That's pretty impressive. Well, he can be one pick we'll be disappointed that BB didn't take.
Well, for me, the disappointment would be minor relative to the disappointment of BB not taking a 1st round DE at all, whoever it ends up being.
Looking back, it seems to me that there are more elite, 1st-round-worthy DE prospects in this draft then in any of the three previous drafts - maybe even more than the three previous drafts combined. My hypothesis is that this is why BB preferred the 2011 pick from Oakland for Seymour to any 2010 pick.
Anyway, from close-up, it's very easy to get lost in the details of one prospect compared to another. However, from a conceptual distance, a lot of them look equally good: elite athletically, strong/quick/fast within a fairly narrow range at the upper end of the spectrum, etc. And all of them have roughly the same "distance" to travel from their college experience to become a DE in BB's 3-4. Most all of them are coming from more or less attacking, one-gap systems. Virtually all of them have made their bones "diving headlong into gaps with their hair on fire" as another poster put it. Virtually all of them have, by the design of their college systems, been less concerned with the run than with getting to the QB. So, really, the style of play they've inhabited in college and what they've accomplished individually in terms of racking up stat numbers is pretty equal across the board in that it doesn't matter all that much.
So, the differences that might be important to BB could include, not necessarily in this order,
- length (BB's history with early round DE's for his 3-4 shows a distinct preference for guys who are 6'5"+)
- heft (or, at least, the frame to handle 300+)
- hand technique
- ball location awareness
- assignment discipline
- football smarts
- attitude, coachability
- a whole bunch of other things under the heading "Intangibles"
Getting back to my original point, everybody is going to have their binkies from among this selection of candidates and most are going to be disappointed when "their guy" isn't the one selected. But, whoever BB picks should help restore his 3-4 line to a state much closer to what it was in the Seymour/Wilfork/Warren days than it is now. In all likelihood, the guy won't be "the next Seymour", but he'll work. And the results in run defense and QB pressure will be significant.
Like I said, the only real disappoint for me would be if BB takes a pass on all these DE prospects in the first (or even 2nd) round.