Louisville football: 5 players who could be drafted in 2021 NFL Draft

C.J. Avery- ILB

Senior

There are few players in the country as versatile as Louisville linebacker C.J. Avery. The 5’11,” 230-pound rising senior was a highly sought after recruit coming out of high school, and he has improved year over year with the Cards.

Avery has been a big-time playmaker from the jump, and emerged as a potential star linebacker at the start of his sophomore year after making the move over from safety. He was one of the few bright spots in Bobby Petrino’s final season in 2018.

In 2019, Avery became the player many fans expected him to be. Under Bryan Brown’s 3-4 scheme, Avery seized opportunities to make tackles in space and get into the backfield using his speed and athleticism.

He finished the season leading the team with 93 tackles, and chipped in 3 sacks and 5.5 tackles for loss.

Now, Avery enters a make or break season with the Cards where he could potentially lead the team in tackles once again and thrive for the first time where he has the same position coach in the offseason.

If Avery wants to improve his draft stock in 2020, however, he has to make some improvements. With his size, Avery is somewhere in between a linebacker and a safety at the next level, and if he wants to be an undersized linebacker in the league, he needs to showcase his ability to play the ball more. We know Avery is one of the best tacklers on the team and he has a tremendous ability to get into the backfield, but scouts want to see linebackers who are multifaceted in pass coverage as well as the run game.

I see Avery as a player who could be another Patrick Queen, who was a versatile linebacker at LSU and went to the Ravens in the first round of the 2020 draft. However, if he wants to become that at the next level he’ll need to prove that he can be more than a tackler this season. Using his experience of playing in the backfield, Avery should be used in more ways this season especially when it comes to blitzing and dropping back into coverage. While he’s much smaller than Isaiah Simmons, the first-round draft pick from Clemson, Avery also has the speed, instincts, and tackling ability to be a nightmare for offenses.

Is Avery a future first-rounder? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that Avery can’t work his way into the draft and eventually up draft boards. He has the intangibles, now he just has to continue to round out his game during the 2020 season.