The 2024 NFL Draft is fast approaching. The PFF big board is live, mock draft season is in full swing and the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine has wrapped up.
This year’s offensive line draft class boasts plenty of high-end talent. Notre Dame’s Joe Alt and Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga are among the headliners, though top interior players like Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson are also being selected in the first round of mock drafts.
With 12 offensive linemen in the top 50 of PFF’s big board, it’s an excellent year to need offensive line help.
Let's look at Arizona‘s Jordan Morgan, the fifth-year tackle who finished his college career with two straight 83.0-plus PFF grades.
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SCOUTING SUMMARY
Morgan is a smooth-moving prospect whose best position in the NFL might be guard. His track-and-field background gives him natural balance and core strength, which in turn gives him good change-of-direction ability.
His arm length isn't elite for offensive tackle play, but it should be adequate. While his footwork is fast, the strides in his kick slide are short. His hand placement, patience and football IQ are all pluses.
Though listed at 325 pounds, he lacks density and strength. Bull rushes can overwhelm him if they come at an angle, and though he has the foot speed to stay in front of pass rushers, he doesn't have the natural strength to redirect their momentum.
WINS ABOVE AVERAGE
WAA represents the number of wins a player is worth over an average college football player and is a metric evaluators can utilize to assess performance.
It combines how well a player performed in each facet of play (using PFF grades) and how valuable each facet is to winning football games. The result is a first-of-its-kind metric that allows for cross-positional valuation and predicts future value at the player and team levels.
HOW PLAYER RANKS IN THE STABLE METRICS
The PFF pass-blocking grade does a fine job of describing an offensive lineman’s success as a pass-blocker, but it becomes even more stable when isolated to just “true pass sets.”
True pass sets are plays without play-action, screens and designed rollouts where there are at least four pass-rushers and the quarterback stands in the pocket for at least 2.1 seconds. Isolating more specific situations helps us project a lineman’s future pass-blocking performance.
Run blocking is generally a stable measure of play. However, negatively graded plays are more stable for offensive tackles, while positively graded plays tend to fluctuate. The opposite is true for guards and centers on the interior.
Morgan had a rough Junior season in 2021, but his improvement beyond that season was remarkable. Since 2022, the Arizona tackle has ranked in the 70th percentile or higher in all four stable pass-blocking metrics.
An uptick in his run-blocking production was also notable during his last two seasons. His 12.0% negatively graded run blocking rate in 2021 improved to 9.5% over the following two seasons.
BOTTOM LINE FROM PFF's 2024 NFL DRAFT GUIDE
Morgan needs to get stronger, whether he plays tackle or guard, but he has desirable athletic traits with fast hands and feet that bolster his starting-caliber potential.
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