If the NFL Draft is a marathon, the league’s supplemental version is the 100-yard dash, an opportunity for all 32 teams to quickly say they are not interested in the small pool of prospects made available due to circumstances that affected their ability to be involved in the big boy back in April.
This year is a little different, however, thanks to the presence of a host of talented defensive backs led by Western Michigan’s Sam Beal, a slight but lengthy corner who could have developed into a potential first-round option with a solid season at the college level.
It’s been three years since any player was selected in the supplemental draft when the then-St. Louis Rams gave up their fifth-round pick in the 2016 draft in exchange for the ability to have offensive guard Isaiah Battle a little early. Before Battle, you have to go back six years to find Cleveland taking the troubled Josh Gordon with a second-round pick.
There have been some success stories in the supplemental over the years, most notably eventual Hall of Famer Cris Carter back in 1987, but those have been few and far between.
This year the supplemental draft is fast approaching on July 11 and there is little doubt at least one player is going to be selected — Beal. Add in Virginia Teach corner Adonis Alexander and it’s likely two players will be taken for the first time since 2010 when Chicago and Dallas felt it was a good idea to trade seventh-round picks for Harvey Unga and Josh Brent respectively.
And if Mississippi State DB Brandon Bryant, who has a late-round grade according to at least some personnel people GetMoreSports.com has spoken to, makes it a trifecta you are talking about the deepest supplemental draft pool in nearly 30 years since the famous 1989 version where three players — quarterbacks Steve Walsh and Timm Rosenbach along with running back Bobby Humphrey — were taken with first-round picks and a fourth, DB Brett Young, was an eighth-round selection (the draft was 12 rounds until 1993).
Part of the allure if this year’s group is the position and the reality of what the modern NFL is.
Everyone needs cornerbacks to stop the proliferation of spread offenses and you can never have enough bodies at that position so viable prospects tend to get pushed up the board at least a little bit in this environment.
By its nature defensive football is reactionary and with 11 personnel (three receivers and one running back) the default setting for the majority of the league, that has meant more bodies in the secondary when talking about 53-man rosters. Especially when you factor in the injuries that always pop up at a thoroughbred position where a 4.6 40 time is considered slow and soft-tissue injuries tend to mount. So five spots on the 53-man roster have turned to six on many NFL teams.
“Even the deepest teams in this league [at corner] are always looking for more,” a long-time NFL scout told GetMoreSports.com. “Beal is a kid who can probably be at least a sub-package guy pretty early in his career and that’s valuable.”
Alexander is not quite as polished or fast as Beal but at 6-foot-2, he’s even lengthier and that’s the kind of trait that NFL teams are looking for especially when a Julio Jones or Mike Evans is looming on the scheduled so the patience will be there for Alexander when he gets into a program.
Bryant, meanwhile, is more of an iffy prospect, likely a deep reserve with the versatility to play corner or safety in the secondary but will likely make or break his career in the league on special teams. That type of projection generally doesn’t bode well in the supplemental draft because teams would rather take their chances and try to win on the priority free agent front rather than give up the asset of a late-round pick next April.
It always only takes one, however, and the position itself helps so the opportunity is there for history because just under 20 teams — over half the league — thought Bryant was viable enough to attend his pro day earlier this week. Nearly the entire the league checked in on the top prospects Beal and Alexander.
Official pro day numbers for @WMU_Football CB Sam Beal:
Height: 6-0 7/8
Weight: 178 (187 in spring)
40: 4.47/4.55
Vertical: 37
Broad: 10-6
Short shuttle: 4.09
3-cone: 7.11
Bench: DNPHad very good workout. Expected to be highest sup draft pick since Josh Gordon in 2012.
— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) June 28, 2018
Official pro day workout results yesterday for @VT_Football CB Adonis Alexander:
Ht/wt: 6-2 1/4, 194
Hands/arms: 9/31
40: 4.62/4.63 (indoors/field turf)
VJ: 35.5
BJ: 10-4
SS: 4.38
3-cone: 7.19
Bench: 9Redskins DB coach Torrian Gray ran drills. Alexander had good workout.
— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) June 21, 2018
One fly in the ointment is that players in the supplemental draft usually have some kind of an issue whether it’s academic or off-the-field. Here it’s generally all academic with the exception of Alexander, who also had some marijuana issues, but that’s not exactly a dealbreaker unless you have a Randy Gregory-level addiction in a league where so many smoke.
Failing out of school can be a red flag when it comes to the ability to digest information but it could also be as simple as young people who understand what their career trajectory is and are disinterested in anything else so due diligence remains the biggest part of any draft — be in April or the scaled-back version here.
Beal should be in play with a third-round pick and will likely not fall out of the fourth while Alexander could go as high as Round 5 and the belief he will not fall out of the process and into undrafted free agency, making Bryant the wild card when measuring this supplemental draft against history.
One team told me they viewed Beal as 2nd-round pick had he been in 2018 draft, but that round likely to be lower in sup draft. Keep eye on teams with extra picks in Rounds 3-4 next year, including Browns (Round 3) and Bills (4). https://t.co/9OOBymQvDE
— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) June 28, 2018
“I could see seventh-round for him,” the scout said. “Someone is going to like [Bryant] enough to not want to risk competing with other teams [in free agency].”
