Ohio State Football: Which Buckeye drafted will have the best fit?
By Jay Wilhelm
The Ohio State football program had 10 players drafted in this year’s NFL Draft. Of all of these players, which Buckeye will have the best fit with their team?
By now we’ve all heard who took a Buckeye with their picks in this year’s NFL Draft. The biggest talk was that of the Chicago Bears moving up to draft Quarterback Justin Fields in round one with the 11th overall pick. It could take up to three or four years before we know if any of these picks really hit.
Everyone has an opinion on who won the draft, who got the best grade, and who made some head-scratching picks. I wanted to take a look from the player’s side of things. Which Ohio State football player that was drafted will have the best fit for them with their new team and why that is. In my opinion, that distinction goes to the man drafted in round four with the 132nd pick to the Cleveland Browns.
Defensive lineman Tommy Togiai has the early best fit of the 10 Buckeyes drafted. He quite possibly won’t start right off the jump, but he joins an overhauled Browns defense that needed a lot of backside help. Cleveland’s GM Andrew Berry and company addressed those issues by drafting a highly ranked cornerback and linebacker.
The Browns also bring back star defensive end Myles Garrett and have added Jadeveon Clowney on the other end. Togiai will have the best fit for all of those reasons which will take a ton of pressure off of the 6’2 300lbs lineman.
He will most likely be given a little bit of time to develop. He will share the defensive line with two great defensive ends and now have a backside defense with huge upside potential behind him. He’s not going to be looked at to carry an entire defense to be successful and will fit nicely as a piece to a revamped defense looking to make a run at a Super Bowl in the coming years.
Sometimes the best fit from the player’s side of things isn’t always the sexy pick. Everyone will be talking about Fields and when he’ll take over that Chicago Bears huddle, but to me when it comes to fit and comfortability in any job when you’re coming in.
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It is what kind of talent is around you to take some of the pressure off to learn and what the future looks like. The Browns future is one of the brightest in the league and Tommy Togiai gets to settle in, work, and enjoy the ride along with his new teammates.