2023 NFL Draft Takes: Top Five DL

These short posts over the course of the week leading up to Thursday night will detail my personal opinions on how the NFL should approach this draft class. I'll try to give some hard-core analysis for some guys, but a lot of this is going to be gut-instinct, armchair-quarterback musings. All correct opinions come directly from me and me alone. All incorrect opinions may be roasted appropriately at a later date.

DL1: Will Anderson, Alabama

This is a tough call, but when you're splitting hairs between prospects, I tend to distill everything to "ceiling/floor" comparisons. I think Will Anderson has a relatively elite floor as a draft prospect. At the very least, I anticipate Anderson will be a plus-value EDGE defender that dominates in the run game with enough pass-rush acumen to routinely put out 6-8 sacks per season. Essentially, his floor is Jadeveon Clowney's NFL career (which was underwhelming, but not as bad as some people might think). His ceiling is Von Miller with more substantial punch as a run defender. That's an elite floor and an elite ceiling. Picking Anderson is a safe pick without sacrificing elite upside. I would say he's less likely to hit an elite ceiling than prior top EDGE prospects (the Bosa brothers, Myles Garrett, etc.), but all I've heard is that his work ethic stands out, so I wouldn't bet against him carving out a supremely productive career.

DL2: Tyree Wilson, Texas Tech

Catch him on the right day, and he looks like a generational prospect at defensive end (and I think "generational" is the most overused term in modern sports). He's big (6'6", 271 pounds), long (arm length of nearly three feet), and possesses a twitchiness (NFL draft analysts' favorite term) on tape that a man his size simply should not have. Despite his impressive overall athleticism, his film lacks evidence of elite flexibility that game-wrecking EDGE defenders typically bring to the table, and he didn't pan out as a productive player in college until his redshirt senior season at Texas Tech (after transferring from Texas A&M two years prior). Still, he's a player I've fallen in love with over the course of this year as I've watched him, and I think he has inside-out versatility with the upside to mimic the impact of a longer Myles Garrett despite possessing a different athletic profile (though I doubt he has the helmet-swinging upside that Garrett has displayed). I think his likely upside is higher than Anderson's, but I could see a world where he flames out and is a journeyman defended for several years.

DL3: Jalen Carter, Georgia

If he gets his head on straight, he's the top prospect in this draft. I'm just really unsure that he ultimately will. His upside is still too high to drop him further down this list for me.

DL4: Lukas Van Ness, Iowa

Saying "He didn't even start at Iowa" when talking about Van Ness is a great way to show me that you just don't pay that much attention to the situations that college football players come from. LVN played starter-level snaps on Iowa's defensive line that heavily rotates players throughout a game. From the moment he stepped on the field as a redshirt freshman, he looked different than the other players on a loaded defense, and his production was eye-catching from the get-go. When he gets drafted, I guarantee you will hear the word "power" when the analysts try to break down his game. That's because he's perhaps the most powerful EDGE in this draft class who has flashed that ability against the best offensive linemen in the country. His power is undeniable, but his testing at the combine opened my eyes to type of upside we could really be looking at with him. In short, he was overall faster, bigger, longer, and more explosive than Nick Bosa (who some people have compared his ceiling to). He ran a faster 40 than Anderson despite weighing 20 pounds more than him, and looked extremely fluid in the on-field position drills. He's raw, and he'll need to refine his technique quite a bit at the professional level if he wants to maximize his potential. If he does, his ceiling is to be the best defensive player in the NFL. That's a big projection, and I wouldn't bet on that being the case for sure, but he's got the potential to be that dude. His floor is probably lower than that of the above picks, and that's why he's here. However, if the Bears traded down and got him in the mid-1st, their draft would already get an A+ from me.

DL5: Myles Murphy, Clemson

He's similar in a lot of ways to Van Ness from a body-type and production standpoint. They're pretty comparable from an athletic testing profile from the data they've given during this draft cycle. His ceiling is limited because he is just not nearly as powerful as Van Ness. And nowhere near as hot.