Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn’t know how to evaluate an NFL prospect if somebody offered me a big bag of cash, that I watched very little UK football this year, that I didn’t know who Josh Paschal was until we drafted him, and that I wanted to go safety or LB there.
All that said… based on stuff I’ve read since the draft, I think this was a very nice pick.
The overwhelming sense I got from reading about him is that he’s kind of a poor man’s Travon Walker, in terms of his explosiveness and position versatility on the DL, albeit as less of a total freak in terms of body type/measurables.
This is not to say he’s a huge dropoff in terms of athleticism from Walker, because he’s not.
See this:
And this:
Paschal doesn’t have Walker’s size or arm length. Then again, Walker doesn’t have Paschal’s production–Paschal notched 15 tackles for loss last year–twice as many as Walker–while also playing SEC opponents.
In terms of versatility, I think he’s the same kind of swiss army knife for a defensive coordinator:
So basically, he’s extremely versatile, great against the run, and a really nice pass-rusher too. So I look at it like, instead of falling in love with Walker’s versatility and athleticism, and taking him over Hutchinson, we got Hutchinson AND a player that does a lot of the same things as Walker a round later. And I see a guy who, used up and down the line, especially lining up alongside with Hutch and some combination of Okwara or Harris, could turn our pass rush from weak sauce to actually fierce. At which point, I need to note that our top pass-rusher last season (Harris) finished the year with 7.5 sacks.
I get feeling like taking another edge here was overkill, but it’s kind of the most important position on D! And we really, really needed help there! We’ll see how it all shakes out, but I see the potential to cause a lot of disruption upfront, and I totally get why he was the pick.