Chicago Bears film: Draft target Tremaine Edmunds possesses crazy upside

Weaknesses: Youth and inexperience

Truthfully, this shouldn’t surprise anyone given that Edmunds is only 19 years old right now. He still has a ton to learn about how to actually play football rather than just running around making plays.

At the NFL level, athleticism will help him cover up some of his inexperience, but it won’t hide it forever.

This play against Clemson is a good example of that.

Here, Virginia Tech appears to be playing Cover 1 “Robber”, a modified version of typical Cover 1 (one deep safety while everyone else locks on).

In this scenario, the best guess is that Edmunds should be picking up the running back out of the backfield while Andrew Motuapuaka floats in middle zone coverage, following the quarterback’s eyes.

However, Edmunds gets lulled to sleep by the running back, who slips out of the backfield after a brief feint at blitz pickup and loses his man for an easy touchdown.

NFL teams will see plays like that and try to attack Edmunds with similar schemes targeted at drawing his eye away from his responsibilities. Sort of like this…

Though most teams won’t run trick plays to the quarterback, the point still stands as far as how easily he can be fooled at times. He’ll need to learn fast if he’s going to play early in his career.

Also, like Floyd, he needs to add a bit more strength and aggression to his play on the field.

He has shown some ability to shed linebackers using his length, but he has to play with more violence. Due to his high center of gravity and somewhat skinny build, blockers can overpower him if he can’t get his hands on them first.

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At age 19, though? Just imagine the ridiculous potential that Edmunds has with his athleticism and some of the amount that he can still grow mentally. We’re talking some All-Pro, Urlacher/DeMarcus Ware hybrid-type stuff.

His youth, crazy physical abilities and insanely high ceiling might be too much for Pace to ignore if he can’t grab the likes of Minkah Fitzpatrick or Quenton Nelson at No. 8.