NFL Draft: Barryn Sorrell is the Packers’ best value pick

The only two mid-round picks with a similar profile to Sorrell? Danielle Hunter and Trey Hendrickson

One player I never got to during the draft process, because he wasn’t 1 of the 18 edge defenders ranked among the top-100 prospects on the consensus draft board, was Texas edge defender Barryn Sorrell. Sorrell was the 21st-ranked edge defender in the class on consensus, behind the likes of Ole Miss’ Jared Ivey — who went undrafted, so I just missed out on studying him.

Sorrell first started to seriously appear on my radar when fellow Green Bay Packers writer Ross Uglem, the week of the draft, began to tweet out clips of Sorrell’s film. Clearly, the kid could play.

In a rush to get scouting reports and profiles done on the Packers’ visitors, who they drafted five of with their eight selections in 2025, I wasn’t able to watch Sorrell in full until last night.

The NFL made a mistake here. Sorrell should have been a top-100 selection, which is probably one reason why the former Longhorn attended the draft on Day 2, assuming he’d hear his name called much earlier than the 124th overall selection.

This can happen from time to time. NFL general managers and coaches rely on area scouts to bring them priority watches going into the draft process. In deeper classes for specific positions, sometimes players slip through the cracks.

Put yourself in the position of a defensive end or outside linebacker coach in the NFL. You’re coming off the heels of the NFL season when you attend the combine, your only real opportunity to talk to players in person unless a player is brought in on a pre-draft visit. At that point, it’s highly unlikely that you know the composition of the draft class — even at the position you coach.

Then, you’re focused on evaluating the free agent market almost immediately after the combine is over. Hint: Teams and agents are communicating over what a player’s potential market could be in free agency while they’re in Indianapolis, even though they’re not supposed to do that, per NFL rules.

By late March, you can finally focus on draft picks for a while, but you’re still working on other projects, like getting your practice plan for the season prepared, because voluntary offseason activities begin before the draft even starts. Even in this relatively “dead” period of the offseason, you still have to rely on area scouts to prioritize the right players to put in front of you, so that you can use your time wisely.

This is why talented players can sometimes go right underneath the noses of coaches who would potentially be coaching them, without those coaches ever having watched them. One famous case of this, at least in the scouting community, was former Packers receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who wasn’t drafted until the fifth round of the 2018 draft.

Valdes-Scantling was a transfer player, beginning his career at North Carolina State before dropping down to the G5 level with South Florida. He never posted a 1,000-yard season in college, so his production never stood out, and despite running a 4.37-second 40-yard dash at the combine that year, he wasn’t put in front of every receivers coach in the league by Southeast area scouts.

When those receivers coaches revisited players whom they didn’t watch following their selection, many were frustrated that scouts hadn’t put Valdes-Scantling, who wound up being a “hit” as a fifth-round pick — he has 68 NFL starts and 3,566 receiving yards in his career, on their watchlists.

I’m only guessing here, not reporting, but based on Sorrell’s film, I’m going to assume that defensive end/outside linebackers coaches are going to feel the same way about Sorrell in 2025 that receivers coaches fell in 2018: “Why didn’t the damn scouts tell me to watch this guy?”

From a height, weight, speed and bend perspective, Sorrell has absolutely no limitations, even on the relative scale of NFL athletes. According to Mockdraftable, whose data goes back to the 1999 draft class, here are all of the edge defenders who have been able to match Sorrell’s height, weight, 40-yard dash (speed) and three-cone (bend):

• Travon Walker
• Lukas Van Ness
• Montez Sweat
• Jayson Oweh
• Danielle Hunter
• Trey Hendrickson

Do what you want with the inclusion of Lukas Van Ness, a former first-round pick of the Packers. I don’t want to debate the merits of whether or not Van Ness has unlocked potential that Jason Rebrovich, the now-fired former defensive line coach of the Packers, wasn’t able to tap into. That’s for another time.

The important thing I want to point out here is that of the six players who were able to match Sorrell in all of these key metrics, four of them were first-rounders. The two who weren’t were arguably the best mid-round picks at the position in recent memory. Remember, pass-rushers are treated like quarterbacks by the league. They usually don’t drop down the draft board if they have a chance to be special. Typically, the top edge rushers in the NFL are first-round picks — at a rate that is not consistent with positions other than quarterback.

Of those six players, all but Van Ness has been a double-digit sack player in the NFL. Sorrell certainly has areas in his game where he can improve, but players of his profile don’t usually make it to the mid-fourth round. That’s a fact.

On film, I see a player who plays hard, has solid bend and really started to take off for Texas around the Arkansas game mid-season last year. During the Arkansas game, he made several plays early on in the game, leading to instances of triple teams by the fourth quarter. From there on in the 2024 season, it looked like he took a step forward as a pass-rusher, routinely making three or more drive-killing plays against offenses per game.

Sorrell is reportedly as strong as can be. Below is what Bruce Feldman of The Athletic wrote about Sorrell in his annual Freaks List article going into the 2024 season:

The 6-4, 260-pound senior clocked one of the fastest max velocity times of any D-lineman in college football last fall when he hit 19.4 mph during a game. Texas coaches are excited for Sorrell to take his game to another level after he had a terrific offseason. Sorrell bench pressed 425 pounds, squatted 575 and power cleaned 355, but coaches say the most impressive number is his explosive burst for his size. He consistently has registered 20 mph on the Catapult system.

While he might possess that strength in the weight room, I don’t see it consistently used on film. There are times when he shows a really impressive stack and shed ability, but others when he doesn’t look like a 425-pound bench press player when asked to set the edge.

His ability to consistently play the run is going to decide how often he sees the field early on in his NFL career, but I wouldn’t bet against him. For a fourth-round pick, who probably should have gone two rounds earlier, he’s about as good a dice roll that you can take. While I didn’t dislike any of the Packers’ top-100 selections in the 2025 draft, or the pick of Oklahoma State’s Collin Oliver (I haven’t seen the rest of the Packers’ selections at the time of writing this article), Sorrell stands out to me as the team’s best “value pick” in the class.