Mayock Sees an O-Line Round 1

Mike Mayock sat down 13 days out from the draft and read his board out loud. Rich pushed him on intrigue, teams with two picks, Kansas City coming off 6 and 11 and sitting on a pair. Mayock deflected the guessing game and went where the board actually told him to go. The tackle position.

He has seven offensive tackles graded fairly high. Once those dry up, there is a steep drop. He does not have a grade on a tackle in the third round after the top group clears. That is the setup for a run. Once Maui Nua, Freeling, and Faalele are off the board, tackle-needy teams are left scrambling between Proctor, Miller, Lomu, the Arizona State tackle Mayock admitted he cannot pronounce, and Archer. Teams in the middle to late first round will get nervous fast.

The name Mayock kept coming back to was Freeling out of Georgia. He said Freeling has moved up more than any player in the draft since the season ended. One-year starter at left tackle. NFL people are still gathering information on him because there is not a deep sample. Mayock thinks Freeling will be the best left tackle from this draft three years from now. Young, inexperienced, and going higher than people think. He floated Cleveland at number six as a real possibility.

Mayock also flagged wideout as a position worth watching. Omar Cooper at Indiana has climbed. More tape forced Mayock to appreciate him more, and he now has Cooper as the likely fourth wideout off the board.

The combine medical rechecks this past week shaped the rest of the conversation. Maui Nua came out of it okay, which matters for his stock. Jordan Tyson at Arizona State is the one Mayock is waiting on. Tyson is, in his words, an immaculate athlete, really special at wideout. But the medical file is busy. An ACL a couple years ago. A collarbone after that. A hamstring soft tissue issue that cost him weeks. Mayock had not heard back from his guys on the recheck.

That is the draft in the final stretch. Boards are set. Grades are locked. What moves players now is medical, not tape. Mayock read his board, flagged the tackle run, put a stake in the ground on Freeling, and left Tyson as the name to watch once the medical word lands.