Green Bay Packers: 3 1st Round Linebacker Prospects
By Kenny Jilek
Green Bay Packers LB Prospect #3 – Christian Harris
Christian Harris may be the most complete linebacker prospect in this class in the way that he can be on the field for pretty much any situation you’d want. From his film, he seems stronger than the other two at the point of attack and is better at taking on linemen’s blocks head on.
He also seems to be the best of the bunch in terms of diagnosing plays quickly. He knows where the ball is going very quickly and rarely can be found out of position. He also has the speed to get to the ball once he finds it, with a 4.44 40-yard dash time. The rest of his combine testing numbers are great as well, with the exception of his size with both his measured height of 6’0″ and weight of 226 pounds coming in well below average for the position.
His speed allows him to run with tight ends down the seam, something he was asked to do a lot in the style of defense that Alabama plays and he sticks with them extremely well, matching stride for stride.
When he’s not covering, but rushing the passer instead, he has great quickness that gets him around interior linemen quickly and led to 10 sacks across the last two seasons.
So, he’s got great IQ, can run with and cover tight ends, is strong enough to hold his own with linemen in the box, and is a solid pass rusher. That’s a lot of great traits. The one big knock on him is tackling.
There are stretches where he just can’t get anyone on the ground and ballcarriers just seem to bounce off him. At the end of the day, the point of defense is get the guy on the ground and if you can’t do that, then a lot of the other stuff doesn’t matter. That’s something he’ll have to prove in the NFL and could very well could slide him into the second round, but in that scenario he’d be a very enticing trade up candidate.
So, would you want the Green Bay Packers to take any of these three linebackers with one of their first round picks in the draft or trade up early in the second round? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @DairylandXpress.