Why Undrafted?: Tarvarus McFadden, CB, Florida State
By Charlie Campbell, @draftcampbell
Four years ago, we started a series of articles on why certain prospects went undrafted. In that series, I reach out to sources with NFL teams to find out why their organizations passed on drafting a given player, and/or, what were the reasons for other teams to pass on that prospect. We got a lot of positive reader feedback about the series, so we decided to expand in the genre to investigate why some prospects slid in the draft. Three years ago, we started the Why the Slide? series, and this year it is back. Feel free to email me requests for Why the Slide? and Why Undrafted? at [email protected]. I can’t promise to get to all of them, but I will do my best and definitely will respond to the email.
Entering the 2018 NFL Draft process, Florida State cornerback Tarvarus McFadden was considered to have early-round potential after his sophomore season. McFadden was up and down at times in 2016, but he showed the talent to grow into a better player. Sometimes he looked great, and other times he was lost and gave up some big plays. McFadden tied for the nation’s lead in interceptions with eight that season and seemed poised to be better in 2017. As a junior, however, McFadden totaled 30 tackles with 10 passes broken up and zero interceptions. It was a disappointing season, including being beaten on a back-shoulder play for the game-winning touchdown against Miami. After declaring for the 2018 NFL Draft, McFadden hurt his stock with a shockingly slow 40 time of 4.67 seconds at the NFL Scouting Combine. He then was not selected, falling to the undrafted ranks.
Sources from multiple teams, independently of each other, cited the same reasons why McFadden went undrafted. The first one was bad game tape – every source said that. They felt that McFadden didn’t play well, which really hurt him. Even late in the season, one team source said that McFadden would only get drafted because of his skill set and not his performance. Multiple team sources said that McFadden was soft, and they all had concerns about him having enough speed to run with NFL receivers. The combination of those issues caused McFadden to go undrafted.
After going undrafted, McFadden signed with the San Francisco 49ers, and that was a good choice for him. The 49ers are implementing the Seahawks’ defensive scheme and are going to use big cornerbacks playing press man. San Francisco signed Richard Sherman this offseason, and he is a perfect player for McFadden to study and pattern his game after. Sherman is a declining veteran as well, so perhaps McFadden can improve enough on the back end of the roster or the practice squad to put himself in position to compete as Sherman’s future replacement. The physical Sherman should immediately provide an example to McFadden that he can’t get away with playing soft as a press-man corner. If McFadden works hard, he could end up sticking with the 49ers and being a steal as an undrafted free agent.
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