What was once a position group of immense strength for Oregon heading into the 2020 season has suddenly become one of the team’s biggest question marks with a month to go before the season opener November 7 vs. Stanford.
Sunday afternoon’s announcement from senior safety Brady Breeze that he would be opting out of the 2020 season to prepare for the 2021 NFL Draft made him the fourth Duck defensive back (and fifth Oregon player overall) to do so, following in the footsteps of Deommodore Lenoir, Thomas Graham, and Jevon Holland who made the decision to opt-out in September.
Thank you for making my dream a reality 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Zjzj3aqw0v
— Brady Breeze (@BradyBreeze) October 4, 2020
Unlike the decisions from Lenoir, Graham, and Holland, however, Breeze wasn’t widely accepted as an opt-out candidate. Lenoir and Graham had flirted with the idea of the NFL earlier this year, while Holland was viewed as an ascending NFL-caliber talent early in his Oregon career, but Breeze never appeared to toy with those ideas – at least not publicly. Additionally, and perhaps relatedly, Breeze isn’t necessarily viewed as a slam dunk pick to be drafted next April, as most way-too-early draft projections have him being selected no earlier than Day 3 of the draft, if not undrafted altogether.
In many ways, that’s what make Breeze’s decision so unexpected. Pre-COVID, Breeze was primed to assume a larger role in the secondary after his brilliant finish to the 2019 season. Those sentiments grew even stronger once Lenoir, Graham, and Holland made their decisions to opt-out, as Breeze was set to serve as one of the unit’s wizened elder statesmen with an opportunity to really elevate his draft stock by emerging as the leader of that group. Moving forward, that responsibility now seemingly falls almost exclusively to Nick Pickett, who resides as the lone senior and only player with more than one year of experience in the Ducks’ defensive backfield.
Aside from experience, the Ducks must also replace a player who proved stunningly capable of delivering momentum-changing plays in high stakes games. Breeze finished last season tied for fourth on the team in tackles (62) while also nabbing two interceptions, but it was back-to-back heroic performances in the Pac-12 Championship and the Rose Bowl (in which he won Defensive MVP) that put a size-72 font exclamation mark on what had otherwise been a solid junior campaign.
So where does this leave the Ducks at safety?
The answers aren’t exactly obvious. Pickett is essentially a lock to claim one of the safety positions, while JUCO transfer and former ESPN.com Freshman All-American Bennett Williams is expected to be a player who seizes the inside track on the other vacated safety spot. The Ducks could also slide Verone McKinley into Breeze’s position, as the redshirt sophomore has experience at both nickel and safety. Jamal Hill, Steve Stephens, Trikweze Bridges, and JJ Greenfield are other names to note as well, though the Ducks currently have just 10 scholarship players to fill five defensive back positions in their nickel alignments, meaning depth at every position will be stretched thin.
The start of fall camp this coming Friday should provide some insight into how the Ducks address their growing depth issue in the secondary, but with mere weeks to go before the season gets underway, Oregon now has serious questions in an area where there seemed to be no shortage of answers.
Top Photo: Oregon DB Brady Breeze (Jenny Rydstedt/Whole Flock of Ducks)