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UB, Lance Leipold ‘disappointed’ in lack of 2019 NFL Draft picks

Like many who paid attention to the 2019 NFL Draft, University at Buffalo football coach Lance Leipold was just as surprised when it closed and not one UB player, including quarterback Tyree Jackson, was selected.

Six UB players were eligible for the draft. Jackson chose to forgo his final year of eligibility to turn pro in January.

“We’re disappointed some of our players we thought would get drafted didn’t, but it’s something we’ve talked about, that they’re going to have to compete anyways, to make a team,” Leipold said Sunday. “Once you get there, you still have to go and earn it, and that’s something our players have always done.”

After the draft ended Saturday, four UB players signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents: Jackson and cornerback Cam Lewis with the Bills, wide receiver Anthony Johnson with Tampa Bay and defensive end Chuck Harris with Chicago. Cornerback Tatum Slack was invited to Detroit’s rookie minicamp in May. Khalil Hodge, a linebacker, has not yet announced if he has signed with an NFL team or if he will attend a rookie minicamp.

“You don’t know what all teams are going through, what the circumstances are at the moment, and it shows how difficult (getting drafted) can be,” Leipold said. “Every one of our guys who were getting drafted are great guys with great character, and there was nothing in their background that would be a red flag to some teams. That’s what’s disheartening.”

Teams passing on Jackson, though, is baffling. After he declared for the draft in January, Jackson emerged as one of the more intriguing prospects based on his size (6-foot-7, 249 pounds), speed, athleticism and arm strength. Some mock drafts listed Jackson as high as a third-round pick earlier this year, but no team selected Jackson from a crop of quarterbacks that wasn’t especially robust.

Lance Zierlein, a draft analyst with NFL Media, projected Jackson as a sixth- or a seventh-round pick but said in an email to the News that a drop-off in Jackson’s play at the end of the year, as well as what he called “scattered” accuracy hurt Jackson’s chances of being drafted.

UB gets shut out of NFL Draft, but QB Tyree Jackson to sign with Bills

“He has developmental traits to work with,” Zierlein said of Jackson’s prospects as an NFL quarterback. “He really needs to work on the fundamentals of his mechanics, which can help his accuracy. Secondly, learning to play the chess game of reading defenses and knowing where to go with the ball is going to be critical.”

Accuracy, however, was an issue with Jackson. He had a completion rate of 55.8 percent in three seasons at UB, including 55.3 percent in 2018.

He also wowed people at the NFL combine. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds, had a vertical jump of 34.5 inches and a broad jump of 10 feet, but those statistics aren’t a true indicator of how someone’s skills will transfer to the NFL.

ESPN analyst Chris Mortensen floated a theory on Twitter on Saturday, immediately after the draft, implying a quarterback like Jackson — tall and smart, with a strong arm and sound character — may no longer be the NFL prototype.

“Tyree Jackson of Buffalo is big, smart, powerful arm, high character but we are now in an era where a 5-10 QB can go 1st in draft but a 6-7 or taller QB pays for the failures of Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Ryan Mallet and Dan McGwire,” Mortensen tweeted.

Joe Goodberry, a draft analyst with The Athletic, explained that Jackson's lack of coordination also hurt his consistency as a passer.

Tyree Jackson of Buffalo is big, smart, powerful arm, high character but we are now in an era where a 5-10 QB can go 1st in draft but a 6-7 or taller QB pays for the failures of Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Ryan Mallet and Dan McGwire.

— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) April 27, 2019

“Too often, Jackson's footwork and arm would get disjointed and leave him throwing an inaccurate ball. Buffalo's offense didn't help as he often was asked to throw deep downfield with little options for easy completions,” Goodberry wrote in an email. “As a whole, this left Jackson's production profile looking like many undrafted quarterbacks of the past. Projection suggests he will never become anything more than a junk-ball thrower that deals with incredible inconsistency.

“On the other hand, he's young, talented and seemingly a good kid. I thought he'd get a chance as a draft pick.”

Instead, Jackson signed as an undrafted free agent with the Bills for $75,000, according to an ESPN report.

Jackson wasn’t alone in going undrafted, either. Forty nine of the 144 players (34 percent) who were early entrants were not drafted, which was roughly the same percentage as 2018, when 37 of 106 early entrants (34.9 percent) went undrafted.

Even Bills general manager Brandon Beane was bewildered that Jackson wasn’t drafted.

“I truly thought he would be drafted,” Beane told reporters Saturday in Orchard Park. “He was on our draft board to be drafted. I'm surprised. You saw his name still sitting there late in the seventh, and you start going, 'Man, if this kid doesn't get drafted, we're going to have to go after him.' And we did.”

Leipold said that while he has communicated with Jackson since prior to the draft, he hasn’t had any particular conversations as to why he wasn’t drafted.

“We talked more about the positive opportunities and what was presented to him with the Bills,” Leipold said. “I had the chance to thank (Bills coach Sean) McDermott for giving him the opportunity, but you can’t spend a lot of time figuring out why, and I don’t think we’ll find out why, and where the teams went with their decisions.”