Thursday, May 14, 2015

Chicago Bears 2015 Draft Breakdown: Tayo Fabuluje

With the Bears final pick, they selected Tayo Fabuluje, a giant offensive tackle out of TCU and BYU, and back to TCU again. He is massive, and that's good, but he has struggled with his massivity (no way that's a real word). But the Bears definitely could use some help on the offensive line, so I watched his game against Oklahoma to see how he might be able to impact the Bears.

So, yeah, on tape, the first thing that jumps out is this guy is huge. Excellent massivity. It seemed like sometimes pass rushers wouldn't give a real rush, because it was just going to take too long to get around him. I feel like he used his size better in pass protection than he did in run blocking. He was able to set and use his power on pass rushers, but often didn't do a good job of getting good angles and pushing guys in the right direction on run plays. His weakness as a pass rusher is that he got comfortable setting up to the outside, so any move towards the inside often left him reaching for the defender.

Despite his size, he was actually fairly light on his feet. He looked like a good athlete. Overall, I was more impressed than I expected to be for a sixth round pick. With his size and mobility, I would have thought that he was a more highly touted prospect.

Despite those raw skills, there are still issues. The first is his love of football, as his weight has been an option, and he has transferred repeatedly between TCU and BYU. Still, there are factors outside of football that may have influenced those decisions, and I'm not one to hold a huge grudge against people in their early 20s for making decisions that may not make sense in the long run.

On the field, his size can become an issue with his endurance. Towards the end of drives, he seemed to lack explosiveness and just seemed worn down in the second half of the game where he was much heavier on his feet and that led to him occasionally getting thrown around despite his significant size advantage.

Overall, I like the thinking in this pick. It's definitely a risk as this is a guy who may get cut before training camp is over. Still, it comes with some excellent upside, as he has excellent size and nice mobility for a man his size. These are the types of picks teams should be going for late in the draft. Welcome aboard, Tayo.

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