Latest NFL Mock Drafts Have Jackson’s Slipping into First Round
While Arkansas defensive end Landon Jackson’s solid NFL Combine performance had a lot of buzz don’t lapse into believing that is even the biggest factor in team’s choices.
Teams talk to these big prospects more than most folks realize if they are generating buzz. They also perform the equivalent of a deep federal background check. The interviews and checks also make a huge difference.
With the amount of money they are paying these days, every team in the NFL wants to be certain they aren’t blowing money and a draft choice on someone that won’t fit in with their team.
There haven’t been any warning signs with Jackson that I’ve heard about. He only transferred once in the portal, coming to the Razorbacks after a season with LSU. That doesn’t raise any alarm bells.
But was Jackson’t performance alone enough to vault him into the first round of the draft? It will be the weekend of April 24-26 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc.
Just be careful about all these mock drafts everybody and their brother and sister are doing. Some are just hope, others based on best-guess, most on what other people have projected and giving it a unique spin. All of them mean absolutely nothing.
Most of the mock drafts I have seen from reputable sources had Jackson in the third or fourth round. After the combine workout where he put up some whopping numbers, most moved him solidly into the second round and a couple had him a low first-round pick.
That’s important to be picked in the first round. It has the most security in a system where the contracts are pre-determined and drop off dramatically after the first few picks.
The last five picks of the first round are projected to come in around $2.5-$3 million for the first year with a signing bonus in the $6 million range. How that’s structured and any offsets are about the only negotiating point. If Jackson hits the first round that’s the range where he will land.
In a recent story from Bryan Fischer at Sports Illustrated, Jackson is listed as one of the under-rated players in the NFL Draft. There is an interesting line at the end, though.
“There were a few questions about Jackson displaying a bit of stiffness when getting after the quarterback in college, but his testing numbers are sure to have teams going back over the film over the coming weeks as he looks to elevate himself into that Day 2 conversation.”
That would move him to the second round. Fischer’s mock draft after the combine workouts didn’t move him into the first round like CBS Sports did, putting him at No. 27 in the first round.
As I said early on, these things can go all over the map. Individual team needs get into it as well. Jackson will still participate in the Razorback Pro Day sometime in the next few weeks. How much he does there, though, will remain a mystery because he may not see the need to try and improve on his combine workout.
It would be hard for him to top that, though.
