NFL Draft 2013: DJ Fluker May Not Get Past San Diego Chargers at No. 11
By Josh Sanchez
On his yearly draft conference call with the NFL media, NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock shared his thoughts on the upcoming draft class. Mayock continuously echoed the belief that a run on offensive tackles will start very early and that the draft’s top three players at the position — Luke Joeckel, Eric Fisher and Lane Johnson — could all be gone by pick No. 7.
For teams outside of the top ten that are in need of an offensive tackle, this puts them in an interesting position.
Knowing the run on tackles is coming could be a big reason for the Miami Dolphins interest in trading for Kansas City Chiefs tackle Branden Albert, but where would that leave a team like San Diego?
For Mayock, he believes the Chargers would take Fluker if they stay at No. 11.
“They don’t have a single starting caliber OT on their roster,” Mayock said on the conference call.
Fluker is a very physical tackle and could be a star right tackle at the next level. However, we generally don’t see right tackles drafted so high. This could be the year that changes.
There are a few teams that believe Fluker could succeed on the left side, so it is possible the Chargers are of that belief. Regardless, they need to sure up the edges of their offensive line and selecting Fluker would do just that.
Because of the high demand for offensive tackles, we could see a number of very talented players fall much further than expected in this year’s draft, which is just one week away.