Kelvin Benjamin may come off the board as early as the first round, and teams in need of a receiver as well as a tight end might be interested in the former Florida State standout.
According to NFL Media draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah, Benjamin’s size has intrigued some teams to the point he could be used as a pass-catcher tight end.
“Kelvin Benjamin,” Jeremiah said on “Path to the Draft.” “He’s a wide receiver from Florida State, but he’s enormous. Some teams look at him and say, ‘He looks like a tight end, why don’t we just play him as a flexed out tight end?’
“Not many of these tight ends block anybody anyway, so get yourself a pass-catcher. Maybe that ends up being Kelvin Benjamin.”
At 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, Benjamin is among the tallest and by far the heaviest wide receiver in the draft class. For comparison’s sake, Jimmy Graham was 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds when he participated in the NFL Scouting Combine. Rob Gronkowski was 6-foot-6 and 264 pounds and Jordan Cameron was 6-foot-5 and 254 pounds.
Benjamin has been mocked to the San Francisco 49ers, as well as the Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks, all of which are teams that could benefit from a big-framed pass-catcher.
The Arizona Cardinals are in the mix to draft a quarterback next month and, picking 20th overall, the team may be able to pounce on any prospects that have an Aaron Rodgers-esque slip toward the latter portion of Round 1.
One person not very impressed with the 2014 quarterback class is Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, who when asked if he would consider taking a quarterback in the first round said “we don’t need anything.”
“I don’t know how many of them have a ‘wow’ factor, but there are some really, really good ones, guys that are going to play in the league for a long time,” Arians. “I don’t see an Andrew Luck, a Ben Roethlisberger or Peyton Manning, but I do see some guys that are very capable of playing.”
Arians has a point: nobody is comparing Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater to Luck, Robert Griffin III, and Russell Wilson. Or he’s simply doing his best to disguise Arizona’s draft strategy.
One team that is on the fence about drafting a quarterback is the Tennessee Titans, who continue to be linked to Derek Carr.
According to The Tennessean, the Titans are “especially curious” about Carr, who visited the team facilities earlier this month and recently worked out for quarterbacks coach John McNulty in Fresno, Calif.
The Titans hold the 11th and 42nd picks, but because Carr’s draft stock has been on the rise over the past month, he may not last that far into Round 2. If they really want Carr, it may take their first-round pick or a trade down to the end of the first or beginning of the second round.
