Along with the New York Jets’ 10-player draft class comes a 12-player crop of undrafted free agents, including some potential steals.
Kenny Yeboah, TE, Mississippi
The fifth-year senior caught 27 passes for 524 yards and six touchdowns over only seven games in 2020, averages of 3.9 catches for 74.9 yards and 0.9 touchdowns per game (pace for 62 catches, 1,198 yards, and 14 touchdowns over 16 games).
Yeboah offers intriguing after-the-catch ability. He ranked fifth among tight ends with 244 yards after the catch, averaging 9.0 YAC per reception. Blocking is not his forte, as his 48.5 run blocking grade at Pro Football Focus ranked at the 12th percentile among qualified FBS tight ends.
Hamilcar Rashed Jr., EDGE, Oregon St.
Rashed has very interesting appeal based on his 2019 season, but his 2020 season wasn’t even UDFA-caliber.
In 2019, Rashed was a productive pass rusher as he posted 35 pressures on 296 rush attempts, an 11.8% rate. In 2020, he took a massive nosedive and posted only eight pressures on 146 rush attempts, a 5.5% rate that is ghastly even in college, let alone the NFL.
Tristen Hoge, OG, BYU
Hoge spent his 2016 freshman season at Notre Dame before transferring to BYU, where he played right guard from 2018-20 after sitting out in 2017. He was outstanding against a weak schedule in 2020, allowing only three pressures over 226 protection snaps (1.3%).
Milo Eifler, LB, Illinois
Eifler has an intriguing athletic profile for the linebacker position, running a 4.58 in the forty (81st percentile among LB) and leaping 126 inches in the broad jump (90th percentile), but his collegiate production was not good. In 2020, he had an enormous missed tackle rate of 21.6% (more than double the 2020 NFL LB average of 10.7%) and allowed 12.1 yards per target on throws in his direction.
Teton Saltes, OT, New Mexico
Saltes started at right tackle for New Mexico in all of the team’s games from 2018-20. He wasn’t anything special in pass protection with a career allowed pressure rate of 4.5% (2020 NFL OT average: 5.3%), but he shined as a run blocker in 2020, posting an 83.1 run blocking grade at PFF that placed at the 89th percentile among qualified FBS tackles. His 4.94 forty time at 6-foot-6 and 312 pounds is enticing.
Brendon White, S, Rutgers
White transferred from Ohio State to Rutgers for the 2020 season and had a season with very well-defined strengths and weaknesses. He was awful in coverage, allowing seven touchdowns and 13.1 yards per target. However, he was solid against the run, ranking at the 87th percentile among qualified FBS safeties with a 75.8 PFF run defense grade.
Michael Dwumfour, DT, Rutgers
Dwumfour transferred to Rutgers after four seasons at Michigan. He has good pass rushing upside after tying for 18th among all FBS interior defensive linemen with 22 pressures in 2020, reaching that total in only eight games. He is a missed tackle machine, though, with a career missed tackle rate of 19.3%. Dwumfour whiffed on seven tackles and had a 28.0% miss rate in 2020.
Isaiah Dunn, CB, Oregon State
The Jets doled out $185,000 in guarantees to Dunn, the largest number ever given to an undrafted free agent cornerback.
Dunn improved year-by-year throughout his four seasons at Oregon State, allowing a lower passer rating each season and peaking with a solid mark of 74.7 in 2020. His career touchdown-to-interception ratio of 14-to-0 is concerning, but only one of those touchdowns came in 2020, and he also allowed a very strong average of just 5.0 yards per target this past season. Standing at 5-foot-11 and 189 pounds, he has a good combination of speed (4.38 forty, 89th percentile) and length (32-inch arms, 71st percentile).
Grant Hermanns, OT, Purdue
Hermanns was the Boilermakers’ left tackle for four years, but he was never all that good, giving up at least two sacks and 13 pressures in each season with a career allowed pressure rate of 4.1%. His career-high overall PFF grade of 65.8 in 2020 ranked at the 47th percentile among qualified FBS tackles. He is a mountain at 6-foot-7, but is quite small for that height as he weighs only 300 pounds, and he is lacking in length, too, as his 33.5-inch arms rank at the 26th percentile among tackles.
Chris Naggar, K, SMU
Naggar was an All-State kicker in high school before joining the Texas Longhorns. He rarely saw the field over four years in Austin, never getting a chance to kick a field goal or extra point and only strapping up to punt in five games as a senior in 2019. Naggar transferred to SMU for his final season and got his shot to kick and punt.
In 2020, Naggar made 81.0% of his field goal attempts (17 of 21). He was 12 for 12 under 40 yards, 5 for 7 from 40-49 yards, and 0 for 2 from 50+ yards. Naggar struggled with extra points as he missed three of 46 attempts (93.5% conversion rate). As a punter, Naggar didn’t show much, posting subpar numbers of 39.3 yards per punt, 36.8 net yards per punt, and a 3.96 hang time average.
Parker Ferguson, OT, Air Force
Ferguson was a dominant left tackle in Air Force’s extremely run-heavy offense – 79.9% of his career snaps were run plays. He posted a 76.3 run blocking grade in 2020 (80th percentile among FBS OT) and an 85.7 grade in 2020 (96th percentile). Ferguson rarely ever pass blocked, but he was good when he did, allowing no pressures over a tiny sample of 73 protection snaps in 2020.
Jordyn Peters, S, Auburn
Peters is a good tackling safety with a career missed tackle rate of only 5.7%, but he isn’t great in coverage with a career passer rating allowed of 95.7. His appeal comes on special teams. Over the course of his Auburn career, Peters blocked four punts, and he collected nine tackles in kickoff/punt coverage while missing only one tackle.
