Three more players have declared for the 2010 NFL Draft: LSU safety Chad Jones, Florida safety Major Wright, and Marshall running back Darius Marshall. With the news that two more safeties have entered the draft, there is suddenly a great class of safeties for the 2010 class. When you consider that as many as six or seven safties have the talent to be taken in the first round, it’s amazing to think that some of them could fall to the third or fourth round due to the large number of players declaring this year. We currently have 43 underclassmen in the draft; there were 50 last year, and we still have four days left for players to declare. This is going to be a very exciting Combine in February.

Chad Jones is an extremely talented player with some of the best athleticism in the 2010 draft. A two-sport athlete in college, Jones has the range to be a free safety in the NFL, but he also plays the run well enough to play strong safety for the team that drafts him. I have Jones rated as a first round pick, ranked between Texas’ Earl Thomas and USC’s Taylor Mays.

Major Wright is another talented, athletic safety that is declaring. Coming into the year, Wright was a bit overrated by some, but he still came away with a solid season. Playing on such a great Florida defense helped to make him look better, however he’s still a solid prospect. I have Wright rated as a third-to-fourth rounder in the 2010 Draft. I have him ranked behind Georgia Tech’s Morgan Burnett and ahead of South Florida’s Nate Allen.

Darius Marshall is a bit of a surprise, coming from a Marshall team that doesn’t produce too many prospects. Marshall is following in the footsteps of Ahmad Bradshaw, who used his success with the Thundering Hurd to propel him into the NFL. Marshall rushed  for 1,131 yards and 11 touchdowns on 227 carries in 2009. I have him rated as a mid-to-late round pick.

I’ve updated my positional rankings at running back and safety. Continue to check back for continued updates as we draw closer to the Friday deadline for players to declare.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 9:26 am and is filed under Zobel's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.