DraftTracker
Round | Team | Pos. | School | Name
Michael Boley
LB (6-2, 236, 4.56)
Southern Miss
Grade: 77
Comments
Is an active and athletic playmaker with great experience and production from the collegiate level. Has explosive initial quickness. Is at his best in space. Does a very good job of finding the ball carrier or quarterback when coming off the edge. Will be able to stop and start quickly. Has a great nose for the football and shows excellent closing burst. He has the speed to turn the corner as a pass rusher and he closes in extremely fast. Is an explosive tackler for his size. Will make the big hit and also will force a lot of fumbles. Is extremely disruptive versus the run. Gets upfield, finds the football, change directions quickly, and shows a great motor in pursuit. Has adequate but not great size. He lacks lower body strength. Runs around too many blocks and will take some poor pursuit angles as a result. Struggles to stack at the POA on the LOS and will get engulfed by bigger blockers that establish position and get into his pads. Does not have great instincts in coverage. He tends to get caught peeking at times and will be overaggressive versus the run. He needs to show more discipline and also needs to improve his ball skills in coverage. Boley absolutely dominated the mid-major level of competition in college. He was a fulltime starter in each of his final three seasons at Southern Miss (2002-'04). He was a three-time first team All-Conference USA selection, producing 26.5 sacks and 53.5 tackles for loss over that three-year span while chipping in with more than 100 tackles in each of those seasons. Boley played SLB in college but is more of a WLB prospect for the NFL. He has adequate but not great size and he needs to improve his strength, especially in his lower body. He needs to learn to take on blockers instead of running around them and he also needs to improve his recognition skills and ball skills in coverage. However, Boley was a huge playmaker throughout his college career and he has the speed, frame, athletic ability, closing burst and tackling skills to push for a starting job at the next level. Boley also has an ideal makeup to contribute on special teams throughout his career. In our opinion, Boley is worth drafting late on Day 1.
* Player biographies are provided by Scouts Inc.