Strengths: It starts with his frame. A long athlete with broad shoulders and huge hands, Thomas just looks like an athlete out there. He has a legitimate burst when he wants to move and has above-average speed. Not a lot of film due to injury, but this is a solid play in letting the QB’s eyes lead him directly to the football. He takes it back for a TD showing off the good linear speed.
Thomas will absolutely strike you. He is not looking to just shoulder hit you, either. Honestly, he has a plus tackling form already. Using his hips to explode through a ball carrier, gets his head out of the play while wrapping and looking to knock the ball carrier backwards. One of the better tacklers out of high school for a safety that you will see.
Opportunities: Whenever your HUDL is three minutes long, it generally means one of two things: 1. You aren’t very good and don’t have many highlights. 2. You’ve been hurt a lot and don’t have much on tape. Thomas is the latter. Having sustained injuries in each of the past two seasons, you are taking a risk with this player.
Right now, Thomas is a box safety only. He has almost no experience going backwards and is much better moving forward. He’s a blitzer, fill safety, screen killer type. He shows a lack of feel for angles in the run game or in attacking passes in the air. Choosing often times to go where the receiver/ball carrier is, rather than where they will be.
Overall: Full stop; it is difficult to evaluate safeties without the All-22. There is so much that goes into evaluating a safety that the broadcast copy will not show. What I try to do is review multiple games and identify the plays where the angle shows the safety the entire time. Either via replay, or simply in the play itself. Combining that all together with a highlight tape can get you enough of a picture to evaluate the player, but it is not going to be to the level of having the All-22 and I won’t pretend that it does.
This is a player that if you saw him in a camp setting you would believe he has offers to everywhere. If he stayed healthy, he’s definitely a four-star player. Huge hands, springy, fast, physical. Where he falls short are in proven instincts in pass coverage, ability to play mirror safety or single-high safety, and in the ability to stay healthy. He’s a bit of a gamble with all of the injuries previously in that you have to assume he keeps his athleticism and he can learn to process and go backwards in pass coverage. Interesting player, who will help you on specials if nothing else develops
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