Bucs Head Coach Bruce Arians and General Manager Jason Licht both said they spent quite a bit of time evaluating this year's offensive line class coming into Indianapolis this year. It's thought to be one of the deeper position groups and they finally got a chance to see offensive line prosepects on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium at the NFL Scouting on Friday night. While the big four prospects of Georgia's Andrew Thomas, Alabama's Jedrick Wills, Louisville's Mekhi Becton and Iowa's Tristan Wirfs all performed well, the latter was the clear winner with the former Hawkeye soaring to the top of the leaderboard in nearly every major category.
A day earlier, Wirfs had finished middle of the pack with 24 reps of 225 pounds in the bench press. Given his 34-inch arms, that shouldn't be of concern to anyone. But then, Friday night, Wirfs absolutely exploded – putting together one of the best all-around performances certainly by an offensive lineman, if not player in general, in recent memory.
Wirfs ran a blazing 4.85 40-yard dash at 6-5, 320 pounds. It was the best of the group and better than guys like quarterbacks Jacob Eason and Jake Fromm. Imagine that. An offensive lineman that can outrun his quarterback. Granted, offensive linemen will run 40 yards in a straight line almost never, but his unofficial split was a 1.69, which indicates his close-range speed.
Wirfs then proceeded to lead his position group with an insane 36.5-inch vertical, an OL Combine record and putting him on par with guys like wideouts Freddie Swain and Michael Pittman Jr. Wirfs then tied a Combine record for broad jump by an offensive lineman with 121.0 inches. That's over 10 feet.
If you've been paying attention to our Buccaneers.com mock drafts, you’ll remember in 1.0, I got to pick for the Bucs and took Wirfs at 14.
Now, I'm almost positive he won't even be there.
