4 biggest reaches in the first round of the NFL Draft

EDGE Joe Tryon, Buccaneers

I trust most of the moves the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made over the past few years. They put together one of the best rosters in football, led by Tom Brady of course, and they were able to come away with a Super Bowl victory this past season. However, the Joe Tryon pick was arguably the biggest reach in the entire first round.

There are mixed opinions of Tryon all over the place. On one hand, Tryon is a big athletic freak at the edge defender position with loads of upside in the right scheme, and Buccaneers brought the blitz as much as any team out there. On the other, he’s an incredibly raw prospect with bad college production and he opted out of the 2020 season.

Every team is going to view opt-out players differently, but I didn’t see nearly enough out of Tryon’s college tape from 2019 to warrant being anywhere near a first-round selection. In fact, I had a third-round grade on Tryon in my final big board. While he could prove to be much better than this he doesn’t meet the 1.25 tackles for a loss per game threshold I require for first-round edge rushers, and the fact that he has just 14.5 tackles for a loss in 23 games is a bit concerning. Tryon has the traits to be a terrific player, but this was clearly a ‘boom or bust’ pick for the Bucs.

We need to give these players a few years to see how their careers start to shape up, but the decision to draft these four guys in the first round left me scratching my head. There are plenty of safer options these teams could have explored in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft.