The 2020 NFL season is not quite complete yet, with only the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to play – no Buckeyes in one. But for most teams, the season came to an end. This means that the focus for next year is going in the direction of construction, and although the free agency has yet to take place, the biggest source of roster construction is for the NFL concept.
During the last few weeks since the college football season ended, qualifying players have decided to sign up for the NFL draft this spring or return to school for another season. A number of Ohio State players have opted to move to the NFL after productive careers in Columbus, meaning it still needs to be a talented class of Buckeyes from which teams can choose.
Although we will only know the final draft order after the Super Bowl in early February and that the needs of the teams will change to some extent in the coming months before the draft, there is enough information to start diving into mockery. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Mel Kiper announced his first projections for the first round of the draft and there are some surprises from a Scarlet and Gray perspective.
The first is that Kiper has the former quarterback of the State of Ohio Justin Fields, who has long been thought of as the second best fullback in the draft, and falls No. 7 for the Detroit Lions. In the Kiper cartoon, Fields is the third quarter of the board, following Clemson Trevor Lawrence (Number 1 overall for the Jacksonville Jaguars) and BYUs Zach Wilson (Number 4 overall to the Atlanta Falcons).
Here’s what Kiper wrote about Fields and the choice after giving “a slight lead for Wilson for now “:
Things are changing fast in the NFL. Before the Saturday news that the Lions will trade quarterback Matthew Stafford this off-season, I would have said they should keep Stafford and try to help him with a wide receiver in this draft. Alabama’s Jaylen waggel would have been appropriate here. But instead it appears that the new general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell will go all-in on a rebuild, and so Fields could be the face of it. He had an up-and-down season, but we saw the flashes of his talent, especially in his six touchdown against Clemson in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff. Fields has superstar potential, but he will need help around him. Detroit will have to find out what it does with free agent distribution Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones Jr. and ensure that Fields has the chance to succeed in Year 1.
The odd narrative that Fields had “an up-and-down season” is continued by Kiper in this mocking concept, and perhaps some NFL GMs and head coaches agree. But Fields has had at least 300 yards of offense this season and a minimum of three touchdowns in every game in the regular season. Then there was also the record-breaking playoffs, to which Kiper referred, followed by a mediocre national championship game against Alabama, where an injured Fields still had 261 yards offense.
The games that, according to some, were ‘off’ were the Indiana game and the Northwestern achievement. While Fields did throw three distinctions against a Hoosiers defense that finished second in the country to force the opponent of the ball to throw the ball to them, he also threw for 300 yards, had 78 running yards and a total of three times. Against the Northwestern part of the Big Ten Championship game, Fields was not only 114 passing yards and two distinctions, but he was without his best wide receiver in Chris Olave against a top-20 defense.
If NFL teams look at Fields’ two years in the state of Ohio and do not believe he is one of the top two fullbacks, it’s up to them. But it’s hard to imagine a player having 5,701 passing yards and 67 touchdowns to nine interceptions in his college career while playing in the SEC and the Big Ten and appearing in two College Football Playoffs, where he performed well and fell outside the top five.
The other weird thing about Kiper’s first mockery is that Fields is the only Buckeye he has off the board in the first round. The most important part here is former Scarlet and Gray guard Wyatt Davis, who was a unanimous All-American in 2020. Instead, Kiper had five other offensive lineouts selected in the first round, and none achieved as much as Davis did with the state of Ohio.
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A lot will change before the NFL draft starts in late April, but it’s strange to see players who helped the Buckeyes reach the national championship get such love early in the process.