Denver Broncos: Vita Vea will make official draft visit
The Denver Broncos will host stud Washington Huskies defensive lineman Vita Vea on a pre-draft visit. Could he be in the mix at no. 5?
The Denver Broncos are arranging their pre-draft visits, and with much of the emphasis on the quarterback position (and offense, in general) right now, the defensive visits may be slipping through the cracks a little bit.
It’s impossible, however, for Vita Vea to slip through any crack.
The 6-foot-4, 347 pound defensive lineman out of Washington is reportedly set to visit the Denver Broncos prior to the 2018 NFL Draft, and he provides an interesting alternative option in the first round for Denver.
Washington DT Vita Vea, one of the top players in the draft, visits Cowboys, Buccaneers, Washington, Chargers, Giants, Bengals, Broncos, Browns, according to a league source
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) March 26, 2018
There’s very little chance of Vea getting picked outside of the top 20 in this year’s draft. On a pound-for-pound basis, he may be the most impressive athlete in the entire class.
At 347 pounds, this guy ran a 5.10 second 40-yard dash. That’s absolutely insane.
In addition to running really well, Vea threw up 41 bench press reps at 225 pounds. This guy is big, strong, fast, athletic, and versatile.
So versatile, in fact, I can still remember being absolutely shocked when watching Garett Bolles vs. Washington in 2016, and seeing a matchup between he and Vita Vea who was standing up as an edge rusher.
No kidding.
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The Huskies moved Vea all around their defensive formation, and you can’t tell me Bill Kollar wouldn’t love the opportunity to extract the very best out of this young player.
He’s not as consistent as Haloti Ngata was, but I can’t think of many players we’ve seen with his potential coming out of college.
Dontari Poe would have to be on that list, as he was freakish coming out of Memphis as well, but Vea physically compares very well to Ngata when he came out of Oregon all those years ago.
Not only physically, but in his prime, we can all remember Ngata dropping into coverage at times for the Ravens, just showing off his athleticism at that point. Poe is a great athlete, but he’s not going to drop into coverage all that often.
Although, he can catch some passes…
The potential of a player like Vea has obviously caused the Broncos to think about the possibility of him playing on their defensive line for the foreseeable future. Of course, if they were to select Vea, it would mean they passed on a quarterback at number five overall, or missed out on the top four guys in this year’s class entirely.
Broncos fans probably wouldn’t be thrilled by that as a whole, but Vea is certainly a rare type of defensive line prospect and would warrant serious consideration if the Broncos do decide to go elsewhere at number five overall.