Cameron McGrone started his NFL journey in Indianapolis, Indiana at Lawrence Central High School. He tore his ACL early on in his high school career and only played 7 games as a senior, recording 84 tackles and 4 sacks, That was enough for Michigan to offer him a place and the rest was history. He was pushed into a starting role when their starter in 2019, Josh Ross, got injured.
I watched the entirety of the Michigan vs Minnesota game this year and I haven’t fallen in love with a draft prospect quicker than I did with McGrone. While his stats aren’t the most impressive, all you have to do is watch McGrone work and you’ll see why he’ll be picked within the first 3 rounds of this year’s draft.
Here are his 2-year college career stats (via ESPN):
Strengths:
- McGrone’s has a strong foundation of skills. He can do it all – blitz off the edge, blitz down the middle, and cover TE’s and slanting WR’s. Considering he only started 10 games last season (2019), it’s frightening how good he is.
- McGrone is a scary, fast, physical blitzer who has the speed to get past the most athletic of tackles in the NFL. He isn’t scared about playing a bruising game when bursting towards the line of scrimmage. You can tell he’s played for a Don Brown defense.
- Usually, with linebackers who can blitz, they struggle in pass coverage, McGrone doesn’t. He covers assignments well in man coverage, trusts his eyes in zone, and succeeds at attacking the ball in the air.
- Has a very high football IQ and can snuff the ball out with relative ease. He won’t be caught off guard in fakes or napping on a play-action pass.
- A very physical tackler who hardly misses and is technically sound, wrapping up opponents for fun and hitting hard when he needs to.
- Standing at 6’1 and 232 lbs, McGrone has an ideal frame and size for the position and it also enables him to play outside of traditional roles.
Weaknesses:
- McGrone would be higher up in the LB rankings if he had more experience like other prospects in his class but he’s shown serious skill and a high ceiling in the games he’s played.
- One area he could definitely improve on is his man coverage, mainly against TE’s and RB’s. He has the physical stature to cover those guys, he just needs to get better at recognizing what routes they’re running quicker so he doesn’t give them space early on.
What Cameron McGrone could bring to the Eagles:
Everyone knows the Eagles have major issues at linebacker, whilst Alex Singleton had a great breakout year last year, and TJ Edwards showed some potential, the Eagles are still severely lacking talent within that linebacker group. McGrone would be the perfect MIKE linebacker for this group and will compliment TJ and Alex nicely in terms of his playstyle.
McGrone also offers a lot of versatility in the fact that he played in a Don Brown defense. While McGrone wouldn’t bring a standout, known name to the Eagles linebacker group, he could be a leader of the future. With 2 picks in this year’s 3rd round, they have a perfect chance to grab him whenever they want to.
Photo by Joe Petro/Icon Sportswire
