With training camp approaching, attention is being turned to each team’s top positional battles and some of the players most in danger of not making final roster cuts. While it is inevitable that a number of players, including notable names, suffer that fate in the build-up to the season, it is another matter when it happens to former top-five picks. 
Clelin Ferrell “might be on high alert” regarding his roster status, per ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez. The 2019 No. 4 overall pick has proven doubts over his draft stock to be well-founded. After a 4.5 sack rookie season, Ferrell has seen his playing time drop over the past two years. He didn’t register a start in 2021, playing only 24% of defensive snaps. The presence of not only classmate Maxx Crosby, but also Yannick Ngakoue, relegated him to a backup role.
Ngakoue has seen been replaced by Chandler Jones, so Ferrell is likely to once again be shut out of a starting spot on the edge. As a result, it will be interesting to see how far new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham takes the experiment of using Ferrell at defensive tackle throughout the remainder of the offseason. Significant playing time along the interior of the team’s d-line could help extend his career in Las Vegas, or generate a market for him elsewhere.
Just like fellow 2019 first-rounders Josh Jacobs and Johnathan Abram, Ferrell had his fifth-year option declined this offseason. That leaves him need of a much more productive season in 2022 than the three he has put together to date, as he moves towards free agency for the first time in his career. Before looking that far ahead, however, he needs to ensure he will have a roster spot come the fall – something which is in doubt to a far greater degree than many would have expected when he entered the league.
3 First round picks in 2019 and all 3 disappointed that’s hard to do.
Josh Jacobs made pro bowl in 2020 and has been decent. The other two definitely have disappointed though.
Jacobs hasn’t been a disappointment, but that speaks to the problem with taking a running back in the first round. There are many more valuable players they could have taken, and ones who would have surplus value in their fifth year options.
There are many cases of busts in which the pick either made sense at the time, or was at least a controversial one with risk. This one, however, never seemed rationale.
Even if Ferrell had panned out, he always projected to be a high-floor, low-ceiling run-first defender. You just don’t take those guys in the top 5
Much like his fellow first round disappointment, Solomon Thomas, Ferrell’s best move would have been to work inside for a year with the Raiders’ defensive line. Thomas was more natural at that position than Ferrell likely is, but it would have be his best shot to get on to the field. The problem remains though that Graham figures to run a 3-4 base, especially based on the types of players Vegas brought in at linebacker and defensive tackle.
Ferrell definitely doesn’t have the size to play inside in that alignment. I’m sure that Graham, who likes multiple alignments and used them in New England extensively, could find a use for an inside rushing Ferrell in pass rushing nickel sets, but the switch in the Raiders’ D probably leaves out any real role for Ferrell on the team.
I’m a glass half full kinda guy. Yes, they were all a reach at their draft position but if you flip the three of them with Maxx, Hunter and Mullen I think we’d all be happy with the draft.
I think all three of those guys have some level of nfl future unlike a lot of the other guys we e drafted recently.
Imagine how great their draft would be if they had those guys from the later rounds, but had just made their first round picks off the consensus big board. According to Arif Hassan’s consensus big board from that year, it would be Josh Allen, Cody Ford, and AJ Brown. Ford isn’t great shakes, but that would be an incredible haul with Renfrow and Crosby.
I personally think that Gruden handled rounds 1-3 of the draft and Mayock took care of the rest. Gruden would always talk about the top guys picked while Mayock would get technical on the later round picks, you know the ones that are finding success.
That would certainly explain a lot.
How are the games in Vegas? Do they still have a black hole? Did they move the eternal flame and mount Davis from oaktown
The rare instance where pretty much everyone agreed at the time that Ferrell was picked way too early, and also the rare instance where everyone has been right.
BUST
Never understood how Mayock was considered a draft guru.