Do you hear that sound? It’s Tyler Varga’s NFL draft stock shooting through the roof after a successful week for the Canadian running back at the 2015 Senior Bowl.
The Yale product impressed in a variety of ways, be it at the weigh-in with his shredded physique or learning multiple positions, showing the ability to contribute as a tailback, fullback or H-back. Varga was productive when he got his hands on the football in the game on Saturday, finishing with four carries for 31 yards and two touchdowns and adding three catches for 39 yards. Some extensive research found that Varga became the first Canadian ever to score multiple touchdowns in the Senior Bowl.
There were oodles of NFL general managers and scouts in Mobile, Alabama. Here’s a sampling of what pro player personnel evaluators had to say about the Kitchener, Ont., native after getting an up-close look at him throughout the week.
On Varga’s 5-foot-10, 227-pound frame:
"He passes the eye test. If you look at this kid physically he is the best-looking kid you can imagine. Built like a brick. He looks like he belongs."
"You can tell that conditioning in terms of working out and eating are priorities because the guy is a physical marvel in that regard. Physically you can tell that he’s committed to being an NFL player."
"There are other guys who look good just like him, but I guess it’s different with Ivy Leaguers. You don’t expect it because those students are going to med school, taking classes, tons of extra curricular and maintaining 3.5 GPAs. You have to be extremely consistent in your regimen in regards to your eating and working out habits to look that way from one of the top academic schools in the country."
On Varga’s ability to be an NFL tailback:
"Not an NFL tailback. If somebody brings him to training camp as a tailback it would just be as what we call a ‘training camp body’."
"His only chance is as a fullback or H-back type. He’s a little bit of a ‘tweener’."
"I think he is an NFL tailback. I think he has the potential to be a good NFL running back. I think a lot of people look at his size and they look at his speed and they don’t think it can translate. But there are not many running backs in the NFL that run in the 4.3s."
"Intriguing came up in terms of you like guys that are intelligent, the fact that he’s so well conditioned, high character, that he learns well and will be able to learn more than one spot without any problem — fullback or H-back. On small rosters being versatile has pluses. I do not see him as an NFL tailback."
"You look for the guys who have short area suddenness to make a guy miss, which he has. He can be a guy who can get you, 5, 10, 15 yards on a consistent basis. There aren’t too many running backs who can get you a 75-yard run at the drop of a hat — maybe a handful of starters. You’ve got the Adrian Petersons, you have the Jamal Charles’, you have the DeMarco Murrays, etc. Then everyone else are basically chunk producers that can move the chains."
"With 32 teams there is no way to project because literally you could have 31 teams see you one way and all it takes is one team to differentiate and that’s what you are."
On who Varga might compare to in the NFL:
"An example we talked about as a comparative was Ryan Hewitt, a kid out of Stanford. He made the Bengals this past year — a fullback that played and was very productive. Stanford is a high level of academic school like Yale is. The difference between Hewitt and Varga is that Hewitt is taller and heavier. Physically there are some similarities, but Tyler is a better athlete. He’s smaller, but he can be used like the way Cincinnati used Hewitt as a fullback and an H-back."
"Tyler looks more like a Matt Asiata from Minnesota or Rex Burkhead with Cincinnati. He’s more like those types of guys; bruiser types that won’t always test well with speed. Those are two guys I would compare him to because they don’t have the long speed, but they can create yardage with the way they physically are put together as runners."
"He could be similar to Tyler Gaffney, who played at Stanford. He went to Carolina in the 2014 draft [and is now on the Patriots’ roster]. He was a 220-225 pounder, and a 4.6 40-yard guy. Tyler Gaffney was a tailback where as Hewitt was a fullback, H-back. Tyler’s more Gaffney’s size."