STRENGTHS
T. J. is a Clay Mathews Clone. He has excellent athletic talent to go along with excellent passion to play every play at the highest level that he can. He shows leadership skills through his play on the field and makes the players around him better. T. J has the talent all teams running a 3/4 defense are looking for as an OLB/DE. He could also play inside linebacker in a 4/3 defense. He can be used in coverage but the truth is his strength is in attacking the line of scrimmage. He communicates very well with his teammates and is very smart. T. J. has the potential to become the key player your defense is built around.

CONCERNS
TJ is….oh crap let’s not get into nit picking for the sake of nit picking. Is he perfect athletically…no of course not but he makes up for any athletic limitations with effort, football intelligence, and passion.

BOTTOM LINE
This year my saying is “draft the obvious, don’t over think the process”. When you see a good player, trust your eyes that they are that, a good player. There is an old saying “You can find an army but it’s hard to find generals”. TJ could be a general for your army. That along with his passion, effort, football intelligence and the “will” to play every play at his best, is enough for me to rate TJ as one of the “obvious” players to select in this draft early. If you want to select a more athletic player who doesn’t have the obvious character intangibles needed to be successful at the next level instead, go right ahead but for me it’s obvious the type of player TJ will be at the next level and I like to draft the obvious. TJ has good athleticism and can play multiple positions in multiple styles of defenses. He can play in coverage as long as you don’t expect him to cover like a corner back. Like I said I see TJ as a Clay Mathews clone and if a team is smart and selects him and uses him the same way Clay Mathews has been used guess what…that team will have a playoff winning defense. To me that’s obvious.

Drew Boylhart  JAN.2017