Too Deep 96 #66-76: Massive Mountains of Man Meat

First Miami TE Elijah Arroyo, then lots of Hog Mollies and toolsy edge rushers. It's that kind of draft, folks.

The Too Deep 96 is profiling potential third-rounders already? Where does the time go? This installment is heavy on defensive players, because this draft is heavy on defensive players. But we kick things off with a Senior Bowl standout on offense.

#66 Elijah Arroyo, Tight End, Miami

Arroyo is the reason draft-curious NFL analysts like me make the pilgrimage to Mobile every January.

Arroyo was on the draft radar before the Senior Bowl, but he was just a name on a roster to folks who don’t live and breathe college football or year-round scouting minutiae. He was Cam Ward’s fifth-favorite target for the Hurricanes. He lost his 2022 and 2023 seasons to a torn left ACL. He didn’t have the wow factor of Tyler Warren or the long, glittery career of Colston Loveland.

But Arroyo tore up the field in Senior Bowl practices. He was a step faster than everyone trying to cover him, and he made a variety of over-the-shoulder deep catches. Arroyo, who was clocked at 21.8 miles per hour by GPS trackers during the season, explained to reporters in Mobile that he is much faster now than he was when he entered college. “After my injuries, I feel like I was able to really work on my running mechanics,” he said. “And I feel like this past year I've been a lot faster than I was in the past.”

Arroyo’s speed is evident on film: he gets up on deep safeties in a hurry and can turn a short slant into a touchdown. He’s also a sturdy-enough 250-pound blocker who doesn’t whiff or get pushed around. Arroyo blocked on 264 snaps when lined up as a conventional tight end or H-Back, so he’s not a glorified slot receiver or a Madden Create-a-Player who happened to end up like some tight end prospects. (Giving Tyler Warren the side-eye.)

Arroyo reminds me enough of ultra-tools monsters like Albert Okwuegbunam and Eric Ebron to temper my gushing a bit. Arroyo has 46 career receptions, and a handful of eye-popping Senior Bowl practice reps don’t automatically transform a Day Three prospect into an All Pro. But I love Arroyo’s size-speed profile and ability to cut it as an in-line blocker. And Arroyo could be one of those guys Senior Bowl practice junkies talk about for years and years.

Quote of Note: Arroyo’s self-scouting report, from Senior Bowl week: “I'm 6'4", 250. I'm dominating in the run game, I create vertical presence. When I'm out there in the pass game, if you put me in a 12 personnel, you can't just think we're going to run the ball the whole time. You can spread me out with that big personnel and have me go cook.”

#67 Oluwafemi Oladejo, Edge Rusher, UCLA

Oladejo is Diet Abdul Carter. He started his college career as an off-ball linebacker at Cal. He portalled to UCLA, then gradually slid from linebacker to the edge; he still lined up off the ball sometimes in 2024.

Oladejo was sometimes the only thing the Bruins defense had going for it last year. He loves initiating contact and can get around the edge. He also has a nifty inside move and some other tricks up his sleeve. He’s a solid point-of-attack run defender. And he has a linebacker’s play-recognition skills, making him a capable stay-at-home defender on misdirection plays.

Oladejo would have been a “sleeper” 20 years ago because of his position change and the fact that UCLA got the tar beaten out of them last year. Now he’s more of the “draftnik binkie” type. Fair enough. I dig him. He could develop into a George Karlaftis type who handles his assignments well and works for his sacks.

#68 Bradyn Swinson, Edge, LSU

If you think “arm length” is just one of those measurements that obsessive draft nerds get jazzed about, then you need to watch some Swinson highlights, then contrast them with Michigan edge Josiah Stewart’s highlights.

Stewart, who we will get to in a moment, is an aggressive pass rusher but a bit of a short king. To reach the quarterback, he must actually reach the quarterback. Swinson, meanwhile, can use his arms like butterfly nets to swat the quarterback from a distance or pull a ballcarrier down from behind. It’s not unusual to see Swinson blocked well wide of the quarterback, only to reach in and impact the throw on his second effort.

Swinson’s entire game is speed, length and tenacity. He’s not much of a technical pass rusher, and can get knocked around on run defense. Still, after re-watching some LSU tape during editing, I fear that I have ranked him too low. (Perhaps I can move him to 51.) Some NFL team will fall in lust with his traits and draft him among the Top 40. And I cannot say that I would blame them. The potential that Swinson becomes a double-digit sack specialist is small, but it’s there.

#69 Josh Conerly Jr., Offensive Tackle, Oregon

Abdul Carter is so awesome that this year’s offensive line prospects get bonus credit just for surviving him.

Carter registered six pressures against Oregon in the B1G Championship. Conerly allowed most of them. But Conerly displayed quick sets and a strong initial punch against Carter, stymieing him many times and slowing him down a few others. Carter still forced Conerly to hook his left arm and took him for some rides straight toward Dillon Gabriel, but Conerly covered the spread from a scouting standpoint.

Conerly looked better against mere mortals like the Ohio State and Washington pass rushers. He’s a size/quickness/fundamentals prospect who turned 21 last November. He gets driven backwards too readily, but he rarely gets flat-out beaten, and he handles stunts well.

In a draft class light on tackle prospects, a 6-foot-5 guy who wasn’t used as a traffic cone by Carter is a Day Two pick.

#70 Joshua Farmer, Defensive Tackle, Florida State

Farmer’s father died from complications after botched stomach surgery – a medical instrument was left inside his body – when Farmer was just two years old. His mother died when he was 11. Curt Weiler of the Tallahassee Democrat told the heartbreaking story in 2021:

"She came home at night and she said her head was hurting. She asked me and my sister (Jazmyne) to help her up, she wasn't feeling good and she hit the floor," Joshua said.

"We had to call our older sister to come help us. My older sister and my brother, they were in the room, they had to come help us. We called the ambulance, but it was taking too long so we got our car, put her in there and took her to the hospital."

At the hospital in Apalachicola, Pauline was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm that had caused bleeding in her brain. The family was told that she needed to be transported to Bay Medical Center in Panama City in order to provide her the extreme medical attention she required.

Before she was transported, medical staff gave the family a brief period of time to see her, although she was unresponsive.

Joshua's older brother, Tyler, remembers him -- old enough to understand the situation but not entirely so -- shaking his mother and yelling, "Mama, wake up."

Pauline entered a coma in the wake of the aneurysm and died a few days later on Aug. 21, 2014.

"There were seven of us from ages 11 to 26..." Farmer recalls.

"We just stuck together."

Farmer was raised by his grandparents and by his much-older siblings. Football became an outlet for him, and he grew from a pudgy high school linebacker to a defensive lineman with an offer from Florida State. He earned Freshman of the Year status in 2022 and Most Improved Defensive Player in 2023, then finally All-ACC Honorable Mention in 2024.

Farmer is a keg-shaped defender who usually lined up in the 0 or 1-technique. (A pure nose tackle, essentially.) His film is inconsistent. His highlights show someone timing the snap, bursting in his first two steps, staying low and beating his blockers with leverage, positioning and a punch-and-pull move. But when Farmer doesn’t win the race and stay low out of his stance, he’s just a guy.

Farmer has some upside if an NFL coach can get him to mind his fundamentals more consistently. As it stands, he can be a serviceable starting nose tackle or a quality rotation piece.

#71 Josaiah Stewart, Edge Rusher, Michigan

Stewart looked like a Top 15 pick in last season’s USC game. He recorded eight pressures, a sack and a forced fumble that bounced to tractor-trailer-sized teammate Kenneth Grant, who rumbled a few yards before fumbling it back.

The rest of Stewart’s 2024 film and stat lines, however, are not up to the caliber of that USC game.

Stewart is a stubby, stocky edge rusher with exceptional acceleration off the line, a snarling desire to chase the football until the echo of the whistle, and little else. He was a great complement to Grant and Mason Graham, who left quarterbacks with no pocket to step into. He wasn’t asked to line up anywhere but the Wide-9 spot or thereabouts. He dropped into flat coverage now and then, but if he tried to do much more than turn the corner as a pass rusher, he usually ended up blocked.

Stewart will play in the NFL for a long time due to his quickness and grrrrrrr. He’s unlikely to ever be a star but could end up notching two-sack games now and then when he gets matched up against some team’s poor backup left tackle.

#72 Alfred Collins, Defensive Tackle, Texas

Collins tied Michigan’s Kenneth Grant with six batted/deflected passes, the most in the nation for a defensive tackle (per Sports Info Solutions).

Collins plays defensive tackle a little like a basketball center in a 2-3 zone. He’s the stay-at-home guy to defend screen passes and a big barricade in the middle of the field to dissuade scrambles. His lone sack and handful of open-field run stuffs boil down to Collins extending his body and falling on the ballcarrier like a dead oak tree.

Collins is similar to Kentucky’s Deone Walker. Both are humongous but struggle with leverage and can be surprisingly easy to block at times. Collins wears his 330 pounds better, but Walker is far quicker and more likely to have an impact as a pass rusher.

Collins may max out as a 30-snap early-down plugger in the NFL, but his sheer massiveness and shot-blocking potential make him interesting.

#73 Aireontae Ersery, Offensive Tackle, Minnesota

Ersery is a three-year starter at left tackle in the B1G who is built like a 330-pound sack of cement. He’s a steam shovel of a run blocker, moves relatively well, sets quickly in pass protection and has a by-any-means-necessary approach to blocking the likes of Abdul Carter or Josiah Stewart.

Ersery ducks his head and loses balance at times and needs Waze to find targets on the second level, but his strength-experience combination makes Ersery worth a third-round look. At worst he’ll be a meaty four-position backup, but he could develop into a starting left tackle in one of the NFL’s more run-heavy systems.

#74 Smael Mondon, Linebacker, Georgia

Mondon is a former five-star recruit with a history of foot injuries. He played through one in 2023, missing two games (including the Orange Bowl). He had foot surgery in the spring of 2024 missed and four games of that season.

Pass coverage is Mondon’s greatest strength. He played 170 snaps in coverage in 2024 but was only targeted eight times, allowing four catches for 35 yards. Mondon often turned and ran in man coverage with tight ends and was able to stick with them in the open field.

Mondon also does a fine job attacking vertically. He shoots gaps well and does a fine job shedding blocks. He looked good as a blitzer, though it’s easy to look good as a blitzer when Kirby Smart is sending five-star recruits from every direction.

Foot injuries can be a recurring problem, and Mondon’s injuries impacted his playing time and production. He has the coverage chops of a nickel-package linebacker. His pedigree suggests a high upside, but I hate basing a draft profile on recruiting stars and the program he played for.

#75 Wyatt Milum, Offensive Tackle, West Virginia

Milum is another B1G left tackle who earned an I SURVIVED ABDUL CARTER tee-shirt. Carter recorded just two pressures against the Mountaineers, though he was not on the field much in a game that quickly became a blowout. Milum wrestled Carter to the turf a few times early in that game. Holding? Not in college. And holding is better than whiffing.

Milum looks better against mere mortals. He’s a three-year starter with so-so athleticism, but he’s strong and likes to initiate contact with his defender. The Mountaineers ran lots of counters and misdirection plays that tasked Milum with pulling and/or blocking on the move. He’s not all that speedy on the hoof, but he shoved linebackers and skinny edge rushers into the bleachers when he got his mitts on them.

To echo a refrain heard throughout the Too Deep 96: this offensive line class is thin, so anyone who could conceivably start at left tackle in the NFL is worth a longer look.

#76 Demetrius Knight II, Linebacker, South Carolina

Demetrius Knight II has been in college for so long that he started out as Demetrius Knight I. [Rimshot.] He turned 25 in January. He’s married with two kids. He’s a distant relative of Gladys Knight, though he’s not quite old enough to be a Pip.

Georgia Tech recruited Knight to be a quarterback in 2019. Paul Johnson gave way to Geoff Collins as the Yellowjackets’ coach, and Knight moved to linebacker. Then, briefly, back to quarterback. Then back to linebacker permanently. Really, though, he was little more than a special teamer from 2019 through 2022.

Knight portalled to Charlotte University when Collins left, earned a starting job at linebacker, then portalled again to the Gamecocks.

If that brief biography leaves you with questions – besides wait, he’s related to Gladys Knight? – then you are not alone. There are lots of glowing features about Knight’s potential in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other sources from his four years at Georgia Tech. But he rarely played, even though the program needed the help. It sounds like Knight spent many years as an athlete-without-a-real-position before achieving man-among-boys status in the American Conference and parlaying that to one solid age-24 season in the SEC.

The 2024 Knight film shows a well-built, 235-pound, fundamentally-sound off-ball linebacker. Knight is a finished product who can locate the football and strafe to it. He’s a thumper between the tackles who can shoot a gap. He keeps the play in front of him in underneath coverage and makes clean open-field tackles.

Knight had a run of strong games against Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas A&M when he recorded 26 combined tackles, five of them for a loss. He looked, in those games, like the proverbial “quarterback of the defense.”

If Knight were about to turn 22, I would be excited by his tape. But I think he’s maxed out at 25 as a Mike or Sam linebacker with just enough speed and explosiveness to get by at the NFL level. He reminds me a bit of Daiyan Henley, an overaged prospect from 2023 who has turned into a solid starter for the Chargers, but Knight is only six weeks younger than Henley.

Quote of Note: “I know the mind of a quarterback. At heart, I technically am one. When I play video games, I live out my dreams there. I’ve taken everything I know from the quarterback position … to linebacker. So I’m like, ‘OK, I know what he’s doing here.’” – Knight, via Hunter Bailey of the Charlotte Observer, in August 2023.

Let’s wrap with Demetrius’ cousin singing about Howie Roseman’s predraft travel itinerary: