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Tigers in Mobile: Days 2 and 3

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Mason Taylor secures a bag while Miles Frazier, Emery Jones, and Saivion Jones shuffle positions

Days 2 and 3 of Senior Bowl practices brought much of the same as the first one for Mason Taylor, as he wraps up as one of the most talked-about players at the entire event. With potential positional versatility from Jones, Frazier, and Jones, the coaches wanted to see them take snaps at their other possible spots. Emery Jones (and Will Campbell, for that matter) has been a possible position-switcher for a couple of years now, but Frazier’s ability to step in and play RT in an emergency during LSU’s Texas Bowl W over Baylor caught a lot of attention in the scouting community. Beyond the official LSU guys, it was cool to see Ed Orgeron’s final recruiting classes so well represented here in general. In addition to Jones, Taylor, Dellinger, and Jones, Landon Jackson was here, and Jack Bech was one of the biggest winners of the event.

Mason Taylor

Going into Mobile, Taylor had a couple of main (relative) questions. People wondered about his agility, his ability to get in and out of breaks and separate from DBs. They also wondered about his contested catch ability, which is huge for red zone targeting and has lacked a bit on his tape at times. While these things don’t really matter as far as becoming a solid starting Tight End, they do factor heavily into the question of what kind of receiving ceiling you have. A practice setting won’t override everything, but Taylor checked both boxes in Mobile, while continuing to block well. He was uncoverable in 1v1s and genuinely looked at times like a huge WR (despite being able to do the real Tight End things that make such a proposition a big plus, rather than a minus). By far the best TE there.

Emery Jones

Emery Jones didn’t necessarily look bad at tackle, but he has projected as a possible guard for a while now and worked in there for a few snaps. He worked at both spots and showed NFL teams a bit of versatility. As we’ve seen with Joe Thuney for the Chiefs this year, a high-end guard that can kick to Tackle in an emergency is something everyone wants to have.

Miles Frazier

Along those lines, Miles Frazier got more work at Tackle as the week went on. Frazier built off of a strong first day, looking pretty good at Tackle for someone who hasn’t really played there aside from a few bowl practices. Frazier is going to be all over the boards of teams who just need to add solid pass protectors with a bit of positional versatility to fill out their offensive lines.

Saivion Jones

Jones didn’t do much as a pass-rusher, but displayed some positional versatility kicking inside at times to 3 Technique. He bulked up a fair bit for this game, so he may continue to do that and kick inside full-time, but I see him more as a big run-stopping base-down DE on a 4-down team. Kind of like Mike Danna is in Kansas City or Josh Paschal in Detroit.

Garrett Dellinger

After an inauspicious start to the week (getting his face run through by TJ Sanders), Dellinger had some nice moments in the run game as the practices progressed. LSU certainly missed him when he went down, so teams will value that, but Dellinger was not one of this week’s big winners overall.

Bonus: Jack Bech

….Yeah. Considering these are all different highlights with some left out, it’s safe to say Jack Bech was all over the place at the Senior Bowl. The consummate Puka Nacua, Jauan Jennings, Drake London power-slot with inside-out versatility, Bech was physical in the run game and uncoverable. People talk a lot about “hybrid Tight Ends,” but they are almost always worse than these types where the hybrid comes from the WR side. As someone who has been a fan of Bech, and Bech in this role, since his HS days, seeing this play out was my favorite part of my week down in Mobile. From Better Know a Freshman, when LSU took him as a “Tight End”

Bech quickly moved into this role at LSU, but was buried behind Nabers and Thomas (understandable), and he flourished in it at TCU. While he won’t be counted or claimed as an LSU product on the field, the LSU legacy and Louisiana lifer will always be viewed with pride by the LSU faithful. LSU is in his blood, down to the very name of his brother who was taken too soon. Jack made him very, very proud this week, 7 looks right on him.