NFL Draft: Ranking the 5 most underrated prospects for 2018
By Peter Panacy
Niner Noise takes a look at the 2018 NFL Draft and breaks down the five most underrated prospects, who’ll provide great value if they end up slipping deeper on draft day.
Earlier this week, Niner Noise explored five 2018 NFL Draft prospects we viewed as overrated.
It’s not that any of those players are bad or will be bad, rather they’ll likely end up being drafted long before their maximized value would hit.
In this slideshow, we’ll flip the script and evaluate five prospects who fit the “underrated” bill.
San Francisco 49ers
These are the kinds of prospects NFL general managers hope to land, especially later on in the NFL Draft. For example, San Francisco 49ers GM John Lynch found notable rookie contributors in Round 5 last year, wide receiver Trent Taylor and tight end George Kittle, as well as landing would-be starting safety Adrian Colbert in Round 7.
Without delay, let’s take a look at some underrated sleepers teams shouldn’t sleep on too much on draft day.
No. 5: Wide Receiver D.J. Chark, LSU
Ranked by NFLDraftScout.com as a fringe first- or early second-round pick, LSU wide receiver D.J. Chark hasn’t been getting the same kind of love fellow draftee wideouts — Alabama’s Calvin Ridley, SMU’s Courtland Sutton or Oklahoma State’s James Washington — have received.
Chark, who has good size at 6-foot-4 and 198 pounds, only had 1,351 yards and six touchdowns over three seasons at LSU.
The lack of big-time stats, along with a slightly smallish weight, could be reasons why his stock isn’t higher. But don’t let that fool you.
Chark ran a 4.34 40-yard time at the NFL Scouting Combine, and it’s unusual to see bigger wideouts have elite-level speed during this event.
Making it into the tail end of Round 1 wouldn’t be a surprise, so Chark comes in at No. 5 on our list of underrated NFL Draft prospects.