National Football League

2017 NFL Draft scouting report: Malik Hooker

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:19 p.m. ET

Fansided, Will Lomas/FanSided via Titan Sized

It is officially NFL Draft season, and until the commissioner walks up to the podium (and for a few weeks after that) there will be plenty of people wanting to discuss the draft and the prospects that come out of it.

The Tennessee Titans have plenty of picks this year, including two first round picks and two third round picks, both of which should be the foundation of progress from a 9-7 team to a playoff team.

I have been covering the draft for the better part of a decade, and while that doesn’t make me the most experienced analyst on the internet I do like to think I know what I am talking about.

A staple of the NFL Draft is the scouting report, which (for me) gives an outline of five things:

1. What the player does well.

2. What the player doesn’t do well.

3. A summary of what the player does consistently in a paragraph or two.

4. What role I believe that player will have in the NFL.

5. Where that player should be valued.

These are my thoughts and you may disagree, I do my best to ignore the hype around players and have my thoughts in a vacuum so it may look completely different than someone else’s scouting report on a player.

That’s enough preamble, let’s get to my scouting report.

Malik Hooker

Safety, Ohio State

6’2, 205 lb.

Games Watched: Bowling Green, Penn State, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Clemson

Pros

-Has as good a range as I have seen from a safety prospect.

-Top-end hands and makes plays on the ball when it is in the air.

-Has the speed to click and close to make tackles in the run game despite his depth.

-Underrated as a tackler, stays low and attacks the knees of the ball carrier.

-Plays some man coverage against trips formations, but can also play centerfield as a single high safety as well as anyone.

-Praised as a team leader.

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Cons

-Only has one year of production, but that is likely because he is a RS Sophomore.

-Gets caught guessing at times when teams run misdirection, which can lead to some big plays if he gets taken advantage of.

Summary

-I don’t have a lot of negative things to say about Malik Hooker. He reminds me a lot a playmaker like Jarius Byrd, except he is a better run defender who is a sound tackler. He can do everything that a great safety can do, including take the ball away, which allows the cornerbacks to play very aggressively because they know that he will be right behind them.

He probably isn’t best used as a blitzer, but he can do some of that too if you need someone to play closer to the LOS and stop a TE. The only thing keeping him from being talked about as a premier player in this draft is his position. If anyone played left tackle as well as Hooker played safety they would be a top-5 pick.