BREAKING: Carolina Panthers Draft Oklahoma State RB Chuba Hubbard
Moments ago, it was announced that the Carolina Panthers have selected Oklahoma State RB Chuba Hubbard with the 126th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The Panthers made their 5th trade of the draft by sending the 109th pick to the Tennessee Titans in exchange for the 126th, 166th, and 232nd picks.
Analysis from the NFL Draft Bible on Sports Illustrated:
The Heisman candidate from 2019, when he had an impressive season amassing 2,094 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns, decided to come back for his junior season in 2020. It did not turn out how Hubbard expected as he totaled only 625 rushing yards and looked like he lacked confidence at times. Hubbard runs exclusively out of the shotgun in the Cowboys’ very spaced-out attack. Possessing exciting speed and burst, he makes use of large openings, exploding into holes and taking it the distance. When playing quickly, he gives second-level defenders no chance to hesitate while filling their gaps as he is gone in an instant. While he does not jump-cut explosively, Hubbard can change directions in the open field and find cutback lanes on lateral runs. Once in space, the Canadian loves using a stiff arm that is very effective on defensive backs. Hubbard struggles to find openings when they are not obvious and does not have the patience required to let his blocks develop, making it useless to run him behind lead blockers on concepts that take longer to develop. He is not physical and gets arm tackled consistently, which leaves yards on the table. In the receiving game, he is not asked to run routes and the times he does he struggles to gain separation underneath. When left open in the flat, he has shown that he hauls passes in reliably. In the NFL, Hubbard projects as a scheme-specific back for a team in need of speed and ability to get to the edge. His lack of third-down ability prevents him from being a starter as his pass blocking is not up to par even for the college game. If able to iron out ball-security issues that caused him to fumble eight times in his collegiate career, Hubbard could grasp a pure running role in an outside zone scheme, taking advantage of his speed and burst.
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