With the end of the season fast approaching the Florida Gators coaching staff is using the bye week to meet with draft-eligible players.
There is a lot to consider when leaving school early to enter the NFL Draft, so the coaching staff aims to meet with each player individually and discuss their options. Mullen has long held true to his belief that if a player is projected to be a first-round pick they should leave school early. There’s no pushback from him if that’s the case. Last year the 32nd pick in the NFL Draft signed a $10.1 million dollar contract and a $5.4 million dollar signing bonus. That’s generational, life-changing money. However, after the first round things change quickly.
This week Mullen is meeting with the draft-eligible sophomores and juniors to discuss where they think they will be drafted and the coaching staff is also helping them get their paperwork ready to submit to the NFL. That information comes back with a projected round where the player would potentially be drafted in the 2020 NFL Draft.
“The big key to that, to me, is all we want is guys to make good decisions and have success with that. You know, so guys that are going to get drafted in the first or second round, that they know that, they feel good about it, this is what you need to do to maintain that draft status,” Mullen said. “Make sure you’re doing these things, get drafted and know you made a great decision to leave. And educating guys that maybe shouldn’t, say, ‘Hey, these are reasons you should stay. Here’s how it affects you. This is why this is what we see happening in the future for you.’ It’s just that they and their families are very educated to make the best decisions for their future.”
Last year Mullen did not seem thrilled when Jachai Polite declared early for the NFL Draft. Polite was a guy that was projected as a first-round pick in the minds of many publically, so, at the time, it felt like sour grapes for Mullen.
Then Polite turned in a historically bad performance at the NFL Combine. He doubled down with another bad day at Florida’s pro day and plummeted in the Draft before finally being selected by the New York Jets at 68th overall.
Polite signed a four-year, $3.6 million dollar contract with a $1.12 million dollar signing bonus but was cut by the Jets in May after being fined for breaking several team rules and showing up late to meetings. Polite was picked up by the Seattle Seahawks and put on the practice roster but that didn’t stick. He’s now with his third team in less than a year, on the Los Angeles Rams’ practice roster making $112,000 this year.
Polite’s year is a cautionary tale for the Florida Gators that are draft eligible and thinking about leaving school early.
On Wednesday Mullen was asked if he had a number on the guys he anticipates could leave school early and if he’s met with them
“I meet with everybody that’s eligible just to go through the whole process. Then what we do is there will be probably eight guys that will want to find out, eight guys that might want to find out even more information about it. I would guess, you know, of that there are maybe two or three, there may be three or four that, you know, could get serious about it.”
Looking at the roster we came up with the eight that Mullen is most likely speaking of. Feleipe Franks would have been on the list as a redshirt junior but his injury would probably keep him from seriously considering leaving school early.
C.J. Henderson
Kadarius Toney
Brad Stewart Jr
Trevon Grimes
Donovan Stiner
Shawn Davis
Kyree Campbell
Marco Wilson
Of that group of eight, it’s most likely that Henderson, Wilson, and Grimes would be the three players that Mullen was speaking of when he says three could get serious about it. That’s a decision that, ultimately, Mullen can’t make for the players. There could be a million different reasons a player decided to stay in school or leave early and they’re all personal and germane to the individual.
Mullen will just shoot it straight with every player. It’s clear he did that with Polite and the edge rusher went against what Mullen said. It didn’t work out for Polite and now Mullen has that proven track record with the players he is meeting with now.