Injury concerns dropped Virginia cornerback Bryce Hall from the late first round all the way to the fifth, where the New York Jets got a steal with the 158th pick in the 2020 NFL Draft on Saturday.
Hall would have been a projected first-round pick if he would have left UVA after his junor season in advance of the 2019 draft, but he decided to return for his senior season.
A broken leg in his sixth game, in a 17-9 loss at Miami, put him on the sidelines for the remainder of Virginia’s 2019 season, and put him behind the 8-ball when the spring evaluation period was closed down due to COVID-19.
Hall, a second-team All-American in 2018, didn’t allow a single catch on 52 press coverage snaps in 2019, and according to Pro Football Focus, he had forced an incompletion on 24.8 percent of targets since 2017, the second-highest rate in college football over that span.
As a junior in 2018, Hall led the nation with 22 breakups and was tied for No. 1 in the nation with 24 passes defended.
Hall earned first-team All-ACC accolades in 2018 and was a second-team All-American by the prestigious Walter Camp Foundation and Football Writers Association of America.
Story by Chris Graham
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