5 picks in the NFL draft who earned their shot despite the weakest FBS resumes

The 2017 NFL Draft has come and gone, replenishing pro rosters with an eager crop of talented collegiate playmakers. While every player selected over three humid days in Philadelphia has his own merits, some players have much more extensive resumes than others.

The draft’s No. 2 overall pick only started 13 games in a brief college career. Seven picks later, the Bengals bet on a wide receiver with just 33 receptions in his first three FBS seasons. Those two weren’t the only selections to earn premier draft picks despite limited NCAA production. Here’s a look at some of the players who will try to make an impact in the NFL after less-than-storied college careers.

Trubisky was the first quarterback taken off the board despite a grand total of 13 starts at the college level. He spent his first two active seasons at North Carolina biding his time behind Marquise Williams before taking off last fall. His polished mechanics and poise in the pocket made him one of the FBS’s top passers and rocketed him up draft boards.

A 30-touchdown, 3,700-yard junior season convinced him to declare for the 2017 NFL Draft, and the Bears validated that decision. Chicago traded their first, third, and fourth round picks in 2017, along with a third rounder in 2018, just to move up one spot to add Trubisky, a player whose college career includes fewer than 600 pass attempts. For comparison’s sake, Deshaun Watson — the draft’s No. 12 pick — threw more than double that.

Trubisky’s 2016 performance and instincts validate his status as a first-round pick. Still, a king’s ransom in assets and the No. 2 overall pick could be a lot to pay for a third-team All-ACC quarterback.

First things first; John Ross is fast as hell, and you can’t teach that.

But while he brings elite speed to the Bengals’ offense, he doesn’t have an traditional background of FBS success. Ross’s first two seasons at Washington saw him quickly develop into a supplemental playmaker. He caught just 33 passes while also handling cornerback duties for a rebuilding Huskies team. He blanked the entire 2015 season with a torn ACL, but came back stronger than ever last fall.

Ross’s 1,122 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns made him the AP’s Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year, but he wasn’t in the conversation as a potential top-10 pick until he lit up the NFL Draft Combine with a 4.22-second 40-yard dash.

Cincinnati paid a premium for his speed. Now the Bengals have to hope his pro career will more closely resemble his final year at Washington than his first three.

Ramczyk has started plenty of NCAA games. The only problem is the majority of them were against Division III competition. The former Wisconsin-Stevens Point star traded in assignments against 210-pound defensive ends for a spot in the Big Ten in 2015 and made the most out of his sole FBS season last fall.

The 6’6, 310-pound athlete showed out in his one year as a starter with Wisconsin, earning first-team All-American honors while helping a flawed Badgers offense to a top-10 finish last fall. That made him one of the highest-rated prospects in a weak group of offensive linemen, even if he may be better served flipping from left to right tackle.

Vanderdoes overall body of work isn’t the reason he makes this list; he played a full four years at UCLA and appeared in 38 games. Instead, his inclusion comes because he may have peaked early in his college career, failing to match the recruiting hype that surrounded him as a former five-star prospect.

He was one of the nation’s most-hyped high school athletes before picking the Bruins, and after 87 tackles his first two years, he appeared primed for a breakout 2015 season. Instead, a torn ACL robbed him of his junior year, and his final season failed to live up to his high standards. Vanderdoes made just 1.5 tackles for loss last season despite 12 starts. For comparison, a similar third-round defensive lineman — Auburn’s Montravius Adams — notched eight TFLs en route to a lower draft spot than the UCLA anchor.

Wise first saw action with the Razorbacks in 2012, but didn’t become a full-time starter in Fayetteville until 2016. In his five-year career, he started only 10 games but still managed to have a major impact as a rotational defensive end; in his final two seasons with the program, he tallied 16 tackles for loss — 11.5 of them sacks — but failed to inspire confidence in his durability and endurance as an every-down end.

Wise’s relatively low draft slot helps mitigate those concerns, as well as his likely role as a rotational pass rusher for the Patriots next fall. He’s a developmental prospect who will earn snaps alongside more established defensive ends like Kony Ealy, Trey Flowers, and Rob Ninkovich.