STRENGTHS
Prince has excellent overall athletic talent along with the size and strength to be a dominating offensive lineman. He shows on film, solid lateral agility, and solid foot quickness to be effective when pass blocking or run blocking. He is tall but comes off the line when run blocking, with a quick burst getting into his opponent quickly with a strong upper body. Prince is smart and uses solid techniques to minimize his athletic limitations to play his position brought on by his natural height reported (as of this writing) to be 6’ 7”. Prince in the right system and playing the right position should become a solid offensive lineman for the team that selects him.
CONCERNS
Prince is an aggressive run blocker and because of his physic that aggressiveness sometimes overpowers his techniques and he will fall off blocks. He is tight in the hips and that affects his change of direction to block out in space. Using him to pull or to block on sweeps and screens will be a 50/50 proposition and, the type of blocking system that will magnify his lack of ability to change direction quickly and make blocks. He struggles losing leverage when getting bull-rushed and needs to work on his lower body strength and techniques to get better. Prince might be too big to move into guard and not fluid enough to be a tackle.
BOTTOM LINE 2.13
Prince has the straight-line, foot quickness and solid lateral agility along with a high football IQ to work with him at the tackle position. He does an excellent job of turning his hips and pushing his man up the field when he is beat on a pass rush but as a tackle that still leaves a lot of open space for him to get beat and to crush his quarterback. His talents and aggressive run blocking and solid pass blocking fit the guard position more than the tackle position for the next level and as a guard, if he can keep his pad level low enough not to get out leveraged, then I have no doubt of his potential to be a pro bowl guard. Selecting Prince early is not a bad choice but selecting him early with the thought process that he will be an excellent Left Tackle as he has been at the college level might be more than he can handle physically. So, I say, selecting Prince is a smart move but selecting him with a closed mind as to the position he will play for you is a dumb move. I’m not saying he can’t play tackle, all I’m saying is keep an open mind and let this kid show you in his play on the field what the best position is for him. He reminds me a lot of #Bears OG Kyle Long who was selected and assumed he would be a tackle because of his height but finally the Bears after trying to fit a square peg into a round hole settled on playing guard.
