chase thomas

Chase Thomas was one of the 1st guys that I took a comprehensive look at back in early January, and I've actually thought about whether he could play inside in our scheme. He is clearly a very smart, savvy player whose brain puts him in the right position to make plays most of the time. However, I think he's pretty slow and limited in change of direction ability. While that can certainly be overcome to a fair degree by his smarts, I think he has limited athletic upside for any position. my reason is based 100% on my own watching of film, and I know that I am on a different page from most of the online draft pundits on my assessment of him. I watched a bunch of his games, and focused on the plays where his smarts didn't have him in the right position right after the snap, and on those plays I saw very limited quickness and recovery speed. That said, I do think he can do it, but I'm not sure that he will ever be the kind of guy that you plug in for 5+ years and say "we're all set." I see him being more of a rotational guy who can play outside or inside in a pinch, and I would place a solid 4th round value grade on him for that kind of role. That's my take, but I know I am in the minority (at least so far). It will be very interesting to see where he goes, and whether NFL teams see him the way that I do. I think he will go somewhere between pick 100 and 150 when draft day rolls around, and at that point in the draft I think he provides good value.

 

So Mac, after typing my response I went back and watched a couple of the 2012 Stanford games on youtube that highlight Thomas on (presumably) all of his snaps. I may have graded him a bit tough, but I still think that he has some athletic limitations. It's probably because when I graded him he was being mentioned as a mid 1st round prospect that we would need to take with Pick #17 to get. I think he's too limited for that high a pick. However, based on the two 2012 games that I watched (2012 Pac 12 championship and Notre Dame) I do think he has pretty good value in the 50-100 range. However, I have to say that I like him better outside than inside. To me he looks best attacking the edge, although I see enough good play on his snaps where he played inside to suggest that he could step into Foote's role quite adequately. It was a little bit tough to fully judge his play against ND because they kept on trying to block him with a stiff backup TE who had no business taking on a player like Thomas. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I think he can do it, but I still like him better on the outside - and not in R1, and probably not in R2 either (depending on who else is there). After that point, or if a lot of guys who fit our needs go before our 2nd pick, then yeah I'd be good grabbing him.