PFF Picks Best Day 2 and Day 3 NFL Draft Fits for Packers
Moving beyond the first round, Pro Football Focus pinpointed a safety and defensive lineman who could be good fits.
GREEN BAY, Wis. – In golf, the saying is “Drive for show and putt for dough.” In the NFL, first-round picks are comparable to driving the ball off the tee and the Day 2 picks are akin to rolling the ball into the hole.
To that end, Pro Football Focus selected its best Day 2 and Day 3 picks for the 2024 NFL Draft.
For the Green Bay Packers in Day 2, the choice was Texas Tech safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson. The Packers need a complementary safety to their big free-agent addition, Xavier McKinney.
“Taylor-Demerson would add versatility and aggression,” Dalton Wasserman wrote. “Taylor-Demerson pinballs around the field, making huge hits and plays on the ball. He also has natural man coverage ability in the slot that would make him incredibly valuable in a single-high defense.”
He is a bit undersized at 5-foot-10 3/8 and 197 pounds. However, the man they call “Rabbit” ran his 40 in 4.41 seconds, had a 38-inch vertical leap and posted a Relative Athletic Score of 8.10.
Taylor-Demerson was a star running back in high school – he ran for 4,611 yards for back-to-back-to-back Oklahoma state champions – who landed at Tech as a safety. That was a foreign position, but he quickly thrived.
He started 37 games over five seasons and provided really strong ball production. He delivered three interceptions and 13 passes defensed in 2021, three interceptions, eight passes defensed and two forced fumbles in 2022 and four interceptions and 12 passes defensed in 2023.
Lack of size will impact his tackling, though he chopped his missed-tackle count from 18 in 2022 to nine in 2023.
“My athletic ability is just as good as everybody else here, but my IQ about the game, I’m a defensive coordinator on the football field and I can get all 10 guys lined up on the football field,” Taylor-Demerson told Lone Star Live.
“Size doesn’t even matter in this league. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes. The most vicious ones might be the smallest ones sometimes.”
In Day 3, the choice was Miami defensive tackle Leonard Taylor III.
Not long after the 2023 NFL Draft wrapped up, PFF produced a first-round mock for the 2024 draft. Taylor went No. 17 overall because his pass-rush win rate ranked second in the nation among interior defensive linemen.
However, Taylor went from three sacks and a team-leading 10.5 tackles for losses in 2022 to one sack and 3.5 tackles for losses in 2023. The raw numbers are disappointing but he still ranked eighth in the draft class among interior defenders in pass-rush win rate.
At 6-foot-3 3/4 and 303 pounds, he’s got 33 7/8-inch arms and 5.12 speed in the 40. That’s a strong skill-set. It will be up to his NFL position coach to bring it all together.
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