Chris Paul Jr., LB, Ole Miss
Size:
Height: 6007
Weight: 222
Arm: 29 ⅞”
Hand: 9 ⅜”
Accomplishments:
Third-Team All-America (2024) • Second-Team All-SEC (2024)
“Chris Paul Jr. is an easy mover who uses his speed and quick trigger to deliver downhill hits and stay sticky in coverage.”
Strengths:
Speed/athleticism
Lateral agility
Coverage instincts
Body positioning
Concerns:
Length concerns against the run
Diagnosing plays
Gap integrity
Film Analysis:
Chris Paul Jr. played on both sides of the football for Crisp County High School and earned a three-star ranking as a recruit. During his senior year, he accumulated 91 total tackles in 11 games and added 20.0 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks while forcing one fumble and blocking one punt. Offensively, he rushed eight times for 67 yards and a touchdown and made four catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. He was the 22nd-ranked linebacker in his class and ultimately committed to Arkansas.
After red-shirting his freshmen season, Paul appeared in 28 games and made 11 starts with the Razorbacks. He racked up 137 total tackles (68 solo), 15 tackles for loss, six sacks, one forced fumble and one pass breakup in his Arkansas career. He transferred to Ole Miss for his final collegiate season and finished as the team leader in tackles with 88 (50 solo, a career-high), eleven tackles for loss, three and a half sacks, one interception, and four passes defensed.
While Paul looks the part of a linebacker, he’s relatively undersized and looks smaller than his listed weight. He has room to add mass onto his athletic frame and not lose much of his quick twitch and athletic ability. He’s growing as a diagnoser against the run, but when he hits his gap and locates the running back, he’s rewarded with tackles for loss. When he’s slow to process what’s happening, he tends to guess and can overlap himself in a teammate’s gap, giving a rushing lane to an opposing running back. He uses good body positioning to mitigate his shorter arms when he can, but too often, he gets swallowed up by longer offensive linemen because he lacks the ability to stack and shed blocks regularly. He locates the football fairly well, but read-option plays can be difficult to sort out.
Paul is willing to come down and take on a puller in the run game and will play with the physicality necessary against offensive lines. He’s a smart backside pursuit defender and does well to wait patiently in cutback lanes for added help. A sure-tackler, Paul could improve his efficiency with a better tackling location around the waist to prevent yards after contact.
Paul is at his best in coverage, where he can showcase his oily, loose hips and mirror the quarterback's eyes. He is functional in both man and zone coverage, but his willingness to follow the quarterback when he gets out of the pocket causes him to vacate responsibility too frequently. He doesn’t have the best hands to create turnovers, but he can quickly break up passes and cover ground. He has the speed to cover running backs and some receivers and the willingness to man up tight ends, although he will lose the size battle there. His click and close gets him downhill against screens and backs in the flat. However, his tackling angles, undercutting blocks, and poor positioning give ball carriers too much space. Keeping outside leverage and more patience will help create more negative plays for the offense. He doesn’t have a pass rush plan or many tools, but he’s a great blitzer in a free lane with the upside to spy the quarterback.
Paul is a great athlete who continues to learn and diagnose better as he gains experience. He’s a good coverage linebacker with ascending traits against the run, but his length and size will be problematic against NFL offensive blockers. He projects best as an NFL WILL linebacker/coverage linebacker with the upside of being an every-down player.
Prospect Projection: Day 2 — Adequate Starter
Written By: Daniel Harms
Exposures: Arkansas (2024), Georgia (2024), Mississippi State (2024), South Carolina (2024)
