Punt God and a 387lb Aussie: the 2022 NFL draft’s most intriguing prospects

The 2022 NFL draft is a little over two weeks away. It’s time to look at five of the upcoming class’s most intriguing (rather than the best) prospects.

At 6ft 9in (!) and 387lb (!!) Faalele looks more like a long-lost third Clegane brother than a starting NFL tackle. In fact, there hasn’t been an NFL starter in the 21st century built as big as the Aussie.

Faalele is from Melbourne, and an assistant coach for Hawaii on a scouting trip to Australia discovered him while he was rehabbing an injury at a local gym. The coach offered Faalele a scholarship on the spot. He wound up landing at Minnesota, using the Madden video game series to swat up on the rules and regulations. “I didn’t know what a first down was or anything,” Faalele told ESPN in 2018. “I didn’t know the positions or what roles they played. That was surprising.”

Chatter among leaky scouts has suggested that Faalele may be too big to play tackle in the league, that he will struggle to dip and sink to wall off the league’s premier dip-and-rip pass-rushers. Can he shuffle his size-18 feet quickly enough to keep up with Von Miller off the edge? Can he step, drop, and reset to cut off Khalil Mack trying to knife inside?

A team will take the bet that Faalele can, probably in the first round. He isn’t a novelty: he’s an assured pass protector who has the huge frame that could make him special. The only question now is whether the franchise that selects him is stocked up on enough XXXXXXXXL gear. Yep, that’s his shirt size and that’s eight Xs for those keeping score at home.

If this was 2005, Strong would be in play to be the first name called. He is a big-armed, big-bodied quarterback who plays in the classic, dropback, Carson Palmer style.

But that style is outdated