STRENGTHS
Jalen has good size and excellent athletic talent to play either offensive tackle position for the team that selects him. He has the long arms that teams like, along with the foot quickness to be used in any style of offensive blocking scheme. Jalen has movement skills and athletic talent as good as most Tight Ends. He is quick when he wants to be, faster than he looks to be, and is smarter than he has to be. Jalen is a very good technical offensive lineman. He has good overall strength to be a dominant run blocker and the athletic talent to be a dominant pass blocker. The fact is, Jalen good be one of those players who will be better at the next level than he has been at the college level if he is challenged and is willing to meet that challenge.
CONCERNS
The biggest issue, I see on film is that Jalen plays to his competition and, that is why he is playing on the right side instead of the left side as his athletic talent suggest. At times he looks bored on the field and there is no doubt that he has more athletic talent than he is showing during a game. Jalen is not a boom or bust player, he’s just a player who is going to decide for himself, the effort level he wants to play at.
BOTTOM LINE 2.22
I do believe, if Jalen can show that he can catch the ball down the field like a receiver that he could very easily play the Tight End position. I know he is quick enough and fast enough, I’ve seen it on film. Maybe that’s the problem, maybe he really wants to be a Tight End! I have seen Jalen on film, blocking downfield for a running play and all of a sudden reacts to his teammate breaking a tackle, with quickness and surprising foot speed to make blocks that he does not show when he is blocking on the line. It shocked me and until I picked that up on film, I was not that impressed with his overall play as a tackle. I thought he was good, that he had the size and in general did his job but, I did not see anything that made me get excited about his play until I saw this reaction of his down the field. If Jalen has spent this “opt-out” year working out, I think he will surprise a lot of teams with his athletic talent. He definitely has the talent to be used on the left side and when he does work out for teams I expect him to fly up the boards and be a top twenty pick if he can justify why his athletic talent doesn’t show up on film in every game. Maybe he thought he should play TE, or maybe the coaches were not identifying his talent, or maybe they could not trust him because he didn’t show interest in being a Left Tackle? Whatever the reason… for the purposes of this draft, I have to look at him as 2nd round talent because that’s what he shows me on film. Nevertheless, some team could be getting themselves a hell of a player if they can unlock this kids’ talent.
