2019 NFL Draft Prospects: Safeties - Taylor Rapp, Washington

This dual-citizen between the US and Canada with Chinese ancestry was an All-Washington safety and decided to stay in-state to join the Huskies. Playing through a broken hand in spring practices, coaches loved his willingness to fight and inserted him into the starting lineup four games into Rapp’s first season.

Not only did he earn Pac-12 Freshman Defensive Player of the Year and was named a Freshman All-American, he also was the conference championship game MVP with two interceptions. As a sophomore he was a first-team All-Pac-12 performer as well as last season, when he recorded 59 tackles, five sacks, two INTs, five PBUs and three fumble recoveries.

Rapp has been a key-piece to the Washington defense ever since he first stepped on the field for them because of the versatility he presents. Similar to Budda Baker a couple of years, the six foot, 215-pound Rapp lines up all over the field for the Huskies and makes his presence felt. He is a splash-hitter who deliver big shots over the middle of the field and on the sidelines. Still, he wraps up the legs of ball-carriers usually and goes through people on his way to the ball – sometimes even from his own team. You see him completely blow up screen passes when he has a chance to.

Rapp runs the alley hard and breaks down ahead of contact exceptionally well. He is extremely dependable at bringing down players in the open field with consistently excellent balance. The young man had the highest tackling efficiency of any safety in this class and missed just two of his 60 tackling attempts last season.

The Washington leader has experience covering slot receivers one-on-one and trailing them across the field. He excels at covering guys down the seams and staying on top of their routes. Overall Rapp is very physical throughout the development of routes and never lets receivers dictate in man-coverage. He drives on post and deep-in routes from two-high safety alignments and completely lays out to get his fingertips on balls that seem out of reach. That way he allowed a passer rating of just 28.5 when targeted in 2018.

Rapp hits through the ball on dig or slant routes when racing up from his safety spot but still doesn’t forget to wrap up. The Huskie safety already got a couple sacks in 2017, showing tremendous snap anticipation, and he improved on those numbers as he rushed the passer more frequently last season. On 41 blitzes he recorded four sacks and 11 more pressures. He is like the flash when blitzing from deep and he arrives at the quarterback with bad intentions, plus the Huskies straight up rushed him off the edge as well.

However, as a deep safety I’m not a hundred percent sold on the range Rapp presents, especially with that 40-yard dash in the mid-4.7s he ran at the Huskie pro day. That’s probably why you often didn’t see him on the screen when lined up as the single-high safety. He will play so far off everybody else that you rarely see him making any impact plays downfield and it is hard to envision him doing so going forward. I don’t think his potential is up there with those guys ahead of him, because he is not in their ball-park athletically.

Rapp’s lack of top-end speed probably make him more of all-around player in a scheme which doesn’t require him to cover from numbers to numbers. He is an extremely dependable tackler, who plays hard all the time and leads by example. While I think he is at his best around the line of scrimmage and matched up in the slot, he will not let anybody get behind him in deep coverage and shows outstanding pursuit. Rapp recorded PFF’s highest grade among all Power 5 safeties last season for a reason.

Grade: Late Second