Strengths: 

  • Ideal Quickness

Alijah Vera-Tucker is an incredibly quick player who gets from one level of the defense to the next extremely fast. He’s also great on pull blocks and his speed frequently allows him to beat defenders to their spots.

  • Great Anchor

Alijah Vera-Tucker will rarely be beat by rushers trying to use pure athleticism to beat him because not only is he incredibly quick to choke off angles in either direction, but he also has a great strong anchor that prevents him from being bull rushed straight back.

  • Gets to the Second Level in Run

Alijah Vera-Tucker is going to be a phenomenal scheme fit for zone running teams because of just how mobile he is, and how he uses that mobility to get to the second level and beat defenders to their spots to create running lanes.

  • Positions Himself Extremely Well

Vera-Tucker does a great job overall using his high football IQ especially when positioning himself. He does a great job understanding the route to take to beat defenders to their spots and he also understands how to choke off pass rush angles.

Weaknesses: 

  • Short Arm Length

The reason why Alijah Vera-Tucker won’t be able to play offensive tackle in the NFL is because of his incredibly short arms. Outside pass rushers will abuse him with the long arm and even on the interior he’s still going to be outreached.

  • Plays With Bad Leverage Occasionally

Alijah Vera-Tucker will sometimes pop up really high out of stance and play with a super high pad level which allows defenders to have the leverage advantage and uproot him.

  • Needs Consistency with His Hands

Vera-Tucker flashes reps where he uses his hands incredibly well showing great hand strength with good placement but often his timing is off and his placement is not where it should be either. Polished rushers have also been able to spot when he’s flashing his hands early and swat them away.

Player Comp: Alijah Vera-Tucker reminds of another player who started at tackle and then transitioned to guard before finding himself on the interior is Mark Glowinski currently of the Indianapolis Colts. Early on for Glowinski there were growing pains but eventually he figured out how to use his phenomenal strength as well as his quickness to get to the second level and choke off angles. Both guys are also very smart and position themselves well and they have similar weaknesses of playing with pad leverage too high because they’ve played tackle, as well needing consistency with their hands and having short arms. Tucker is even quicker so he can be a better player in the pros.

Final Thoughts: I don’t think Alijah Vera-Tucker is a bad player by any stretch of the imagination but when I see people putting him in the Top 15 I cringe a little because he’s not that good. He is athletically gifted with his quickness and strength but he also has a lot of work to do with his hand usage, leverage, and finishing which may take a while to get cleaned up. Even though he did play guard in 2019 I still think moving back to guard will be somewhat of a transition and it’s a risk I’d take in the latter half of round 1 rather than in the middle which I guess will make me a tiny bit low on Tucker. He’s going to be a great fit on zone blocking teams and the Bears have the biggest need at guard for a while so Vera-Tucker would be a great addition to a Bears team that has been using a zone blocking scheme.