Auburn Football: Derrick Brown may be most underrated NFL draft prospect

After a terrific 2019 season and career with Auburn football, Derrick Brown looks transition his dominance to the next level.

Derrick Brown is the exact definition of a mountain of a man. At 6-foot-5 and 330 pounds, he used his mammoth size to wreak havoc on the entire SEC. He was one of the most disruptive interior linemen that I’ve seen since Ndamukong Suh in 2009 and that’s why he is one of the top prospects in the upcoming draft.

However, it seems like Brown is flying a little under the radar and I believe that is due to two unfortunate things. One, he is in the same draft as Chase Young and two, the quarterbacks.

Brown is an elite prospect, but Young is in a class entirely on his own and quarterback is the most important position on a football team. He showed up to the NFL combine with nothing left to prove, but I can tell you as someone who was there, he solidified himself as one of the top picks in the draft. Brown ran the 40 in 5.16 seconds, had 28 bench reps and a vertical jump of 27 inches. For a man of his size, those numbers are very solid and while they may not have helped his draft stock, it did not seem to hurt him either.

Brown is one of those rare four-year prospects and I think that more prospects should take notes from him because while he was already a first-round lock heading into this season — he vaulted himself into the top 10 with a spectacular senior season.

Though he played rarely as a freshman in 2016 after being a highly-prized recruit out of the state of Georgia. However in his sophomore season in 2017, he started to show his flashes of talent with 56 tackles and 2.5 sacks and two forced fumbles. He kept improving and in his junior season in 2018 he improved his sack total to 4.5 and was a weekly disruptor in the SEC and was someone that teams would have to game plan around and was just an absolute game wrecker.

Most expected Brown to declare for the NFL draft after his junior season but he shocked the football world and returned for another year on the plains and turned in yet another dominant performance with 55 tackles, four sacks and four pass deflections.

Let’s take a look at Brown’s strengths and weaknesses heading into the draft and give a projection on where he will be selected.

Strengths

Brown possesses rare athleticism for a guy his size and that causes him to beat single blocks and double-teams with ease. He can affect a game plan in more than one way and he is a disruptive force in the interior, bringing pressure and getting pass deflections and he flashed his athleticism by getting out to take down players running screens.

He is an athletic specimen for a man that size and that is what NFL teams covet from defensive linemen nowadays and he plays with great instincts and can win with a variety of pass rushing moves, both finesse and with a powerful bull rush.

Moreover, he’s versatile enough to play a nose tackle, 3-tech or even a 5-tech and that’s very appealing to NFL teams.

Weaknesses

I have to be quite honest with everyone, I had to sleep on this and try to come up with something to write. Brown is just that good and I don’t think that he has any glaring weaknesses. If I had to nitpick a little bit, though, I would have to question if NFL teams would want him to get his size down a little bit so they could try to move him around a little more and if he can maintain his athleticism at that size. Yeah, thats all that I have.

Draft Projection

I think that Brown is a top five talent, but I don’t think he will go that high because of reasons that I mentioned above. The top three picks seemed to be locked in at this point and I think the highest that Brown could go is No. 7 to the Panthers, but I don’t think that he falls past the Raiders at 12.

Projection: Early-to-mid first round