Offensive Tackle

Ohio State

6-7 323

Draft board overall prospect rank: #64

Draft board overall offensive tackle rank: #5

Overall rating: 73 (3rd round)

40 time: 5.40

Games watched: Michigan State/Ohio State, Ohio State/Miami, Wisconsin/Ohio State, Ohio State/Penn State, Ohio State/Michigan

Positives

·         Excellent height (6-7)

·         Huge (6-7 323)

·         Long arms

·         Massive hands (11 inches)

·         Good hand use

·         Physical freak

·         Excellent feet for his size

·         Mobile and athletic – played some tight end on unbalanced lines at Ohio State

·         Size/athleticism combo

·         Good 2^nd level blocker

·         Experienced out of a 3 point stance

·         Good knee bend

·         Wide base in stance

·         Heavily recruited (#10 recruit in 2008, #2 offensive tackle behind Tyron Smith)

·         Incredibly dominant at the Senior Bowl

·         Flashes excellence

Negatives

·         Incredibly inconsistent

·         Allows way more sacks and pressures than he should

·         Disappointing Combine (only 19 reps of 225, 5.40 40)

·         Suspended on 2 occasions

·         Has a prior arrest

·         Failed The Combine’s drug test

·         Past injury history

·         Questions about motor and passion for the game

·         Work ethic concerns

·         Maturity concerns

·         Not a ton of experience (due to suspensions and injuries)

·         Has had some issues with speed rushers

NFL Comparison: Jared Gaither

Mike Adams has the talent to go in the top 5. He’s an absolute athletic freak who has mobile feet on the level of Matt Kalil, only he’s 20 pounds bigger. He’s 6-7 323 with 34 inch arms and massive 11 inch hands. He was the #2 ranked offensive tackle coming out of high school, in between Tyron Smith and Matt Kalil, both of whom went in the top 10.

However, he never lived up to this at Ohio State. He was in and out of the lineup with suspensions and injury and gave up way more sacks and pressures than you’d like. His senior year was especially disappointing. He only played in 7 games because of a suspension from the Ohio State tattoo scandal, and only faced two draftable pass rushers in those 7 games, Whitney Mercilus and Jack Crawford. He allowed 1.5 sacks to Mercilus and 2 sacks to Crawford, two speed rushers who were able to blow right past him and get the best of him.

He really just seems like one of those prospects that doesn’t get it. He has the off the field issues, a 2 game suspension in 2009 for breaking a team rule, a 5 game suspension in 2011 for the tattoo scandal, and a run in with the law in 2009 for drug possession (the charges were dropped). He also failed a drug test for marijuana at The Combine. The issue there isn’t that he smokes marijuana. It’s that he didn’t care enough about football to stop smoking marijuana in order to pass a drug test he knew was coming.

Going off the concerns about his passion for the game, his Combine workouts were really poor. For someone with his natural athletic gifts, 19 reps on the bench and a 5.40 40 with an awful 1.84 10 yard split, is incredibly disappointing. There are concerns about his ability to keep himself in elite football shape. Add in all this to his disappointing play on the field and you’ve got a prospect with serious passion and love of the game concerns, which is a huge red flag. He was a disappointing player for Ohio State in college and I have to think that he’ll continue to disappoint in the NFL as long as he’s drafted in the first 2 rounds.

My comparison for him is Jared Gaither. Like Gaither, Adams has elite physical abilities. Gaither was a high school tight end who came into the league at about 6-9 330. They both have excellent size/athleticism combinations, but Gaither fell into the 5^th round of the supplementary draft because of his lack of consistency and his off the field issues, the off the field issues that made him have to join the supplementary draft in the first place. Gaither has exceeded his draft range as he’s been a good left tackle when healthy, but he’s been consistent and off injured.

Adams won’t go in the 5^th round so I don’t like his chances of exceeding his draft range as much. He probably won’t go in the 1^st round, which once looked like an option after a dominant Senior Bowl. In the Senior Bowl, he shut down both Melvin Ingram and Courtney Upshaw, as well as Quinton Coples on occasion. I argued he should have been the MVP as the North won. However, after failing a drug test at The Combine, that no longer looks like an option. He now has competition for the #4 tackle spot from Bobby Massie, Mitchell Schwartz, and Jeff Allen.

He’ll probably still go in the 2^nd round because of his upside, but there’s a small chance he’ll last until the 3^rd round. Both Justin Houston and Christian Ballard fell 2 rounds below their previously projected draft range last year after failing drug tests at The Combine, but the Vikings still took Percy Harvin in the first round in 2009 after a failed drug test, so there’s no clear rule with this type of thing. It only takes one team to take a chance on him and I think one will in the 2^nd round, but there’s always a chance one doesn’t.