Syracuse Football: Orange Players Represent in CBSSports NFL Draft Position Rankings

Syracuse football has an illustrious history of sending players to the NFL, including Justin Pugh, Chandler Jones, Jay Bromley, and Ryan Nassib in recent years. As for the future of the Syracuse-NFL pipeline, it continues to look promising as the latest update to CBSSports's NFL Draft Positional Rankings show Orange players consistently ranking in the top 50 for their positions over the next few drafts (the drafts list players by year their eligibility expires, so all seniors and redshirt seniors in 2017, all juniors and redshirt juniors in 2018, and all sophomores and redshirt sophomores in 2019).

To the surprise of few Syracuse Orange fans, there are no players that rank in the top 50 that graduate after this coming season. However, Syracuse players make their presence felt in the 2018 and 2019 drafts.

For the 2018 Draft:

Current team captain Zaire Franklin ranks as the number 27 inside linebacker. Franklin is small for the prototypical NFL inside linebacker at 230 pounds and only 6-feet tall, but if he can thrive in Dino Babers's Tampa-2 defense, which puts a premium on speed at every position, he can show NFL scouts that he is versatile and improve his draft stock.

Orange safety Chauncey Scissum is listed as the number 30 strong safety. Scissum started seven out of twelve games at free safety last season and is currently listed behind Antwan Cordy on the post-spring depth chart. The Syracuse secondary was very inconsistent last season so it wouldn't be surprising to see the staff rotating the secondary in the early part of the season to see who plays best.

For the 2019 Draft:

Offensive lineman Aaron Roberts is listed as the number 22 guard. He played very few snaps as a reserve last season and has a lot he needs to prove, but has started on the right foot by earning the starting job at left guard out of spring practice.

Defensive lineman Chris Slayton is listed as the number 41 defensive tackle. He made five starts as a redshirt freshman last year, playing mostly as a second-stringer behind senior John Raymon, who started the other seven games. The competition hasn't been as strong this year, as he has seemingly been a shoe-in from day one to be the first string defensive tackle. He has been described by former teammate Rob Trudo as "freakishly strong" and could very well develop into a solid prospect at defensive tackle before he graduates.

Defensive lineman Kayton Samuels is listed as the number 50 defensive tackle. He started all twelve games last season at nose tackle and also projects to develop as he continues to play.