Where will Olu Fashanu and Chop Robinson land? Here’s our best bets for Penn State’s prospects

It’s NFL Draft season, or the only time we get to bet on NFL Football during the offseason.

My favorite NFL Draft wager is an over/under draft position bet. The market offers all sorts of topics to investigate, from team needs to draft stock. And if you beat the information market, you can find enormous closing-line value.

I wanted to explore the first-round prospects from Penn State. Tackle Olu Fashanu and edge rusher Chop Robinson had standout years on each side of the Nittany Lion line, and both will play on Sundays next season.

But where will they be playing? And how much draft capital are NFL teams willing to spend on these two?

I’m betting that Fashanu’s draft stock drops on Draft Day while Robinson’s rises.

Vegas Refund has tracked 36 mock drafts from trusted analysts across the industry, and 28 have Fashanu selected after the 13th overall pick.

In fact, per Vegas Refund’s estimated mock draft position – or the average of all 36 tracked mocks – Fashanu’s projected draft position has dropped two picks over the past two months.

Fashanu ranked third among Power Five tackles in Pro Football Focus’s pass-blocking grades last year, allowing zero sacks and only 10 pressures in 382 pass-blocking snaps. He’s a top-tier pass protector because of his muscular frame, long arms and quick-twitched, agile footwork.

So, why is Fashanu’s draft stock dropping?

My guess is his smaller hand size. It sounds silly, but it does play a factor in draft evaluation.

Fashanu’s hand size isn’t just undersized – it’s tiny. His 8½ inch measurement is the smallest ever recorded at the NFL Combine and potentially the smallest ever for an NFL offensive line prospect.

It’s not the only concern. Fashanu is a work-in-progress as a run-blocker, especially in the second level. Some worry this will hold him back from being a day-one difference maker on the line – he might have to be drafted by a team willing to wait out his development.

However, his hand size is a concerning outlier, potentially pushing him down the draft board.

Given these concerns and the mock draft market, I’m betting that Fashanu’s stock continues to fall, pushing him toward the back half of the first round.

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Chop’s draft stock is a little trickier to gauge.

The good: He’s an explosive athlete. At 6 feet 3 inches and 254 pounds, he ran a 4.48-second 40-yard dash, ranking in the 93rd percentile of edge defenders across the past 10 combines. He threw in a 10-foot, eight-inch broad jump, also a 93rd percentile effort.

He shows this explosiveness on tape.

Look at how quick those first few steps are. Can any NFL tackle beat him to the anchor point?

Well, then there’s the bad: He wasn’t very productive against collegiate tackles.

Robinson had four sacks in 2023, finishing his three-year career with 11.5. He showed explosiveness off the line but rarely finished his rushes and, therefore, rarely pressured the quarterback. Part of that is he’s slimmer and leaner, so many offensive linemen simply bullied him mid-way through his rushes. The other part is that he played as part of a rotation during his only season as a starter, seeing only 31% of possible snaps.

I think I’ve come to the consensus that Robinson is a project. He’s raw and needs time to develop. Still, his athleticism and explosiveness provide such a high upside, which he leveraged to post a 21% pass-rush win rate in his final college season, ranking eighth among Power Five edge rushers.

Therefore, some mid-first-round team should take a shot at his upside, especially at a premium position – Robinson could become one of the NFL’s most impactful players.

That team might be the Bengals at pick 18, as they need to replace edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, who recently requested a trade.

I don’t hate the Dolphins (pick 21) or Seahawks (pick 16) taking a swing with Robinson. Both teams have decent cores but need down-the-line defensive improvements to make a Super Bowl run.

Additionally, rumors are swirling that the Vikings will trade up from pick 23 to snag a quarterback earlier in the first round, perhaps with the Chargers at pick 5. Jim Harbaugh would love to reinforce his team’s weaker pass rush (20th in PFF’s Pressure grades last season) with a high-upside guy.

However, the Bucs should be most interested in Chop with pick 26.

The betting markets believe the Bucs are taking a defensive lineman or edge with the first pick. And their outside linebacker coach, George Edwards, is known for his time in Dallas, where he turned Micah Parsons into a devastating pass rusher.

Like Parsons, Robinson is an electric athlete who, with the right development path, could become a DPOY candidate.

Either way, there are plenty of outs for betting the under on Robinson’s draft position. The upside is too high, the position is too valuable, and there are too many teams enticed by that combination.

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