Chase Thomas UDFA [MERGED]
He's a project at best. But that's what UDFAs and a lot of late round draft picks are all about.
It's fun to dream. But you're setting yourself up for major disappointment.
I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't identify him as a project, which confers a sense of the player getting better technically or figuring out how to play football. I just don't think there's an incredible amount of room for him to improve in that sense. I think he'll either adjust to the speed of the game and use his football IQ and technique to continue playing much as he does now with possibly some further tweaks here or there, or he'll discover that he's woefully out of his class athletically and he'll be out of the league fairly quickly. The NFL has decided that he's option #2.
However, I don't think his athleticism is a deal breaker, either from his film or his numbers. A dumb example with another linebacker projected at 3-4 OLB (each player's best listed times, which are pro day in most cases for both).
Height 6'2 5/8"; 6'3 2/8"
Weight 249; 244
40 4.92; 4.80
3 cone 7.43; 7.17
Shuttle 4.69; 4.31
VJ 30.5; 33.5
Broad 9'3"; 9'9"
Bench 20; 21
You can probably imagine who player A and player B are, but in case you haven't seen these before, they're Jarvis Jones and Chase Thomas respectively.
In terms of getting overly excited, we have this argument every year. I always identify 1-2 guys from the outset that I think can play, and cheering for them makes the offseason fun. My favorites from the night of the draft were Junior Galette, Tyrunn Walker, and Jon Casillas, and those guys have at least made the team and in 2/3 cases were contributors. The Saints always have 1-2 undrafted guys make the team, and usually we as a forum have been pretty good at identifying those guys from the outset.