What position will Myles Jack play in the NFL?
At UCLA, he spent time at inside linebacker, outside linebacker, slot cornerback, safety and running back.
Some media pundits are calling him the draft's best all-around athlete, and perhaps best player.
The Ravens are intrigued as well, and are one of the teams in the mix to pick Jack if he's still there. Baltimore sees him manning the inside linebacker spot next to C.J. Mosley.
"We look at him primarily as an inside linebacker," Assistant General Manager Eric DeCosta said. "[He has] tremendous speed, athletic ability, great hips, knee-bender, he's a good tackler, he can rush the passer, he can blitz, he can play in space, he can cover – he can do all those things."
That's a lot of things.
With football continuously evolving, and the passing game and spread offenses becoming more prevalent, the requirements of different positions have also changed. Now teams will often spread defenses out and force linebackers to cover big, fast tight ends or shifty running backs.
Head Coach John Harbaugh pointed to the New England Patriots as an example. He's already thinking about ways to game-plan against their offense.
Harbaugh said New England's two tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and the recently acquired Martellus Bennett, will require defenses to prepare for the run and the pass on any given play when the tight ends are on the field because they can both block and are dangerous receiving threats.
That means opponents need defensive players who can do the same switch flip between the run and pass.
"It's going to create the need for more versatile players," Harbaugh said. "Guys like Myles Jack, who was mentioned earlier, comes to mind – a guy that can play multiple positions. Guys like Joey Bosa who can rush the passer, but can still drop; those guys are going to be really valuable."
Jack led the nation's linebackers in coverage grades from Pro Football Focus, and that makes a nice pairing with the more run-stopping nature of Mosley.
"I think athletically, he can cover probably as well as most guys you'll ever see at the linebacker position," DeCosta said. "He's gifted that way."
DeCosta added that Jack is also an "excellent" blitzer, and that, though he's a little undersized, is a "good" run defender.
"He's a guy that can do a lot of different things; he's a talented player," DeCosta said. "But there are a lot of other talented players at the top of the draft as well. He happens to be one of those guys. There are probably six to eight players this year that are very, very talented players at their positions."
While Jack is intriguing, he's not as much of a sure thing as some of the other elite defensive prospects at the top of the draft. That's mostly because he's coming off a knee injury that ended his junior season after just three games.
Jack tore his meniscus tendon, then left school so he could concentrate on his rehab and get ready for the NFL. He did not participate in the NFL Scouting Combine and didn't run the 40-yard dash at his pro day. Unless he runs the 40-yard dash for teams during private workouts, he won't do so at all during the pre-draft process.
DeCosta said that he hates to see a prospect's season cut short because it's tough on the player. It also makes the scouting process more difficult for NFL teams. They don't want to use a high draft pick on a player they aren't sure will be healthy.
"We have to go back and watch tape as a sophomore," DeCosta said. "We do as much as we can studying the game he played in, the pro day, the local workouts, all that kind of stuff, the individual workout with the coaches, all the information that we get. But it's definitely more challenging than a guy that played 15 games his senior year."
