UCLA Football: NFL Draft Predictions (UCLA Players)

Besides Super Bowl Sunday and National Letter of Intent Day (this coming Wednesday, February 3rd), the only big football event coming up within the next five months is the 2016 NFL draft, which will begin April 28th. Many senior and junior football players (including fellow UCLA Bruin football players) will join the big leagues and be selected to which team they will play on. There are many key UCLA football players who will enter the draft and hopefully have an amazing rest of their football careers.
There are 7 rounds to the NFL draft, each round having about 30 players in it. The first round is usually the most highlighted and looked up towards, especially the first overall pick. Last year, the first player selected in the NFL draft was former Florida State Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston, who is now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Next behind Winston was former Oregon Ducks quarterback Marcus Mariota, who won the Heisman Trophy that year, but lost the national championship. UCLA's top pick of the draft that year was second round pick Eric Kendricks (45th overall). The last time a UCLA player was picked in the first round was back in the 2014 NFL draft, in which former outside linebacker Anthony Barr was the 9th overall pick. Barr was one of the hard hitters on defense for UCLA. One of his biggest tackles in his UCLA career came against USC in 2012. In that game, he sacked former USC quarterback Matt Barkley really hard. Barkley's shoulder was sprained and it ended the quarterback's college career. If my explanation of that play wasn't so clear, the video to the play is at the end of the post.
UCLA has two players (both on defense) that are predicted to go in the first round of the draft. Former outside linebacker (can also play running back) Myles Jack is predicted to be among the first five overall picks. Not only can Jack can hit hard on defense, much like Anthony Barr, but he can also pull off some amazing runs, such as the touchdown run in the second video. The other first round prediction is defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Clark was one of the biggest UCLA players on defense this past season. He also had a touchdown of his own: a receiving touchdown in UCLA's season opener against the Virginia Cavaliers.
Many more Bruins are predicted to go into other rounds of the draft. Offensive tackle Caleb Benenoch and running back Paul Perkins are predicted to go into the third round of the draft. Perkins has been a gigantic factor in UCLA's offense. Through his three years, he has rushed for a total of 3,491 yards, averaging about 1,164 rushing yards per season. This past season, he rushed for 1,343 yards. Perkins knows how to pull off some ridiculous runs, such as the third video down below. Usually, you wouldn't think the play would be a long rush, but when Perkins rips through the defense, he's gone (most of the time). Offensive guard Alex Redmond is predicted to go into the fourth round, and wide receivers Devin Fuller and Jordan Payton are projected to go into the sixth and seventh rounds.
Even though UCLA is losing lots of talent in football, there is still more coming in for National Letter of Intent Day, when graduating high school football players choose which college they will attend and play football for. In the next post, I will discuss the results of NLI Day. I hope that UCLA will have a great recruiting class and that these players will be well-prepared for the NFL in their future.

The big sack on Matt Barkley by Anthony Barr.

Listen to the crowd's reaction to the hit. (2012)