FanPost

NFL Draft: Under the Radar/Late Round Iowa Hawkeyes

As an Iowa fan, Josh Jackson is obviously a favorite as well as Josey Jewell and Akrum Wadley, but here are some more under-the-radar guys that will make a team or possibly be a starter after a couple of years:

1) James Daniels, center - junior who declared and who will most certainly need a year or two to adjust and get his strength boosted, but he will play in the NFL for a decade. Great kid, smart, able to pull as a center and make impressive reach blocks, and comes from Kirk Ferentz’s notoriously NFL-ready Iowa OL. He also got game experience/starting experience as a true freshman, something very rarely done at Iowa (Brian Bulaga, Green Bay’s long time tackle, was the last to do so IIRC). Perfect fit in an NFL ZBS for a team who has a guy that can hold down the fort for a year or two

2) Ben Niemann, OLB - he plays Iowa’s toughest position on defense IMO and the spot that produced guys like Chad Greenway, Christian Kirksey, and AJ Edds. For those who don’t know, it basically has to be 4th and 40 from midfield with 0:02 left on the clock for Iowa to get out of their base 4-3 defense (slight exaggeration), and Niemann was the Guy always covering the opposing slot receiver or TE. You’d think that this would lead to opponents exploiting this mismatch and him giving up a lot of yards/catches, but just the opposite occurred - he’s got one of the best PFF coverage grades for all college LBs (top 3, he may have been tops overall)! He’s OK in the run game and not a strong blitzer at all (that we know of at least, he rarely did so, but I doubt it’s in his skill set) and a bit undersized for the NFL, but for a late round LB who is great in coverage you can’t ask for much more. Late round guys are about flawed players who can do one thing very well, and Niemann is a great pass coverage as a LB. He’d also make a very good special teamer

3) Sean Welsh, guard - reminds me of a Matt Tobin or Julian Vandervelde, former Iowa guards who went undrafted or taken very late who never made a huge splash, but stuck around the league as a backup or lower-end starter for a number of years. I think Tobin was a Seahawk who filled in when injuries struck this past season. A late round prospect who may be a better gap scheme fit (OG evals aren’t my thing lol), there is value here and when in doubt, trust taking a flyer on a guy who started for Kirk Ferentz for multiple years

4) Ike Boettger, OT - lots of OL here, but to find Ike’s most recent game tape you’ll have to look back to 2016-2017’s season: Ike suffered an Achilles injury that kept him out of this past season. He was a nice looking prospect and as a HS TE who converted to tackle, he had a good base of athleticism to pair with good balance, good feet and decent power, but who knows what the injury meant to him. I’ve seen him listed by multiple ranking services, but as a 49er fan who suffered countless Baalke "ACL All Star" picks of players who were injured and never made it back, I’d be weary of taking him unless I was confident he has already recovered 100%. I mention him, though, because if he improved only slightly from his previous season and never got hurt, he likely would have been a 4th-7th round pick IMO

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