Can Myles Jack become a top-5 pick following combine?

Myles Jack has already found his way into the top-5 in many 2016 NFL Mock Drafts. Can he cement his value at the combine?

The NFL Scouting Combine can be a real mess for some players. Players who come in injured don’t have the opportunity to show off their physical attributes and the entire conversation comes back around to their health and medical results.

For linebacker Myles Jack out of Notre Dame, it’s going to be tough to improve his stock in comparison to other top talents in the draft. Those others get a chance to do workouts and drills and show off to teams. For Jack, it’s all going to be medical and interviews. Per ESPN’s Mike Triplett, the only workout he intends to do is the benchpress.

For a player as talented as Jack – Pro Football Focus considers him the best coverage linebacker – it would be tough to watch teams pass him up in favor of other players who stood out at the combine. The combine is not the deciding factor in NFL draft discussions, but there are plenty of players on the bubble of top-end talent who could push past Jack with an impressive combine performance.

NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah had Jack going to the Dallas Cowboys at fourth overall in his first round mock draft over a week ago. Will that position stand if other players leapfrog the linebacker based on their performance?

It’s a tough situation for the linebacker to be in and it raises some interesting questions for the Jacksonville Jaguars at fifth overall as well. If the opportunity comes to draft Jack or another player with impressive recent performances and solid collegiate production, do they take a shot at the injured linebacker or do they play it safer with a player who doesn’t have any injury history, thus letting Jack fall out of the top five?

This will be interesting to watch, especially as teams try to measure how effective a player like Jack can be based on game intelligence, collegiate performance, and extrapolation on physical ability at the NFL level.

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In my mind, it would be tough to watch someone like Jack suddenly fall deep into the first round as other prospects get hot at the right time. He’s a quality talent who is well worth taking a shot on, even if he can’t compare at the moment.

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