The best NFL fit for Arkansas safety Jalen Catalon in 2023 NFL Draft

Arkansas safety Jalen Catalon has been labeled one of the nation’s top safeties heading into the 2022 college football season. Finally rested and healed from his shoulder injury, the Razorback star is ready to prove he’s still an elite playmaker on the gridiron.

With most experts piecing together their way-too-early 2023 mock drafts, Pro Football Focus’ Michael Renner believes that the Washington Commanders is the team best suited to exploit Catalon’s talents on the football field.

“The Commanders have the makings of a defense that can not only win you games but also strike fear in the heart of opposing offenses,” Renner wrote. “Adding a tone-setter to the back end that can match the physicality of their front seven would go a long way toward that. 

“Catalon can be that guy with the way he flies around the football field. A shoulder injury caused him to return to Arkansas, but the 5-foot-10, 200-pound safety had only allowed 7 catches from 14 targets for 59 yards in the six games he played last season.”

Over the past two years, Catalon has been one of the most productive defensive backs on the Razorbacks roster. Totaling 145 total tackles, eight pass deflections and five interceptions (one pick-six in 2020), Catalon’s numbers are only expected to improve heading into his junior year.

Despite his fantastic combined numbers on the stat sheet, they would have been even higher if it weren’t for season-ending shoulder surgery that cut his season in half as he was one of the SEC’s most explosive playmakers in 2020.

Renner previously mentioned that Catalon’s quickness is on a different level from any other safety in the 2023 NFL Draft class.

“When Catalon has a bead on what opposing offenses are trying to do, all of a sudden it looks like someone hit fast forward on the game tape,” an impressed Renner wrote. “His quicks are truly on another level from the rest of this safety class. And they have to be, to a degree, for him to get by at 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds.”

Regarded as one of the top safeties in all of college football this season, a complete, healthy redshirt junior campaign by Catalon will do wonders for his draft stock in what is likely his final season in a Razorbacks uniform.