Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Wolverine Wednesday: Is Michigan DE U Now?

Yahoo.com

Has Michigan Football become the program where the NFL goes to find quality Defensive Ends in the NFL Draft? With Hutch likely the #1 draft pick, I wanted to look at how many DE's have been drafted into the NFL recently. 

Between 1985 and 2014 here are the Wolverines that were drafted at DE:

1985 Kevin Brooks to Dallas Cowboys Round 1 

1992 Mike Evans to KC Chiefs Round 4 

That is not many players and Mike ended up being a really good WR 😀.

How about from 2015 to this year's draft?

2015 Frank Clark to Seattle Seahawks Round 2 

2017 Taco Charlton to Dallas Cowboys Round 1 

2017 Chris Wormley to Baltimore Ravens Round 3 

2019 Rashan Gary to Green Bay Packers Round 1

2019 Chase Winovich to New England Patriots Round 3

2020 Mike Danna to Kansas City Chiefs Round 5 

2021 Kwity Paye to Indianapolis Colts Round 1 

2022 Aidan Hutchinson to ?

2022 David Ojabo to ?

For nearly 30 years (1985-2014), Michigan had 2 DE's drafted.  In the last 7 years, Michigan will have had 9 drafted.

Even though Frank has had his issues off the field, he has had a good career in Seattle and in KC.  Taco has struggled to find a home in the NFL and was drafted too high.  Worm I consider more of a DT but has been with both the Ravens and now the Steelers, he is a solid NFL player.   Gary has really turned the corner and is close to becoming one of the better DE's in the league. Chase seemed to be in the wrong scheme in New England and just got traded to Cleveland where he should get plenty of opportunities with Garrett on the other side.   Danna has turned himself into an NFL player and started some this past year.   Kwity was a bit up and down his rookie year and also had some injuries.    

That is a pretty quality grouping with only Taco being the outlier.   On the other hand, it wasn't his fault he was drafted too high.  It seems the Cowboys got drunk off his highlight film and didn't watch his full games at Michigan.  

To answer the question: Yes, Michigan is DE U now! (Not to be confused with Delaware)

3 comments:

Chowman said...

Article is a little bit disingenuous. To be a DE school, or any position school, I argue its value over volume, i.e. elite talent over just guys. Any major football program is going to have "guys" drafted into the NFL. But from the 3rd round on, that's all those players end up being "guys", rotational pieces. Hutch has a chance to be the 1st elite DL to go to the league from UofM. Some might argue Gary, but to honest, he was more sizzle than steak, and that's pretty much followed him to GB, as in many games he's just MEH. I really didn't get the Paye hype either. I watched a couple of Colts games and it wasn't until the 3rd or 4th qtr that I remember they drafted him cause that was the 1st time his name was mentioned. Frank Clark probably deserved to be a 1st rd pick, but he slid due to character issues when the NFL used to pretend that kind of thing mattered. Now if you want to call any school a DE school, you'd have to consider OSU with the Bosas and Young all going in top of the draft. Know this will probably rub my fellow UofM fans the wrong way, but sorry if the truth hurts.

Blue In Ohio said...

You are a talent assessing novice...keep your day job

Unknown said...

What happened to Brandon Graham?