The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Edgerrin Cooper.
Edgerrin Cooper'S 2024 NFL COMBINE RESULTS
- Height: 6-foot-2 1/8
- Weight: 230
- Arm length: NA
- 40-yard dash: 4.51
- 10-yard split: 1.54
- Vertical jump: 34'5"
- Broad jump: 9'10"
- 20-yard shuttle: DNP
Edgerrin Cooper 2024 NFL DRAFT SCOUTING REPORT
STRENGTHS
- Tall, rangy, athletic feel to movement with light, bouncy feet and fluid change of direction. Played fast and fluid.
- Outstanding play speed with the range to play inside out sideline-to-sideline. Easily ran down a mobile QB.
- Run game snaps with excellent key and diagnose, allowing him to beat climbing OL blocks and make tackles.
- In the run game, showed body flexibility to bend to avoid OL blocks without losing gap integrity or balance.
- Snap to his movement. Twitch and suddenness in confined space. Read through traffic, then explosive burst.
- Forceful striker playing downhill in the run game. Naturally explosive in a short confined space, a critical trait.
- Played with physicality and showed natural power throughout his body. He popped runners, and they stopped.
- Patience and vision to read blocking schemes and the running back, then sifted through traffic to make tackles.
- Showed explosive downhill burst and lateral quickness with hand usage to defeat backs and win as a blitzer.
- Explosive downhill burst as a blitzer. Elite accelerating speed off the edge with contact power and bend.
- Zero to 60 in a heartbeat. Sudden explosive mover who puts it into drive instantaneously. Elite burst and speed.
- Strong coverage defender, especially in the underneath zone. Can match up to TE man-to-man. Can carry No. 3 to trips.
WEAKNESSES
- Does not have a lot of mass in his body. Much more of a lean frame with a lighter build and narrower base.
- At times could be a beat slow in his key and diagnose, which negated his explosive trigger and explosiveness.
- Some run game snaps in which he was a little tentative to react even when he saw it clearly. Little hesitation.
- There will be questions regarding physicality/competitive toughness in the box. Can he consistently stack and shed?
- Needs to show better awareness of routes as an underneath zone defender. At times a little stiff in transition.
NFL TRANSITION
Cooper is one of the most explosive LB prospects in the 2024 draft class with his sudden twitchy movement, instant acceleration and elite closing burst and speed. He is a long, lean, well-proportioned LB. He has an outstanding athletic profile with explosive suddenness, hip-core flexibility and reactive trigger. That gives him a playmaking dimension from sideline to sideline with dynamic play speed and range.
Cooper has elite explosiveness, which also showed up as a blitzer, where his accelerating burst, especially off the edge with a longer runway, was a challenge and mismatch for most running backs. Cooper has arguably the most desirable combination of length and athleticism of any LB in the 2024 draft class.
While he needs to get stronger and improve his overall key and diagnose, his alignment versatility and playmaking dimension will get him on the field, particularly in sub defenses, with the traits and skill set to develop into a complete and multi-dimensional three-down LB. Still, my sense is that it will be a process that will take some time.
While Cooper’s tape is impressive regarding tier athleticism and dynamic explosive movement, what you didn’t see a lot of throughout his tape was physicality and stack and shed in the box to make plays in the run game, and that is what will likely keep him off the field early in his career in base defenses in normal down and distance situations.
OTHER NOTES
Cooper played four years at Texas A&M after coming out of high school in Louisiana as four-star recruit. He became a starter in 2022 and in 2023 was a consensus First Team All-American.
In 2023, Cooper was consistently deployed as a spy versus a mobile QB. In Texas A&M man coverage concepts, Cooper matched up to running backs and TE. Cooper lined up in the box (the high percentage of his snaps) and outside the box, depending on the defensive call and the offensive formation – Cooper had an outstanding game versus LSU, where you saw all of his explosive traits.
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