Football Draft Focus

Name: Rashuan Mitchell
School: Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 186 lbs
40 time: TBD

Rashuan Mitchell Strengths

• Speed
• Willing to help with run support

Mitchell easily has the speed to run with most, if not all receivers. He did run a leg of his high school’s 4X100 relay team. I just wish that he would trust that speed more often. But we’ll get into that later on. I’m a big fan of the fact that he’s willing to come up and help in the run game. He’s also effective as a blitzer coming off the edge. While he was only able to get one sack for himself. Mitchell still effected the quarterback on multiple other blitzes. This allow for teammates to finish off the play.

Rashuan Mitchell Weaknesses

• Bails out too quick in coverage
• Can easily be taken out of run support
• Takes bad angles

Sadly, I saw more bad than good when watching film. While he easily had the speed to run with defenders, I constantly saw him bailing out at the snap. This made is beatable by quick comebacks, slant, in, or out routes by the receivers. It was really frustrating considering the times he would play tight coverage at the line of scrimmage he did a really nice job of staying locked on the receiver.

Then you move over to the run support. And sure it was nice to see him willing to come up and attempt to make a play. But too many times you would see him over pursue, and take himself out of the play. It didn’t matter if it was him coming off the edge or if it was him chasing the back downfield. And if anyone ever got to him and blocked him, he was basically out of the play. I saw him man handled by tight ends as well as receivers. He simply couldn’t get off blocks.

Draft Thoughts

I’ve said it in other reports, but I have a soft spot for small school guys. I can’t help but pull for them. But it’s a tough hill to climb to get the attention needed in order to get drafted. And sadly I don’t see that in Mitchell’s future. Unlike other small school guys like Bernhard Raimann or Jalen Tolbert I  haven’t seen or heard of him getting an invite to any of the college All-Star games. And I don’t know what his chances are of getting invited to the NFL combine. If that stays true, he’ll only really have his college pro day to try and impress a team. The most likely route to the NFL for Rashuan is as an undrafted free agent. Maybe he’ll be able to get onto a practice squad for a year or two and finally get his chance.