Imagine you’re USC safety Taylor Mays on Thursday night, sitting patiently by the phone waiting for a team to call to tell you that you’re headed to the NFL.

But the phone never rings. Then you watch as two safeties (Eric Berry and Earl Thomas) are selected in the top 15, one of which (Thomas) by your former coach at USC, Pete Carroll.

Granted, Thomas was a better prospect than Mays and would have gone ahead of him in most scenarios. Plus, had Seattle taken Mays at 14 it would have been viewed as a major reach. But it nevertheless must be unsettling that the man that scouted Mays at SC decided to go with a Longhorn when it came time to address his needs in the secondary.

A year ago, Mays was considered a top-10 prospect. But scouts knocked him for not making big plays last season and then flat out ignored the fact that he ran a sub-4.4 40 at the Combine. He’s tough as nails, durable and has a ton of experience versus elite completion.

So what’s the problem then?

The problem is that teams don’t know whether or not he’s a safety or a linebacker. He’s brutal in coverage, doesn’t play the ball well and takes bad angles. Those aren’t exactly great qualities to have in a safety – even a strong safety that would likely play close to the line of scrimmage. Plus, he’s not the most reliable tackler, so even as a linebacker he has some major question marks as well.

That said, Mays is an all-around solid football player and as previously mentioned, he was once viewed as a top 10 pick. He knows how to play the game and if he gets in the right system (Chicago, Minnesota, San Francisco, Cleveland), then he might wind up being a steal in the second round. (Although the Bears would have to trade up for him or hope he falls to the third because they don’t have a second rounder.)

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