Redskins: Five 2020 draft prospects to watch in college football
By Ian Cummings
No. 1 – Iowa OT Tristan Wirfs
One could argue that the Redskins needed to address their tackle position with more resolve in the 2019 offseason, even before the Trent Williams situation flared up. The team let Ty Nsekhe walk in free agency, making a thin unit even weaker. Now, behind Williams and Morgan Moses, only Geron Christian stands between the starters and the reserves.
Granted, Washington was high enough on Christian to take him in Round 3, and Williams’ contract standoff might not have been predictable. But at one of the game’s most important positions, you can’t take any chances. Christian had his fair share of hiccups in 2018, before suffering an injury. Williams is aging, and has been battling injuries in recent years. The Redskins could have been better prepared. Instead, they’re facing a wash of uncertainty.
One way to combat that uncertainty? Invest heavily in the position in 2019. Now, if Trent Williams remains with the Redskins, then there’s less of a chance that they’d spend a first-round pick on an offensive tackle. But if Williams gets traded, or if he regresses due to age and injury, the Redskins need a new blindside blocker for Dwayne Haskins. And who better to pick than the guy who broke Brandon Scherff’s weight room record at Iowa this past spring?
Tristan Wirfs is a mountain of a man at 6-foot-5, 320, and he recently broke Scherff’s weight room record at Iowa by lifting 450 pounds in the power clean. His strength is a core building block of his game, as he outmatches just about every college defender with his power at the point of attack.
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Wirfs combines that natural power with an innate understanding of leverage, engrained in him by a past as a wrestler, and he also has advanced hand placement for his age, as well as good explosion off the line. He’s not the dominant athlete that Trent Williams was coming out, but Wirfs’ forceful nature, as well as his attention to detail, should bode him well at the next level. He’s an outstanding run blocker, with the potential to match that ability in pass protection, and he’s worth watching in his junior season, to see if he takes the final steps.