Ian Hartitiz examines four NFL Draft prospects and whether certain question marks about their performance is myth or reality.

Draft season is a fun time. From mock drafts, to highlights, to simply talking ball: Breaking down the incoming class of rookies during a sad period of the year in which no actual football is being played is pretty, pretty, pretty great.

Unfortunately, one downside to draft talk is the reality that many labels and assumptions get thrown around without proper context or sometimes even due diligence.

Well, guess what: Today is not that day! Instead, we're going to go through some storylines going around on various big-name prospects and attempt to quantify whether or not their alleged red flag is really something we should be overly concerned about.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

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Statement 1: Ashton Jeanty simply beat up on bad teams

Playing at Boise State resulted in Jeanty only playing a handful of games against Power 5 defenses over the past two seasons. His counting numbers were as follows:

• at Washington: 10-44-1 rushing, 4-109-1 receiving
• vs. UCF: 24-115-0 rushing, 5-97-1 receiving
• vs. UCLA: 17-85-0 rushing, 4-17-0 receiving
• at Oregon: 25-192-3 rushing, 2-8-0 receiving
• vs. Washington State: 26-259-4 rushing, 1-7-0 receiving
• vs. Oregon State: 37-226-1 rushing, 0-0-0 receiving
• vs. Penn State: 30-104-0 rushing, 3-22-0 receiving

Three performances with 200+ total yards on a total average of 6.1 yards per carry isn't too shabby. In fact, the Washington State (17) and Penn State (16) games featured two of the top three single-game performances of 2024 in terms of most missed tackles forced on the ground. Don't worry: Jeanty also owns the No. 1 spot for his performance against San Diego State (20!).

Of course, the latter Penn State matchup in the Fiesta Bowl has been the primary culprit in spreading this anti-Jeanty agenda. While the performance was certainly out of the ordinary—Jeanty's 3.5 yards per carry was pretty easily his worst mark of the season—Penn State's elite run defense certainly made life extra tough.

Consider:

• Jeanty averaged just 0.6 yards before contact per carry against the Nittany Lions compared to 1.72 vs. every else.
• The Heisman runner-up posted a ridiculous 53.3% missed tackles avoided per carry rate in his last collegiate game—up from his (still ridiculous) season-long average of 39.4%.

There remained plenty of elite flashes on the film: Even Jeanty's worst counting number performance of the season shouldn't exactly be viewed as anything close to a major disappointment.

Mythbuster ruling: Myth confirmed. Jeanty truly has a very good argument as one of the best RB draft prospects in years.

Statement 2: Luther Burden's usage was overwhelmingly gadgety

The Missouri product is some people's idea of the best WR in the class, while others look at his reduced production in 2024 as evidence that the hype was a bit too much.

Further complicating the prospect evaluation is Burden's usage in 2024, as 32% of his targets came behind the line of scrimmage, and some of his analytic comps do indeed paint a gadgety-esque picture.

But here's the thing: Burden proved to be more than capable of putting up quality numbers when away from the friendly confines of the slot. Per Jacob Gibbs and TruMedia:

• From the slot 2023-24: 516 routes, 30% targets per route run, 2.94 yards per route run
• Out wide 2023-24: 87 routes, 43% targets per route run, 3.38 yards per route run

Additionally, Burden racked up 19 receptions on passes thrown 20+ yards downfield during the 2023-24 seasons–—just behind Travis Hunter (21) and ahead of fellow high-end receiver prospects Matthew Golden (16) and (especially) Emeka Egbuka (8). The film sure doesn't seem to indicate any sort of ball tracking concerns.

Ultimately, Burden joins Malik f*cking Nabers as the only two SEC WRs to force at least 30 missed tackles on receptions in a single season over the last five years. Burden's 0.49 missed tackle forced rate is the second-highest mark of any Power 5 WR of the last decade! Wouldn't you say it makes sense to feed some YAC-friendly touches to anyone with this sort of after-the-catch ability?

Mythbuster ruling: Pretty myth-y. Burden proved plenty capable of winning downfield and out wide during his collegiate career, even if there was ALSO plenty of gadget-esque usage, which should only really be viewed as a negative IF it comes at the expense of a full-time role.

Statement 3: Shedeur Sanders had a brutal supporting cast

Any conversation surrounding Sanders inevitably ties back to Colorado's inability to properly protect him and/or supply a decent run game.

We can attempt to quantify this by concocting "Power-5 2024 supporting cast rankings" in terms of average team PFF rush, receiving, pass blocking and run blocking grades (everything except passing). Among eight of the more big-name prospects:

Supporting Cast Rankings:

• Miami (Cam Ward): 3rd
• Texas (Quinn Ewers): 4th
• Oregon (Dillon Gabriel): 6th
• Ohio State (Will Howard): 8th
• Louisville (Tyler Shough): 18th
• Alabama (Jalen Milroe): 24th
• Ole Miss (Jaxson Dart): 34th
• Colorado (Shedeur Sanders): 36th

So yeah: Not great! In fact, Colorado's specific PFF ranks in pass blocking (34th) and rushing (55th) among 69 Power 5 offenses reflect the reality that this really was a rough offensive environment outside of Sanders and his playmaking receivers.

Colorado's reliance on screens did indeed inflate that aspect of Shedeur's dropback portfolio; just realize he still threw the ball deep at the same rate as Cam Ward and had a (much) lower play-action rate than Jaxson Dart. This isn't to suggest Sanders is free from critique, but any sort of screen-merchant complaints seem misguided and it's tough to deny he wasn't exactly dealing with the world's greatest supporting cast last season

Mythbuster ruling: Not really a myth at least in terms of the rushing offense and overall pass blocking.

Statement 4: Harold Fannin simply beat up on MAC-level competition

In a way, this is absolutely true. After all: Fannin caught 117 passes for an unreal 1,555 yards and 10 TDs as Bowling Green's pass-catching prodigy at TE.

However, simply pointing to Fannin's gaudy counting numbers and obvious MAC competition isn't fair considering his performance in four non-conference games against D-1 competition:

• at Penn State: 11 receptions-137 yards-1 TD
• at Texas A&M: 8-145-1
• vs. Old Dominion: 12-193-2
• vs. Arkansas State: 17-213-1

I'd certainly put more stock into the former two performances than the latter ones, but still! Impressive stuff from the owner of the highest Rookie Super Model production rating ever (100). It remains to be seen if Fannin possesses the athleticism and complete skill set to maintain a full-time job at the professional level; just realize haters should find a different slant than simply criticizing the level of his competition.

Mythbuster ruling: Not a myth considering Fannin dominated in his opportunities against high-end competition.

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