveness out of his stance a couple of times when getting out on pulls.

I think, at 6-8, my questions about pad-level and ability to anchor in pass-protection are still there, but in terms of athletic profile, the ceiling for him is sky-high, and there’s plenty of room upwards to counter-balance some of the problems that height may present. I promise you, that’s what every O-line coach in the NFL is saying right now.

A couple of other names to mention here.

Broderick Jones of Georgia put up the best time among all offensive linemen at 4.97. He also looked well-coordinated in his movement during the on-field drills and showed that burst on longer pulls. Plus, he had a really fun finish to the workout when he basically tossed one of the coaches aside as he released on the screen drill.

And, although they didn’t run, but Syracuse’s Matthew Bergeron and Tennessee’s Darnell Wright both had tremendous field workouts. They looked so light-footed, changing directions, reacting to the coaches’ indications and the speed when they were allowed to get on the move. All super impressive.

Arkansas Pinebluff's Mark Evans II

Faller: Mark Evans II, Arkansas Pinebluff

Before he even got to any of the athletic testing, Evans’s 32 3/8-inch arms will probably make him a guard only on most teams’ boards. However, he was listed at OT, and for that label, his 5.44 in the 40 was the second-worst among the group and the 1.9 10-yard split was actually ahead of only Ohio State’s Dawand Jones among all linemen – who weighs 71 pounds more (!) than Evans at just above 300.

I thought Evans actually looked solid during the on-field workout, other than when he had to kind of bend his path on the fly. And I won’t bang him too much for that performance, but especially for small-school names like this, having some of the worst testing numbers, there’s less motivation for higher-ranked guys in NFL organizations other than area scouts to get to – and fall in love with – his tape.

Going back to the East-West Shrine practices, I noted that he had some impressive reps of mirroring interior rushers laterally – which we also saw during the mirror drill in Indy. I hope I can personally get to his tape by the time I put out my IOL rankings, but even for me, that’ll probably push him behind a couple of other names on my personal watch list.

Baylor’s Connor Galvin was another guy who disappointed. First, at just 293 pounds, he was tied for the second-worst 40 time among all players, and he also looked very skinny. I thought on tape he had some issues staying low and absorbing power, which continue to be question marks for me, because he wasn’t moving around with sufficient sink in his hips to make up for the lack of bulk.

Something that has to be mentioned here is Northwestern standout Peter Skoronski measuring in with only 32¼-inch arms. That may make him a guard only for some teams who have hard benchmarks – and the general one is 33 inches. Nothing Skoronski did actually hurt his stock otherwise. He performed well. It’s just that one question we all had now being answered.