The consensus top edge rusher for the 2024 NFL Draft is Alabama’s Dallas Turner. After Turner, there have been many mock drafts that have Florida State’s Jared Verse next, although some project UCLA’s Laiatu Latu. Both of them recorded multiple seasons of good production in big-time football. They also worked out well in the field drills at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine. WalterFootball.com surveyed sources with six teams as to their preference between the two. Five of the teams had Latu rated ahead of Verse, and the last team had Verse over Latu.
“Latu has a better motor, was more productive, and a lot bendier off the edge,” said an NFC director of college scouting. “Verse is a power player.”
The five sources that had Latu higher projected him to go between No. 11-20, assuming his medical evaluation doesn’t flunk him. Some team sources are worried that Latu could be flunked medically because of his neck injury while at Washington before transferring to UCLA. Those sources felt that Verse was a No. 21-30-caliber prospect. The team that had Verse ahead had it flipped, with Verse in the teens and Latu in the 20s.
It will be fascinating to see if Latu is passed medically, or if he starts to slide in the first round because teams get nervous about other teams passing on him because of their medical evaluation. Currently, I have both going in the top-25 of my latest 2024 NFL Mock Draft.
