2013 Senior Bowl: San Diego State's Leon McFadden impressive at practice, will miss game with injury

San Diego St. Aztecs cornerback Leon McFadden has had a good week at Senior Bowl practices by impressing NFL scouts and coaches during the week.

ESPN's Todd McShay praised McFadden for his work on Tuesday ($):

Countering the best player on offense was a defensive back as the best player on defense. San Diego State's Leon McFadden stood out. He jumped Tavarres King's out route and had a nice interception in one-on-ones. He stuck to receivers like glue, was balanced and under control. He didn't turn and run vertically much, but he has looked sharp defending short-to-intermediate routes on several one-on-one and seven-on-seven reps.

He's not as tall as you'd like (5-9¾), has smallish hands (8⅝) and average arm length (31¼), so top-end speed is an important piece of the puzzle in McFadden's final evaluation. We're interested to see if he can maintain the standard he set Monday throughout the week.

However, there were a few times on Wednesday that McFadden was not able to keep up with a few of the wide receivers with elite speed. That does mean he is slow by any means, but he does not have that elite speed, but McFadden makes up for that by making great breaks on balls to interrupt the receiver.

Overall, McFadden a good week of practices, but at the end of Wednesday he injured his groin and will sit out the game to rest the area. The one bit of good news is that the NFL scouts and coaches all left town before McFadden became injured, and the game is not that big a deal to miss, because the important evaluations come during practice.

McFadden will now rest until the NFL Combine next month.

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