The VFL should go in the draft\u2019s first three rounds, but one notable draft pundit thinks Brazzell will prove a lot of folks wrong and outperform where he is selected.<\/p>\n
Tennessee WR Chris Brazzell has been a bit of a draft enigma among the pundits and mock draft producers over the last few months.<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s zero doubt the physical attributes are jumping off the page at evaluators. Brazzell dropped jaws at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis<\/a> back at the end of February when he blazed a 4.37 40-yard dash with a 1.52 second 10-yard split at 6-4, 198 pounds.<\/p>\n But Brazzell hasn\u2019t gotten the love that lead-pipe lock first round picks Carnell Tate<\/a>, Jordyn Tyson<\/a>, and Makai Lemon<\/a> have gotten, among other WR prospects.<\/p>\n ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper, Jr. says beware to those who overlook Brazzell in the draft this year. Kiper believes Brazzell will go on Day 2 of the draft (Rounds 2 and 3), but listed him as one of two wide receivers (along with Georgia\u2019s Zacharius Branch) who will outperform his draft spot this year.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n ESPN\u2019s Mel Kiper, Jr. says Tennessee WR Chris Brazzell II will outperform likely Day 2 draft spot<\/p>\n \u201cBrazzell might come off the board slightly after Branch \u2014 think late Round 2 or sometime during Round 3,\u201d Kiper wrote<\/a>. \u201cBut he has all the traits coaches want. He\u2019s 6-foot-4 and 198 pounds. He runs a 4.37-second 40. He has a wide catch radius and knows how to adjust to poorly thrown balls to still make the grab. And the stats spell out all that: Brazzell caught 62 passes for 1,017 yards and nine TDs last season, averaging 16.4 yards per reception.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiper isn\u2019t the only one who\u2019s sung Brazzell\u2019s praises among notable draft pundits. Todd McShay was smitten with Brazzell\u2019s route running ability<\/a> when he looked back on his performance in the Vols\u2019 44-41 overtime loss to the Georgia Bulldogs<\/a> last season. Brazzell finished with six catches for 177 yards and three touchdowns.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n “The next knock is gonna be, \u2018but he only ran nine routes’ (verticals),\u201d McShay said. \u201cThere’s one – I think it’s against Georgia – there’s an out route that he runs against Georgia, and everyone is like, there’s the two-hand top catches that he takes for touchdowns, and everyone’s going to focus on that in their highlight packages for the NFL Draft.<\/p>\n “The route that he ran, an out route on the right side when he kind of turned the defender around and absolutely obliterated him and ankles’d him, as the kids would say, with his ability to just stop, dime, corner on rail. No wasted motion. No gearing down. You just don’t see many guys do that.”<\/p>\n We\u2019ll find out Brazzell\u2019s new football home soon enough, as the NFL Draft gets underway on Thursday night in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The VFL should go in the draft\u2019s first three rounds, but one notable draft pundit thinks Brazzell will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,123563,226907,1215,934,147338,157200,284726,593,85,973],"class_list":{"0":"post-618146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-carnell-tate","11":"tag-chris-brazzell","12":"tag-georgia-bulldogs","13":"tag-indianapolis","14":"tag-jordyn-tyson","15":"tag-makai-lemon","16":"tag-mel-kiper","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tennessee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}