In literally every drill that gives insight into whether a player is an athlete or not, Jared absolutely crushed it. In his 10-yard split, Jared ranks in the 87th percentile, outperforming 87% of IOLs in Combine history. In the 40-yard dash, the star drill of the Combine, Jared posted an absolutely insane time of 4.84 seconds, placing him in the 99th percentile. On his broad jump, he hit the 95th percentile; in vertical jump, the 90th percentile; and in the 20-yard shuttle, the 86th percentile.
It's just completely insane.

Now, while the numbers are impressive and the Combine always excites certain scouts and coaches, the real question is: How do Jared's athletic abilities translate when we dive into the game tape? Is he truly as impressive on the field as those Combine stats suggest?
The answer is yes but also no.
While Jared Wilson is indeed an explosively athletic player who can occasionally flash impressive mobility, quickly getting to the second level, it’s clear that he lacks several key elements that prevent those moments from truly impacting his overall game. What should be his standout attribute, his primary weapon, often ends up being virtually invisible during most of his plays.
We’ll get into what holds Jared back and prevents him from fully utilizing his elite athletic abilities in just a moment, but before that, it’s important to discuss how he was used at Georgia. The way they had him playing center, which limited his mobility, seems like a missed opportunity. Given his athleticism, I personally think he would have been more effective as a guard. However, his technical limitations certainly didn’t help his case. This is just my perspective, but I tend to prefer having one of my most technically sound IOLs at the center position, given its crucial importance. But let’s move on for now, as we’ll have plenty to cover in the weaknesses section.

Age is indeed a crucial factor for those in charge of selecting Jared Wilson this upcoming April. Every year, the draft shows just how significant age can be in determining the value of a prospect. It often impacts a player's potential for growth and development, as younger players are perceived as having more room to improve, while older prospects might be seen as closer to their ceiling. This factor will certainly play a role in how teams view Wilson's long-term potential.
Generally, the younger a player is, the more value they seem to hold in the eyes of NFL teams. There are various reasons for this, but most often it's because a younger player has more time to develop, or because a player who already shows high-level skills could dominate for many more years for the team that drafts them. Additionally, a player who needs significant development time might have a few "free" years to grow, compared to older players who are closer to their potential.
No matter the reason, what ultimately comes out of it is that younger players are viewed with more value than older players. On this front, Jared has a card to play, as although he's not the youngest player in the draft class, being close to 22 years old still places him among the younger prospects. This is definitely a strong point in his favor.

While it might be difficult to hear that Jared has potential when looking at the few strengths I've noted after watching his seven games, it's important to understand that my critique is legitimate for a player aiming to play at the highest level.
We absolutely need to move on to the weaknesses section so you can understand the root of the problem with Jared and also realize that despite his current level of play, he still holds truly interesting potential that could be extremely high. In the right environment, and with the right people overseeing his training, we could see a massive leap in his performance within just the first few months, let alone after one or two full years. And, to remind you, with his age, two years of development would mean a Jared ready to play at 24 years old, which is a fairly reasonable age. 

 

 

Here we are, in the depth of the scouting report for the Georgia center.
In this case, the weaknesses and what I don't like about Jared Wilson, despite his absolutely incredible athletic abilities that would clearly allow him to be part of the elite players even in a league filled with athletic freaks.

 

First, let's talk about Jared's physical strength, or rather, his lack of it. When looking at some of the Offensive Linemen that have come out of Georgia in recent years, and after seeing his Combine numbers, I absolutely did not expect to see such unimpressive strength and power. This was a real disappointment.

This lack of strength is noticeable both in pass-rushing and run-blocking situations. While one might think that this weakness is overall, the truth is that the problem specifically lies in his upper body. When it comes to his lower body, Jared actually shows promise. With his good explosiveness and especially his combine results in vertical jump and broad jump, it’s clear he possesses decent power in his lower body. To further prove that Jared has strength in his lower body, we could mention his anchoring ability, which remains decent, although not strong enough for me to classify it as a major strength. 

 

As I mentioned, this lack of power, which really impacts Wilson's game, is primarily in his upper body. It shows up in several areas, including his punch, which is average, his ability to sustain blocks, and the difficulties he sometimes faces in securing his block. This lack of upper body strength is also a factor preventing him from dominating, despite his explosiveness and mobility, which could allow him to do so.

This lack of upper body strength, which affects several aspects of his play, leads us to the next point. In fact, this lack of power forces Jared to use more weight in his blocks in an attempt to dominate more. However, this also makes him much more vulnerable to losing his balance forward. When he faces defensive tackles who engage in a physical battle, this forward weight shift helps him, but when he faces a more cerebral player, it becomes a huge disadvantage. A simple push-pull or well-timed weight transfer from the defender, and Jared can completely miss his block.
This is a real flaw in Wilson's game, especially since his hand placement doesn't help at all. Jared could at least manage to disrupt his opponent, even if it means committing a small mistake during those balance losses, if his hands were better utilized. However, since they are often poorly placed, when Wilson is beaten, he is really beaten.
This forward imbalance is further highlighted by Wilson's footwork, another area he needs to work on. 

 

Indeed, let's talk about his footwork, as it's concerning. The main issue with his footwork is that his legs often stop moving, and while there’s more to discuss, this particular aspect is key because it almost entirely reflects the level of play he’s currently showing.
If mobility is Jared's number one strength, there's no doubt that his footwork, which still has a lot of room for improvement, is the key factor preventing that mobility from fully shining and allowing him to perform at his potential. With athletic qualities like his, the one thing I'd absolutely focus on is keeping Wilson in constant motion and placing him in the best conditions by leveraging the elite trait he possesses.
It's important to understand that with mobility and explosiveness like his, Jared could literally dominate his opposition. The only thing stopping him from doing so is that it's difficult to overwhelm an opponent when you're not moving. No matter how powerful, technical, or intelligent a player is, they can't do much if they're forced to remain stagnant—and that's the core issue with Jared: he's holding himself back by not activating his legs.
The fact that Jared constantly stops his legs forces him to rely more on upper body strength to battle, and as we've just seen, that's an issue for Wilson—he doesn't seem to generate an immense amount of power. Jared then overcompensates by using his weight to make up for the lack of strength. However, this creates another problem: since his legs are stationary, they can't follow his center of gravity, which causes him to lose balance.
To understand very simply, let yourself fall forward without moving your legs. If you succeed, you will fall face-first to the ground, unless your legs prevent you from falling by helping you regain balance. This is why it is important to keep active legs; without this, Jared puts himself in a position of failure, especially since Jared is far from being the cleanest OL technically on other points, which could have allowed him to compensate for his mediocre footwork.
For me, this is clearly the area to focus on that could allow him to make a giant leap in his development, even without delving into the details of footwork for now. Simply keeping his legs active would automatically allow him to improve on many other points and would also make him much more dominant, both in passing situations and in running situations. 

Another crucial point for an Offensive Lineman, especially when playing inside the line, is the ability to read the game. Once again, Jared is far from being at the level here; his reading is very average, and I've seen him have several bad reps because of it.
Between the times when he seems to look at the second level of the defense without caring about what's happening at the guard position and therefore not helping them, the times when he completely turns his shoulders to help a guard but leaves the door open for blitzes, or that unfortunate tendency he sometimes has to be overly passive in pass situations where it's not uncommon to see him with no threat, just standing still with arms extended to the sides, doing nothing, and not actively trying to help with the protection, it can quickly become problematic.
If we add to this that his reading of the game also affects his run game, where Jared could actually shine, it becomes really unfortunate. In running situations, it's often poor block angle recognition that results from his game reading. Jared struggles to identify his target, which makes him lose precious seconds before heading toward the player to block, and this directly impacts the play negatively since Jared seems lost and does nothing. Sometimes, he even hinders the play by being in the traffic while trying to figure out what he should do. In fact, this issue is also present in screen pass situations.

 

In the end, what best characterizes Jared's weaknesses is his extremely raw technical side. Everything in his game seems to exude that rough and not yet fully refined aspect. I actually chose to talk about his main weaknesses, but when watching the tape, I was really surprised by his level of play considering the hype surrounding him.
There are many small points I could have focused on, but it wouldn't have been a good idea. Firstly, because this report is already dense and hard to read, in my opinion. On my rereading before posting this article, I rewrote certain sections several times to make them more digestible, and even then, I'm clearly not satisfied. So continuing to dive into the details and trying to describe, image by image, the points to work on would have been downright counterproductive.
To put it simply, what's important to remember about Jared is the immense amount of work he still has to do before he can hold his own in the pros. Jared is clearly a raw project to develop; the product is far from finished and still very green. There are certain games where Jared is very naïve; the tape against Ole Miss, for example, was a nightmare for Wilson. The game was a disaster, he struggled, and if I had based my evaluation solely on that game, it would have been easy to see him as nothing more than a 7th-round pick.
This kind of game happened several times this season, but Ole Miss was clearly the worst. However, on the other hand, there were also some extremely promising games that could have had the opposite effect and propelled him as a very clear Day 2 pick. For these reasons, and also because his areas of improvement are so visible and a simple progression in some of them could lead to a rapid rise, it's not hard to see him as a promising project.