Ray Didinger’s 5 NFL Draft Sleepers for the Eagles

This time every year they always come out. Only he could understand the piles of yellow legal pads with jottings. Hall of Fame sportswriter Ray Didinger is set to retire. That doesn’t mean the legendary Francis “Reds” Bagnell Award winner has stopped breaking down film and looking for the nuggets of gold that might be available in the later rounds of the NFL Draft.

No one ever questioned Didinger’s meticulous research, and he was generous enough to speak with Bleeding Green Nation recently about five sleepers the Eagles and other NFL teams could be looking at in the upcoming 2023 NFL Draft.

Morrow Ojomo, Texas, DT, 6’3,” 284 lbs

“I don’t project him to be any kind of breakout star in the NFL, but I think in the right system, the way teams play defensive lineman right now, everybody rotates. You have three of the four tackles that play, three or four ends that play. I can see him as a rotation type player and can be an effective player in the right defense. He’s not a great pass rusher, which is an area he can improve in, but he’s very strong and very strong against the run. If you’re looking for a defensive tackle who is a three-technique to get down the field against the pass, you need a guy to stay home and take the run. Ojomo could be that type of player.

Evan Pace Jr., Cincinnati, LB, 5’10½,” 232 lbs.

“I always try to take a guy, and it’s often at the linebacker position, that’s a little undersized and can really make plays. They are very active, good solid tacklers and give you dual value in certain defensive packages and especially on special teams. This is one person who I think falls into that category. He is 5-10½ and a solid 230 and runs a 4.5. He’s from Cincinnati, and it’s a program that produces a lot of NFL players—and good NFL players. Look at the Kelce brothers and Brent Selleck. I’m not saying this guy belongs in that category, but he’s a guy who had 262 tackles over the last two years, and 34.5 of those were for a loss. Every time I saw Cincinnati, he was everywhere. Is his size an issue, perhaps, and especially in pass coverage. But if you’re looking for a linebacker who is strong against the run and a key player on your special teams, this is the guy. It definitely won’t go on the first day. Scouts and personnel will look at 5-10 and say no, no, no. It will go around round four or round five. Every year, I think, there are guys who get picked in the first round and struggle to make the team. This person will make the team on the first day. Once coaches get it, they’ll love it.

Riley Moss, Iowa, CB/S, 6’1,” 193 lbs

“I don’t know how the scouts will see it. He was a cornerback at Iowa. They might just decide it’s not fast enough. I think it is. He’s a 4.45 guy and if you have good instincts, and you’re smart, you can play corner with that kind of speed. If you want to make it safe, you might as well do that. One of the things I really like about him is that he’s a very instinctive player who’s really smart and never really out of position. Unlike many who cover corners, he can actually hit. He acts like a safety, which is why I think some teams will introduce him as a safety. He has the skills to cover on the outside. This is not really a good draft for corners. There are some stars out there, but nobody like Sauce Gardner, who can step up properly and make an impact, I don’t think. There’s good depth at the cornerback position with guys who can come and play in the NFL.”

Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images

Tyjae Spears, Tulane, RB, 5’10,” 201 pounds

“He runs 4.47 and every time I’ve seen him, he’s played bigger than his size and faster than his times. He has really good quickness when he runs, he has good vision and he sets blocks really well. He gets the most out of every carry, and then some, and he doesn’t do dumb things, like bounce out when he doesn’t have it. He runs the play he was supposed to run and he gets everything there. He averaged nearly seven yards a carry. He ran for nearly 1,600 yards. He scored 21 touchdowns. His performance in the Cotton Bowl blew me away. Tulane is not a great team. They didn’t have a ton of NFL players and they played Southern Cal. They were huge in the second half and huge down the stretch. Spears brought them back. He rushed for 205 yards on 17 carries and scored four touchdowns. Calling him a big Boston Scott is a fair comparison. But Scott is very explosive. I don’t know if Spears is quite as explosive. What impressed me is that he is a smart runner. It drives the play the way it’s designed. He beat Southern Cal, which had far more talent than Tulane. He falls into the sleeper category, but could be a third-round pick. The way teams play their running backs, rotate their backs, Spears will be perfect for that.”

Deus von, Kansas StateRB, 5’5,” 180 lbs

“It’s kind of personal for me. It goes back to 2005 when I liked Darren Sproles, who scouts said couldn’t do what he could because of his size. Sproles had an impact, and a much bigger impact than anyone thought. It started with Sproles at Kansas State, then Jordy Nelson, who has had a great career. The kind of size he had, the kind of speed he had, I thought he could be something if he could get in the right places. Tyler Lockett was another Kansas State player, like Sproles, undersized, who had to find the right situation—and then did. Every year I try to find a K-State person, and this year was easy. Deuce is a lot like Sproles and even smaller. He is fearless, tough, always seems to make a key play at a key moment. He could do it with Sproles with the Chargers and Eagles, Lockett with Seattle and Vaughn in the NFL. In a spread formation, he can line up in the slot against a linebacker, making some big plays. In his final year at K-State, he had nearly 2,000 total yards. He rushed for over 1,500 yards and had 42 catches and 12 touchdowns. In his sophomore year, he rushed for 1,400 yards and averaged six yards a carry and scored 18 touchdowns. Every time you saw K-State he was going to make big plays. He’s a Sproles-like contributor and an immediate contributor on special teams.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who has written feature stories for SI.com, ESPN.com, NFL.com, MLB.com, Deadspin and The Philadelphia Daily News. In 2006, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for a special project piece titled “Love at First Beep” for ESPN.com. He is best known for his award-winning ESPN.com feature on high school wrestler AJ Detwiler in February 2006, which appeared on SportsCenter. In 2015, he was elected president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.