Kiper Jr.: Mixon, Walker likely Day 2 NFL Draft picks
NORMAN — The Oklahoma football program has produced plenty of NFL first-round talent over the years.
Since 1954, the Sooners have seen 44 of their own taken in the first day of the draft.
Running back Joe Mixon and defensive tackle Charles Walker certainly have the talent to be the next two OU players taken in the first round of the upcoming NFL Draft, but ESPN NFL Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. believes personal decisions and off-the-field factors will keep them from hearing their names called on April 27 in Philadelphia.
In a conference call Thursday afternoon, Kiper Jr. said that he expects Mixon and defensive Walker to be taken in the second day of the draft.
“Ultimately with 32 teams, talent is going to win out with both of them, and they’ll probably go sometime on Day 2,” he said.
OU hasn’t had a first-round draft pick since offensive lineman Lane Johnson was taken by Philadelphia with the fourth pick in the 2013 draft.
Neither Walker nor Mixon is listed on Kiper Jr.’s draft big board, but he said that Walker, who last played against TCU on Oct. 1 and officially left the team on Nov. 15 to prepare for the NFL Draft, would’ve been a first-round pick if he had stayed with the team through the Sooners’ Sugar Bowl run.
“The injury status of Walker, he’ll obviously be checked out at the combine,” Kiper Jr. said. “But shutting it down the way that he did, preparing for the draft, leaving his team behind, all that will be factored in.
“On ability, Walker, if you throw everything out, had he played a full year this year, he’d have been a first-round pick
this year, in my opinion. Now, you’re looking down the line at him as the seventh-best defensive tackle with a secondor third-round possibility.”
Kiper Jr. listed Mixon as the fifth-best available running back in the upcoming draft, but the off-the-field issues stemming from his 2014 altercation with Amelia Molitor and 2016 incident with the OU parking attendant might keep him waiting until later rounds.
“You look at Tyreek Hill,” Kiper Jr. said. “He was a fifth-round pick of the Chiefs, a controversial fifth-round pick, and he ends up having a great rookie year and helps the Chiefs get into the playoffs and win a lot of games and was a key performer.
“Mixon, on ability, is the fifth-best running back with a secondround grade. Will he go a little lower than that? Maybe.”
Kiper Jr. didn’t list any Big 12 players in his firstround mock draft, but he said that running back Samaje Perine and wide receiver Dede Westbrook could wind up being taken in an early round.