STRENGTHS
Evan has the size, athletic talent, and did I mention size…to be an excellent offensive tackle for the team that selects him. He has the needed lateral agility along with the arm length and quickness out of his stance, to neutralize those speed pass rushers at the next level. He does a good job going out to the second level to make his blocks and does a solid job keeping his techniques and balance to defeat his opponent at the line of scrimmage. He is athletic enough to be used in any style blocking scheme and does a good job getting out for sweeps and screens to his side of the field. Evan has played on the inside at guard and the outside on the right side and left side so that makes Evan one of the safer picks in this draft. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this draft, most teams will be considering Evan as their right or left tackle. Start the debate, is he a right tackle or a left tackle, and does it really matter?
CONCERNS
Evan can be a franchise Left Tackle if he plays the way he played in the Georgia game recently. Most of the season he seemed to be afraid to make a mistake. He was slow into his blocks and into his lateral movements as if he was afraid to get beat inside. That’s not a bad thing but, if he is undecided at all off the snap of the ball at the next level, Evan will get eaten alive. Evan might be a bit of a perfectionist and that could hold him back from reaching his top potential.
BOTTOM LINE: 1.53
Evan showed his true potential to dominate in the SEC Championship game because he was more aggressive in every phase of his game. He trusted his techniques but at the same time used his god-given athletic talent on every block to defeat his opponent at the point of attack and when pass blocking. I suspect that Evan will struggle at first at the next level because he doesn’t like to make mistakes and thinks too much before the snap instead of just playing his game. There is nothing wrong with being a perfectionist when it comes to protecting the blind side of your QB. But perfectionism is for practice and once the game starts perfectionism goes right out the window and survival is everything. A left tackle has to learn to marry his athletic talents with the correct techniques to survive and sometimes that is not going to be perfect and the player has to understand that and turn the page after he gets beat. Evan has to play with the aggressiveness he showed in the championship game and accept that, perfectionism is for practice and survival is for the game.
