2023 NFL Draft: Offensive tackle rankings with pro comparisons - Bleeding Green Nation

With the NFL Draft process well underway, there is a much clearer picture of the 2023 class than there was even a month ago. With exhibition games and the Combine now in the past, it is easier to build a full profile of this year’s prospects. This offensive tackle class has a ton of high upside players who could contribute immediately in the NFL.

1) Paris Johnson Jr., Ohio State

Paris Johnson Jr. wins with great size, smooth athleticism and refined pass blocking ability. Johnson only played one season at left tackle but looked like a natural protecting CJ Stroud’s blind side. Johnson carries his huge frame very well and his long arms make pass blocking much easier, even against bigger and more athletic rushers. Johnson’s down hill speed gives him great upside as a run blocker.

Johnson can take a leap by playing a bit stronger and meaner. Johnson has the size and natural strength to be dominant in all phases of offensive tackle play, but needs to apply that strength more in his play. It could be a lack of experience at the position that is holding him back and more snaps will help him develop confidence.

Pro Comparison: Charles Cross, Seattle Seahawks

2) Darnell Wright, Tennessee

Darnell Wright wins with size, strength and a dominant mean streak. Wright carries around 330 pounds better than most people, and he uses every pound well on the field. He is strong as hell and any defender that matched up against him in the last year knows it. He can erase pass rushers with heavy hands and he is a bulldozer in the run game. Turn on the Alabama game and watch Wright take Will Anderson out of the game for four quarters. Wright is a four year starter whose experience paid off with a brilliant senior season.

Wright can take a leap cleaning up his technique. He is a good athlete but a lack of lateral agility means his hand placement in pass protection needs to be perfect. Wright can be a bit grabby when he gets beat around the edge. More patience and discipline will pair well with his existing traits.

Pro Comparison: La’El Collins, Cincinnati Bengals

3) Peter Skoronski, Northwestern

Peter Skoronski wins with great technique, athleticism and a mean streak. It is hard to find a definitive hole in Skoronski’s game. He played great football from the moment he stepped on the field for the Wildcats and there’s no reason to suspect he won’t play great NFL football.

Skoronski can take a leap by overcoming physical limitations. Skoronski is decidedly small for an offensive tackle. He made up for it in many ways at the college level, but struggles with longer pass rushers is a concern for things to come against NFL talent. If Skoronski can prove he can outplay his size at tackle, then he is bound to be a great player there. Otherwise, he will be one hell of a guard.

Pro Comparison: Joel Bitonio, Cleveland Browns

4) Broderick Jones, Georgia

Broderick Jones wins with great athleticism, size and run blocking prowess. Jones has been a cornerstone of Georgia’s championship winning offenses. He has the athleticism to match up with all the talented pass rushers in the SEC and is unafraid to come downhill and punish defenders trying to stop the run.

Jones can take a leap by continuing to improve as a technical player. He does not have a ton of experience under his belt, and that shows with moments where he is trying to out-athlete his opponents instead of using disciplined hands or good footwork. There is plenty of work to be done, but his potential is as high as any player in this class.

Pro Comparison: Terron Armstead, Miami Dolphins

5) Dawand Jones, Ohio State

Jones wins with enormous size, heavy hands and a mean streak. Jones held it down for Ohio State on the right side this season and the right side is probably his fit in the NFL. Jones has big, long arms with strong hands to take defenders out of the equation either as a run blocker or a pass blocker.

Jones can take a leap by becoming quicker, improving his pad level and playing with more discipline. It is easy for a big guy like Jones to rely on pure braun to win against college defenders, but NFL defenders are stronger, faster, and know how to use blockers’ strengths against them. Jones has an immense potential, but technical improvements and possibly lightening up a bit could help him take his game to the next level.

Pro Comparison: Orlando Brown, Cincinnati Bengals

The Rest

6) Anton Harrison, Oklahoma

7) Jaelyn Duncan, Maryland

8) Matthew Bergeron, Syracuse

9) Cody Mauch, North Dakota State

10) Blake Freeland, BYU

11) Richard Gouraige, Florida

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2023 NFL Draft: Offensive tackle rankings with pro comparisons - Bleeding Green Nation
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LSU-Iowa title game draws record 9.9 million viewers: Why that’s game-changing for women’s CBB - The Athletic

Sunday’s NCAA women’s basketball national championship game featuring the LSU Tigers and Iowa Hawkeyes drew 9.9 million viewers, according to ESPN. Here’s what you need to know:

• It is the most-viewed women’s college basketball game on record.
• The game’s viewership peaked at 12.6 million.
• LSU defeated Iowa 102-85, winning the program’s first national championship.

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

A game-changing moment for women’s college basketball

We tend to get cliché in calling things “game-changing,” but this viewership number is game-changing for women’s college basketball. The previous record for an NCAA women’s basketball title game in the ESPN era (since 1996) was 5.68 million viewers for UConn’s win over Oklahoma in 2002. (The previous all-time record, per Sports Media Watch, is believed to be 8.1 million viewers for a Virginia-Stanford national semifinal on CBS in 1992.) LSU’s win over Iowa obliterated it. Such a figure, in my estimation, changes public perception, investment, everything.

Some context: The 1999 Women’s World Cup final averaged 17.975 million viewers on ABC. It was a stunning number at the time and turbo-charged that sport. I think this will have the same effect.

This also isn’t a moment. The growth of women’s tournament viewership has been a multi-year play. The Iowa-South Carolina semifinal last Friday drew 5.5 million viewers. Last year’s final between South Carolina and UConn averaged 4.85 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, the most-watched title game since UConn-Tennessee in 2004. Last year’s semifinal game between UConn-Stanford averaged 3.23 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, the largest audience for a semifinal game since Baylor–Stanford in 2012 (3.76 million).

The game has gotten more athletic, faster and, most importantly, access to the game is much wider with increased television windows (including on ABC). Remember this day if you are a women’s basketball fan. Because you’ll be talking about it years from now. — Deitsch

Comparative context

Year 1 of “Thursday Night Football” streaming on Amazon Prime Video this past season averaged 9.58 million viewers in Nielsen Media Research-only audience numbers for the inaugural 15-game package. Nine “TNF” games averaged fewer than 9.9 million in Nielsen metrics.

This is another chunk of data that suggests, as the NCAA’s own recent gender equity study showed, that the women’s tournament is significantly undervalued as part of the 14-year, $500 million multi-sport bundled deal ESPN struck with the NCAA in 2011. — Shea

Backstory

The national championship viewership comes after record-setting national semifinals. Those two games — LSU versus Virginia Tech and South Carolina versus Iowa — combined to become the most-viewed Women’s Final Four matchups ever, averaging 4.5 million viewers.

Required reading

(Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)

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2023 NFL Draft first round includes four Georgia football players - 247Sports

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1. 2023 NFL Draft first round includes four Georgia football players  247Sports
2. 2023 NFL Mock Draft: Anthony Richardson top 3; Raiders, Titans trade up but only one of them goes after a QB  CBS Sports
3. What is the Biggest Story of the 2023 NFL Draft?  NFL
4. Sam Farmer's crystal ball: NFL mock draft 2.0 after big trade for top pick  Yahoo News
5. 2023 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Justin Jefferson, Ja'Marr Chase Lead the Way  Pro Football Network
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

2023 NFL Draft first round includes four Georgia football players - 247Sports
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Knicks may become the next loser of Kyrie Irving's disastrous season - New York Daily News

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Dan Hurley - Expanding tourney would devalue regular season - ESPN

4:44 PM ET

HOUSTON -- An NCAA committee could soon announce a recommendation on potential expansion of the NCAA tournament field, but UConn men's basketball coach Dan Hurley says he believes the tournament is fine with 68 teams.

Hurley, who will attempt to lead the Huskies to their fifth national title since 1999 in the national championship game against San Diego State on Monday night, said the NCAA tournament is flawed but expansion is not the answer.

"For me, I think it's great the way it is," Hurley said at his pregame news conference at NRG Stadium on Sunday. "I feel like devaluing the regular season, I think, potentially hurts the regular season and what it means. I think the pressure to have to win games and being rewarded for winning big nonconference games and then taking care of enough business in the league ... I think it's a privilege to play in this tournament, not a right."

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But it's not perfect. Hurley, who coached Rhode Island before accepting the UConn job in 2018, said the formula for selecting teams sometimes rewards teams with brand names over deserving mid-major schools.

"I do think, though, that there are probably mid-major programs, a lot of times, that are more deserving than like a 10th-place team in a power conference that has figured out how to just game the numbers, so I'll say that. I see that on Selection Sunday sometimes. And I cringe at that."

On Saturday, new NCAA president Charlie Baker told reporters at the Final Four that a recommendation of possible expansion from the NCAA committee studying the issue could come as early as this summer.

On ESPN Radio's "Keyshawn, JWill & Max" on Friday, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said that "he wouldn't go to 90 [teams]" but he is in favor of more teams earning bids.

Miami coach Jim Larranaga, who led the program to its first Final Four this year, said recently that he also would back expansion.

"I think there is so much parity in college basketball, we need to expand the NCAA tournament to another round," Larranaga told ESPN Radio last month. "It needs to be 96 teams invited. You look at what Fairleigh Dickinson did, you look at what FAU has done ... These are teams that maybe nobody heard about going into the tournament. Last year, it was Saint Peters.

"The NCAA, we have 360 Division I teams and only 68 make the dance. The whole mission is to give the student-athlete a great experience. Well, there is no greater experience for a college basketball player than to compete in March Madness and yet we only have 68 teams out of 363. That's 18%. Let's increase it. Let's go to 96."

Hurley disagrees, however, with the coach he faced on Saturday in the Final Four.

"I don't think expanding [the NCAA tournament] is a good idea," he said. "And we only got five teams [in the NCAA tournament] in the Big East, so it's not like we got nine."

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Blazers beat Timberwolves in largest NBA upset in 30 years - ESPN

8:01 PM ET

The Portland Trail Blazers pulled off the largest NBA upset in 30 years on Sunday by knocking off the Minnesota Timberwolves as 19.5-point underdogs.

The Trail Blazers were missing four starters, including star guard Damian Lillard, and had lost 11 of 12 games heading into the game. But Portland still managed to rally back from a 12-point deficit in the second half to edge the playoff-minded Timberwolves 107-105 in Minneapolis.

Season	Game	Spread
1991-92	Magic vs. Bulls	-21
2022-23	Blazers vs. Wolves	-19.5
1992-93	Mavericks vs. Sonics	-19.5
2019-20	Nets vs. Bucks	-19

"Every single person that got out on that floor tonight, they gave it all they had and that's all I want from our guys," Portland coach Chauncey Billups said. "To play as hard as you can, play unselfish and be a good teammate and see what happens."

It's the largest upset via point spread since the Dallas Mavericks beat the Seattle SuperSonics as 19.5-point underdogs on April 6, 1993, and the second-largest upset in ESPN Stats & Information's database, which goes back to the 1990-91 season. The Orlando Magic beat the Chicago Bulls as 21-point underdogs in 1992, the largest point-spread upset in that time span.

Shaedon Sharpe scored 27 points and Kevin Knox added 19 points to lead the Blazers. Sharpe put Portland up 106-103 with 24.1 seconds left, and the Blazers got a defensive stop on the Timberwolves' final possession to end a five-game losing streak. It was only Portland's second win since March 6.

It was the third straight loss for the Timberwolves, who are in a crowded battle for a spot in the Western Conference play-in games. The loss also drops the Timberwolves to 5-10 against the five teams with the worst records in the NBA.

"We always fall short, it seems," Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards said of struggling against the bottom teams. "It always haunts us. And tonight, once again, yep."

The San Antonio Spurs also pulled a big upset Sunday, beating the Sacramento Kings in overtime as 16-point underdogs.

Sunday was the 91st time since 1990-91 that there had been multiple 15-point underdogs in a day. Sunday was the first time two of the underdogs won outright, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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LSU found defense on South Carolina's shooters 'very disrespectful' ahead of matchup with Caitlin Clark, Iowa - Fox News

The Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks Friday night in the Final Four to earn a berth in the national championship game against LSU. 

They did so by regularly sagging off South Carolina’s shooters, daring them to make jumpers in a game the Gamecocks shot just 4 for 20 from beyond the 3-point line. 

Caitlin Clark (22) of the Iowa Hawkeyes dribbles against Raven Johnson (25) of the South Carolina Gamecocks during the third quarter of the 2023 NCAA Tournament Final Four at American Airlines Center March 31, 2023, in Dallas, Texas.  (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Caitlin Clark, who led Iowa with 41 points, went viral for waving at South Carolina guard Raven Johnson in the first half as Johnson stood wide open above the arc. 

SOUTH CAROLINA’S DAWN STALEY ON NAME BEING SUGGESTED FOR TEMPLE JOB: ‘DON'T WANT TO COACH IN THE MEN'S GAME’

The strategy appears to have bothered a few LSU players. 

"I watched the game, and I'm watching them guard South Carolina. I don't think they can guard us that way," LSU guard Alexis Morris said Saturday, according to ESPN. "I don't think you can just leave me open on the perimeter or leave us open on the perimeter. 

"Me, personally, I find it very disrespectful. So, I'm going to take that personally going into that game. You're going to have to guard us. That's just the competitor in me, and the will to win."

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Against a bigger South Carolina team, Iowa made the decision to pack the paint and live with the Gamecocks' shooting from the outside. 

South Carolina shot 31.5% from three during the 2022-23 the season. 

The South Carolina Gamecocks bench reacts in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter against the Iowa Hawkeyes during the 2023 NCAA Tournament Final Four at American Airlines Center March 31, 2023, in Dallas, Texas.  (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

"We're not going to guard LSU the same way we guarded South Carolina," Clark said. "Obviously, with South Carolina, you've got to pick your poison. If they were going to beat us, we were going to let it be by the 3-point line. You have to pick and choose your battles. We can't guard everything. 

"That's the game of basketball. You have a scout. You know player personnel. What are you going to give up? That's what we were going to give up. We had all the respect in the world for South Carolina, and especially their post play."

Alexis Morris of LSU reacts during the fourth quarter against the Virginia Tech Hokies during the 2023 NCAA Tournament Final Four at American Airlines Center March 31, 2023, in Dallas, Texas.  (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

While LSU shot just 23.1% from three in its win over Virginia Tech in the Final Four, the Tigers shot 35.9% from byond the arc as a team this season. 

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"That was very disrespectful, and [South Carolina] didn't take advantage of that," LSU guard Kateri Poolev said, per ESPN. "If they do it to us, we're going to take advantage."

LSU and Iowa square off in the national championship game Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET. 

Joe Morgan is a Sports Reporter for Fox News.

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