As the pre-draft season ends in under three weeks, we’ve seen most of these prospects through either the Combine or Pro Day.
Through this process, some prospects have impressed teams, and their stock has risen, while some have seen there’s fall from a few spots to entire rounds.
Here are just some of the risers and fallers for this upcoming draft.
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2023 NFL Draft Risers & Fallers: April
Risers
Anthony Richardson (QB – Florida)
Richardson is the most debated prospect in this draft. Many have him high, some don’t, but the consensus is he moved from outside of the top ten and fourth-ranked quarterback prospect to inside the top ten and even, in some cases, the best overall prospect.
His raw abilities, including his size, arm strength, and ability to gain positive yards with his legs, are highly noted.
He’s crushed every single evaluation from the combine to the pro day, and evaluators believe he has the strongest arm in the draft, but they also like how he carries himself as a leader.
He looks to be in the top five now, and several teams could be in line to trade up and grab him.
Zay Flowers (WR – Boston College)
I feel like Flowers has become everyone’s favorite early-round prospect. His size had scouts wondering if he could be a dependable receiver at the next level or be pigeonholed to just being a slot receiver, but his quickness and footwork showed he could be more.
He can excel in any kind of designed route from the catch and run to the deep vertical and has excellent hands in motion.
He went from fringe late first-round, early second, to a name you’ll hear on April 27th.
This is a spectacular cornerback class, so for someone to noticeably see their stock rise is worth noting.
He had a spectacular combine by running a 4.35 40-yard dash and led the cornerbacks with a 42-inch vertical and second in the broad jump at 11-4.
His isn’t as polished as some of the other cornerback prospects, but teams see how he moves, and he is in the late first conversation.
Zack Kuntz (TE – Old Dominion)
This is someone to look out for on Day 2. He blew scouts away with his performance at the combine and came out with a perfect 10 out of 10.
He is everything you want in a pass-catching tight end – excellent catch radius, can’t effectively run routes, tough in the middle of the field, and can get yards after the catch.
He’s moved from a Day 3 sleeper to a middle-round prospect.
Fallers
The projections of Carter are much different than at the beginning of the pre-draft season. Very early mock drafts had Carter as a top-five pick, and before the Bears traded the first pick, they had him going No. 1.
The legal issues on the days leading up to the draft had teams concerned, but that’s all settled and shouldn’t be a factor.
He didn’t participate in the combine, so the Georgia pro day was where he would show off.
It was a disaster. He came in nine pounds heavier from the combine, and it wasn’t nine pounds from going hard in the gym. On his pro day, he only did position drills and didn’t finish those because he was from a Mark Schlabach piece “cramping up and breathing heavily.”
He has elected to only meet with teams picking in the top 10. He may need to expand that because he could fall further than that
Many believed Boutte was a top-ten lock after his fantastic freshman year. Some thought he should have sat out this past season and protected himself. After the 2022 season, it might have been best to return to school to improve his stock.
We saw a regression in productivity and availability, as he missed multiple games in the last two seasons. 2022 was especially tough, and in that first game against Florida State, he was visibly frustrated to where that the following days, there were rumors he would hit the transfer portal.
He has all the athletic traits to be a great receiver, with his speed and deep-threat ability, but he has drop issues and even has trouble with contested catches.
We should see him go sometime on Day 2, and with his abilities, that could be a steal.
Undoubtedly, what you’ve seen on the field from Addison is special. He helped elevate Kenny Pickett in Pittsburgh to a first-round pick and did the same for Caleb Williams at USC.
His size was an initial concern at just 171 pounds, 5-foot-11, with 30.3-inch arms. Then his combined testing was unexpectedly poor, 4.49 in the 40, which was 21st-fastest among the wideouts, his 34-inch vert was the seventh-lowest, and his 10-foot-2 broad was the eighth-lowest at the position and finished with a 5.87 Relative Athletic Score.
Going into 2021, everyone thought Bresee was a guaranteed top-10 talent. Unfortunately, that season was cut short to four games after tearing his ACL tear. He came back and played ten games in 2022 and was visibly not the same player and finished with 15 total tackles and 3.5 sacks. You add that many EDGE prospects improved their stock, forcing Breese to dip significantly.
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