Discussion: Which 2024 NFL Draft prospect is the toughest to evaluate?

With just a few days until the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, analysts—both professional and amateur—are wrapping up their evaluations of this year’s class of players. The NFL Draft has become such a behemoth that nearly every football fan always has strong opinions on just about every prospect.

But sometimes it’s important to humble ourselves. If you’ve been a draft analyst for even just a year or two, chances are you’ve swung and missed hard on a prospect. That’s the nature of NFL Draft scouting. There are so many unknowns, so many unpredictable factors that lead to a player’s success or failure at the next level.

Sometimes it’s caused by injury or intangibles invisible on the tape. Sometimes it’s a lack of in-depth research. Sometimes a prospect reaches every bit of their full potential in a way no one could have predicted.

Looking at the 2024 NFL Draft class, there are plenty of prospects to love and have high resolve on. But today, I’d like to talk about the tough evaluations: the players that you may really like some things about, but question many others.

Today’s Question of the Day is:

Which 2024 NFL Draft prospect is the toughest to evaluate?

My answer: Chop Robinson, edge defender out of Penn State.

Robinson, who was Erik Schlitt’s pick for the Detroit Lions in our Community Mock Draft, has some tantalizing traits that could make him one of the biggest steals in the draft. Not everyone with an explosive first step and elite bend becomes franchise pass rushers, but the most successful pass rushers in the NFL have those qualities.

As Schlitt outlined in his argument, it’s rare to get a player with those physical skills that late in the first round, so it may be worth the risk.

What risk is that? Well, first is the lack of production. Robinson only had 4.0 sacks last year and only 5.5 the year prior to that. However, sack numbers can be misleading. If you go by PFF’s pass rush win rate, Robinson actually showed some of the elite production. His 20.9 win rate ranked 13th-best in all of college football last year. We laughed at people who criticized Aidan Hutchinson for his lack of sack production early in the 2023 season. Could we be falling into the same trap with Robinson?

But, then again, I look at his play and I see unrefined technique. His hand usage is inconsistent at best, his ability to set the edge as a run defender needs plenty of work, and every time I think about the Lions potentially drafting him, I go back to this film of him getting worked by Ohio State right tackle Dawand Jones—although it’s worth noting this was 2022.

You have to give NFL Draft prospects room to grow, and it’s unfair to judge a prospect based on a single game. But this is the challenge with a guy like Robinson. Personally, I think production concerns are a bit overstated (but not completely misguided), and I would also say that there are legitimate concerns on tape.

Of course, the thing that often goes unsaid when it comes to the draft is that often, a player’s success depends simply on what team drafts them. If they’ve got a supportive, innovative coaching staff that knows how to utilize their strengths, they could experience an entirely different career than landing with a team that tries to fit square pegs in round holes.

Could the Lions coaching staff—including their new, highly-respected defensive line coach Terrell Williams—mold Robinson’s game enough to make him a more well-rounded player while accentuating his pass-rushing traits? That’s an incredibly tough question to answer, which makes Chop Robinson my hardest prospect to evaluate.

Let’s hear yours. Scroll down to the comment section and let us know.