Illinois S Sydney Brown
At some point in the draft the Chargers will likely address the safety position. Sydney Brown would be an incredibly athletic choice as an answer to that question. He's a versatile player that's been deployed all over the field. He's almost a hand-picked Brandon Staley selection in that sense.
Looking at some safety versatility stuff for the top safeties in the draft from the @PFF big board. Sydney Brown lined up all over the field for Illinois' defense in his time there while Chris Smith and Branch had more defined roles in their respective defenses pic.twitter.com/IlkawsJIqX
— Arjun Menon (@arjunmenon100) April 22, 2023
Now, the "but" here is a big one. Brown is not a very good tackler with 14 missed tackle attempts in 2022. That has to get better. But there's just not many players in this class who are able to close on the ball like he does. This is a rather big traits and play style bet and maybe the Chargers don't take another shot on it post-JT Woods. But Staley's defense has found a way to include undersized players that are versatile if Staley sees the merit in it.
Clemson EDGE K.J. Henry
K.J. Henry was a former five-star recruit at Clemson that finally had his game click for him 2022. 53 quarterback pressures, five sacks, and 14 hits ended up being the final tally of his campaign.
Per PFF, Henry had an 84.0 pass-rushing grade with a grade over 90 in true pass-rushing sets. His running mate Myles Murphy tended to get a lot of the attention, but the improvement that Henry individually had this season shouldn't be undersold.
Henry can stand to develop a wide array of pass rush moves but his long 33-inch arms and motor are already pretty good as shown in 2022. He put up a quality RAS at 8.34 and ran a 4.63 40 (very solid for his size).
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