The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Junior Colson.
Colson’s tape from 2022 and 2023 showed a good athlete with excellent size and length for the stacked LB position. He was more measured and methodical in his movement than natural explosive and was consistently effective making plays in the run game.
Colson did not play with a quick trigger or sudden burst but rather reacted efficiently to the run game as it played out. As a result, he made most of his tackles as a scrape-and-flow LB beyond the first level of the defense.
He was much more of a read-and-react LB than a dynamic playmaker, but he did show that he could use his hands and arms effectively to stack and shed and make tackles in the run game. That was a strength of his game throughout his tape.
Colson has excellent length for an off-the-ball, stacked LB. That consistently showed in his scrape-and-flow ability where he covered ground easily and, at times, effortlessly. There is no question he is an excellent tackler.
He has the length and athleticism to match up man-to-man on TEs. Overall, he was better as a man coverage defender than he was as an underneath zone coverage defender; he had some assignment and discipline issues.
My sense watching Colson’s tape was that he would transition to the NFL as an off-the-ball LB with stylistic similarities to players like Jordan Hicks, Germaine Pratt and Zaire Franklin, who are all solid NFL LB with high tackle totals but not necessarily impact playmakers.
Colson is one of the better LB prospects in the 2024 draft class, and I believe he will become a quality starter at a stacked LB relatively early in his career.
Colson came out of Tennessee as a four-star recruit and a top-100 prospect nationally. He became a starter at Michigan in his freshman season.
In 2022, Colson was predominantly a stacked LB, but there were also snaps when he was an overhang defender and bumped out just outside the formation.
Colson matched up man-to-man on detached running backs. He also matched up man-to-man on TEs. He was deployed as a blitzer, and there were also snaps when he was used as a looper on inside stunts. There were snaps in which he was the middle-hole defender in Cover 2.
In 2023, Colson was again predominantly a stacked LB but also had snaps on the ball, on the edge and over the slot, depending on the offensive formation and the defensive personnel and call. There were man coverage snaps in which Colson matched up to the TE and Cover 2 snaps in which he was the middle hole defender.
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