Someone with more draft understanding than me please help answer this question: How did Mitchell go undrafted?
His athleticism is elite, he has incredible speed and balance. He has a very strong understanding of run concepts (I’m consistently impressed with his ability to weave through traffic and find the hole in tiny spaces), and he had great college production. Teammates seem to love him and he has NFL bloodlines. The only knock I can see is his size and he went to ECU (although they have turned out stud NFL players in the past, too).
I just don’t see how his size and small school status could negate the speed, athleticism, and run ability. No one didn’t think he was the best pick available in the late rounds?
It’s a multitude of factors:
- Devaluation of the RB position
- Small school product
- Team needs (most teams don’t need to draft a RB in a draft due to the abundance of talent currently on their roster or in FA)
- His weight limits his upside as a 3-down back
I’m sure someone considered drafting him but the way they had their team needs and their board set up, he slipped through the cracks. It happens.
Tom Brady was a sixth round pick.
A lot happens in the draft that doesn’t make sense.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Well let’s talk about what he isn’t good at.
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He delivers nearly nothing in pass protection and probably never will, so when he’s on the field you know it’s a handoff or he’s running a route.
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He doesn’t have good hands for pass catching, as we’ve already seen.
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He’s so diminutive that he really isn’t useful in short yardage situations. Remember on 4th and inches on Sunday when Hill got it on the second effort? Mitchell doesn’t have a second effort. If you get two hands on him, he’s tackled.
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He preformed admirably at ECU but he also wasn’t being chased by any future NFL players.
He’s really, really good at a very narrow set of skills, and doesn’t bring much else.
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Some undrafted players just have unseen talent by NFL scouts until they perform he definitely may be one of them it seems.