FSU Football: Did DeMarcus Christmas’ combine performance help him?

FSU football has placed a ton of defensive tackles in the NFL over the past decade. Will DeMarcus Christmas be the next one?

When FSU football learned DeMarcus Christmas would be returning to the Noles for his senior season it was like an early Christmas present. I know that was terrible, but you get my drift.

He was a talented player with experience who many thought could have a senior season like Derrick Nnadi the year before him.

That didn’t happen and I have a few theories on why. I blame some of it on the FSU offense for keeping the defense on the field too much because they were inept or turned the ball over a lot.

There wasn’t much difference in the recruiting rankings of Christmas and Nnadi coming out of high school. Nnadi was ranked No. 97 overall and the No. 7 defensive tackle in 2014. Christmas was ranked No. 134 and the No. 9 defensive tackle when he came out of high school.

Nnadi had the more productive career at FSU and was drafted in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft. Christmas has been projected to be drafted anywhere between the third round and/or signed as an undrafted free agent.

He didn’t impress when it came to things like the bench press, broad jump or vertical. All of which designate some type of power and explosion. If you put on his tape at FSU there were a few games where he flashed well, but too many times he seemed invisible unlike Derrick Nnadi who always seemed to flash except when he was playing injured.

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Final Thoughts

NFL.com as Christmas projected as a NFL backup or special teams player. Like I said, his tape is adequate but he’s not the type of player that consistently stands out.

He has decent size at 6’3 294 pounds(he was over 300 pounds at FSU) but mainly was good for clogging up the middle. He didn’t penetrate too much into the backfield for tackles for losses or QB hurries/sacks.

The combine numbers support that lack of explosion with just 22 reps on the bench and just over eight feet on the broad jump. He only had 25.5 inches on his vertical.

Clemson defensive tackle Christian Wilkins out weighs Christmas by 21 pounds and beat him in all of the explosion categories and edged him by one-one hundredth of a second in the forty.

Quality defensive tackles are hard to come by and all it takes is one team to believe in a player.

Maybe there’s one team out there that values what Christmas brings to the table earlier than expected? He didn’t have a terrible NFL Combine, but it could have been a lot better too.