Insider Louis Riddick weighs risks of drafting Jalen Milroe, evaluates why draft stock has fallen

All eyes at the Senior Bowl this week are on former Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, who opted to turn pro after the 2024 season rather than put another year on tape in college next fall.

That was a move that came with plenty of risks, according to ESPN NFL Draft analyst Louis Riddick, who currently sees Milroe getting drafted between the second and fourth round.

“Look, the draft is an exercise of minimizing risk and reducing risk,” Riddick told ESPN’s Paul Finebaum on Wednesday. “So when he has a season that, to use your word is characterized as ‘uneven’ and I agree with, that equates to more risk being injected into the equation for teams, and teams don’t like that. So naturally how is that represented in the draft? It means you get drafted later on, because it minimizes the risk for the team.”

Jalen Milroe is unquestionably one of the best athletes in the draft. How far that will get him remains to be seen.

Anthony Richardson has come up as a frequent player comparison. Richardson went No. 4 overall after posting a mesmerizing NFL Combine performance. But there are some key differences between the two.

For one, Richardson had started only 13 games. Jalen Milroe, on the other hand, has started almost two full seasons worth already.

“So again, it’s subjective from team to team as to how much risk people associate with drafting Jalen Milroe, and a lot of that’s going to depend on what their individual situation is and what they believe to be the plan in place that they could put into place in order to help the young man out and how they kind of assess him individually as far as is he willing to go ahead and work at it and really address the deficiencies that he has so he can even out that performance,” Riddick said.

In four years at Alabama, Jalen Milroe rushed for 1,579 yards and 33 touchdowns. He also threw for 6,016 yards and 45 touchdowns, against 20 interceptions.

Whether he can improve his draft stock considerably going forward through the pre-draft process remains to be seen.

“He’ll be one of the most intriguing players in this year’s draft because of that variance in opinion that people are going to naturally have,” Riddick said. “Can he make up a lot of ground between now and the draft? There’s always the ability to kind of sway people as far as making them like you even more based upon how you do here, how you do in your pre-draft workout, how you do at the Combine, how you do in your individual meetings and interviews. There’s always time in order for you to kind of boost your stock a little bit.”

But Riddick issued a warning of sorts for NFL teams, too.

“Remember, there are no games being played right now and there won’t be any games being played for Jalen Milroe outside of this Senior Bowl, if he does in fact play on Saturday, until next season,” the analyst said. “So it’s dangerous sometimes to really change your opinions on people and the values that you attach on people when they haven’t played a game since the last time you actually put a value on them. That’s the imperfect nature of the draft and this time of year.”