Ad Disclosure
Mel Kiper Jr. shared some extended thoughts about former Tennessee edge rusher James Pearce Jr. this week.
Pearce entered the 2024 season as one of the favorites to go No. 1 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft. And while Pearce is still projected to be a 1st-round pick, he’s nowhere near the conversation to be the top selection in this class.
So what happened? Pearce’s production dipped slightly in 2024. He recorded 13 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks after putting up 15 and 10 in those categories, respectively, back in 2023. But more than that, Kiper said, his junior season tape just wasn’t as impressive as many expected it to be.
“To me, the flashes we saw this year, we did see some production, it wasn’t like he didn’t do anything,” Kiper said on the First Draft podcast this week. “He was disruptive against the run. He did chase, he did hustle. But you didn’t see what we thought we would see. We didn’t get it on a week-to-week basis, and when that happens, you wonder ‘am I too low, am I too high or I should just say I don’t understand this player at all.’ I’m going to say, hey, whatever happens in the NFL is going to surprise me one way or the other.
“James Pearce Jr., I don’t have a good handle on. He’ll be one of those handful of players I think we could all say we just don’t get, we just don’t understand and we can’t really be confident – hey, you can be confident and still be right or wrong. You can be wrong on that, too, but with James Pearce Jr., I have not really had a good grasp on where he belongs in terms of the 1st round of this draft.”
Kiper’s comments came on the First Draft podcast as he analyzed Pearce’s position in Field Yates’ latest mock draft. Yates is currently projecting Pearce to go No. 19 overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Pearce does still have some time to impress NFL evaluators and perhaps re-gain some of his draft stock. The NFL Scouting Combine will begin in Indianapolis later this month. The 2025 NFL Draft will not begin until April 24 in Green Bay.
If Pearce does ultimately go in the 1st round, he’d still make Tennessee history. He’d be the 47th player all time to become a Tennessee 1st-round draft pick and just the 2nd since Josh Heupel took over in Knoxville. The Vols have not produced a 1st-round pick on defense since Derek Barnett went 14th overall in 2017.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
