Peter Skoronski 2023 NFL Draft profile: Scout report for the Northwestern OT
Peter Skoronski, Northwestern
Peter Skoronski: 6’4”, 310 pounds; JR
Slightly outside the top-100 overall recruits in 2020, Peter Skoronski stepped in at left tackle as a true freshman. He was named to the All-Freshman team when Rashawn Slater decided to sit out the season due to COVID concerns. He improved to a first-team All-Big Ten performer in 2021, which he repeated this past season, along with being a unanimous first-team All-American. His grandfather, Bob Skoronski, was a starter and team captain for all five of Vince Lombardi’s championship teams.
Positives:
+ The best compliment I can give Peter Skoronski is that his tape can be almost boring at times, because every rep is clean and there’s not much to note
+ His aiming points and angles are excellent for such a young player
+ Operates from a wide base with good leg-drive, while lifting up through contact with his elbows in tight
+ Does well to establish positioning with the inside foot, sealing edge defenders on the backside of run concepts
+ Gets underneath the arm pit of D-tackles on angular blocks and rides them down the line
+ Brings plus grip strength and ability to twist bodies to expand running lanes, along with the dexterity to keep his hands latched as defenders try to slip or turn away from contact
+ Shows great balance to peel off blocks and transition to a secondary target without any delay
+ Consistently works with square shoulders and stays tight to his teammate on vertical combos, to maximize force and not allow defenders to split those
+ Patient and under control working up to the second level, being able to get under the chest with great consistency
+ Getting out to the corner on fly sweeps or those completely horizontal handoffs, he rarely overruns targets, just blindly hustling out there
+ Somehow, people are inferring that Peter Skoronski isn’t a great athlete, when he tested in the 70th percentile or better among all combine events other than the three-cone and his jumps were 96th and 97th percentile respectively
+ Peter Skoronski is already a very sound and comfortable pass-protector, who is consistently first off the ball, gets to his landmarks and doesn’t throw his technique out of the window
+ Shows an understanding of the depth of the pocket and how to manipulate rush angles, along with the easy lateral movement to mirror guys across multiple moves
+ Adjusts the length of his initial dependent on where combat will occur and is able to beat wide-nine alignments to the spot
+ His hands are so consistent with landing inside the frame of rushers and controlling reps, because they typically stay attached throughout
+ Varies his approach and excels at using his arms in independent fashion, whether he’s trying to widen guys with the inside hand or wants to take charge off them on power rushes
+ Rarely does his weight shift too far to the outside foot and he’s ready to negate angles as guys are trying to slice through the inside shoulder
+ Extends his inside arm when deciphering through the pressure and is ready to redirect towards guys slanting to the B-gap if there’s no threat off the edge. When he does so, he often times rides those guys into the pile and doesn’t given them an angle towards the quarterback
+ His feel for shuffling along and how to pick up loopers with the two-handed strike to guide their path is impressive for a young player
+ Allowed two sacks on nearly 700 snaps as a true freshman and did the same in ’21 on over 800, along with 18 additional pressures. However, he quietly just had his best season in that regard (one sack, two QB hits and three hurries)
Negatives:
– The big hold-up with Peter Skoronski is only having 32 and ¼-inch arms, while I also believe he played below 310-pound mark
– You see edge rushers really create problems for him with long-arm maneuvers, where he can’t place his hands or has the kind of super-strong base to just swallow those
– It can also show up in the run ground where guys can out-reach him and, therefore, pull him off when leaning into contact
– Doesn’t create a whole lot of knock-back at first contact with his strike generally, and you rarely see him take linebackers for a ride, the way you’d like to
– While I love with how much control Peter Skoronski plays, at times I’d appreciate a little more urgency to negate space in the first instance rather than trying to establish position
At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, it’s pretty easy to find a comparison in terms of player profile for Peter Skoronski, if we just go to the guy he replaced at Northwestern, Rashawn Slater. I do believe the now-Pro Bowler was a greater athlete, particularly with some of the insane stuff he did in the weight room to balance out length concerns. However, Peter Skoronski is clearly the most technically advanced tackle in the 2023 class.
The way he fits his hands and is able to transfer force from the ground up in the run game, along with reading rushers and using different combat-maneuvers to counter them, is tremendous. There’s not much to criticize on tape, but you just wonder how high his ceiling might be, due to always having a disadvantage in that one area. Ultimately, I believe a team will start him out at tackle and he will play at a pretty high level, but he transitions inside a couple of years into his pro career.
Having him down at number three almost feels wrong, but it only speaks to the strength of the top of the class. Peter Skoronski will be a top-15 overall prospect for me.
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