Every year banners go up around downtown Indianapolis with pictures of the draft class’s biggest prospects ahead of the scouting combine. One year, it was Jadeveon Clowney; a few years later, it was Myles Garrett—the sort of create-a-player types who embody, maybe even more so than the headlining quarterbacks, what this particular week in the Midwest is about.
But in 2023? Good luck finding them.
“I think one of the themes is there’s a lot of exceptions in this draft, like undersized players or guys that don’t check every box,” said NFL Network draft analyst and former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah early Sunday morning. “There’s a boatload of intriguing players, but there are very few Patrick Surtains, Sauce Gardners, Trevor Lawrences, Joe Burrows. There’s just not the slam-dunk guys that I thought we’ve had over the last few years.”
