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Mizzou wide receiver Luther Burden III lifts his hands toward the sky before the start of the season opener against Murray State on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, at Faurot Field in Columbia, Mo.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — With only two teams left in the NFL’s postseason mix, football’s focus is turning to the 254 picks in the league’s upcoming draft.
Five freshly former Missouri players have been thinking about that event for a while.
Now roughly a month removed from the end of their careers in black and gold, this week marks a key milestone in the pre-draft cycle for NFL prospects, including two showcase events that will feature those Mizzou products.
While players’ draft stocks will rise and fall between now and the NFL draft, which takes place April 24-26 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, this week serves as a baseline for where prospects will wind up in the pros.
At the moment, MU looks likely to have fewer players drafted than last year’s six but will probably have two first-round selections for the first time since 2011.
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Wide receiver Luther Burden III, the local five-star prospect who spent three seasons as a dynamic weapon for the Tigers, seems assured of first-round status.
He isn’t participating in any of the showcase events taking place this week and is instead spending his winter training at Exos, a sports performance facility in the Dallas area. Burden previously told the Post-Dispatch that he will participate in the NFL combine.
“I’m ready to get down to go to work,” Burden said while watching his now-former teammates play in the Music City Bowl. “Excited for the future.”
Given that he was considered one of the best 2025 prospects more than a year ago, Burden is likely to go fairly early in the first round — though his standing slipped a little bit after a quiet junior season. ESPN’s Mel Kiper predicts the Dallas Cowboys to pick Burden at 12th overall, pairing him with star receiver CeeDee Lamb. Pro Football Focus thinks he could go a bit earlier, to the New Orleans Saints at No. 9. The Athletic sees him slipping to the Cincinnati Bengals at No. 17.
Joining him — or maybe even surpassing him — in the first round could be offensive lineman Armand Membou, the other Mizzou player foregoing his final year of eligibility to enter the draft as soon as possible.
Membou has been the talk of draft circles this week after official measurements taken at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, showed his frame is big enough to play tackle at the next level. While he spent three years starting at right tackle for the Tigers, the consensus among scouts was that he was too small for that position and would have to play guard in the NFL.
His strength and athleticism — Membou routinely put up impressive numbers inside the MU weight room — will pop at pre-draft workouts, which could keep his stock rising.
“You’ll hear his name more, I suspect, during Senior Bowl week,” NFL.com draft analyst Eric Edholm wrote. “All season long, Membou was Mizzou’s most reliable blocker, displaying rare feel for pass blocking for a thickly built athlete. ... Membou is very much on the rise.”
He is Missouri’s lone representative in the Senior Bowl, which takes place Saturday, but it’s the practices in the run up to the showcase that are arguably just as important to the flocks of scouts in attendance.
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Alabama linebacker Qua Russaw (4) battles with Missouri offensive lineman Armand Membou (79) during the first half of a game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Mock drafts put Membou solidly in the first 20 picks of the first round now. If his buzz holds, it’s possible Membou could actually wind up off the board earlier than Burden does — that’s how much NFL teams seem to like what the lineman has to offer.
Quarterback Brady Cook is participating in the East-West Shrine Bowl, another showcase event. Practices take place this week, and the game is played Thursday in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — where Cook and the Tigers won the 2023 Cotton Bowl.
He also played in the Hula Bowl event earlier this month, part of a busy slate of workouts and meetings for Cook, a three-year starter at Mizzou trying to parlay that experience into a spot on an NFL roster.
“It’s busy,” Cook told reporters at the Shrine Bowl. “Not much downtime. ... There’s so much opportunity in everything I’m doing right now, so I’m really trying to take each day at a time and maximize each day because I think it’s going to come down to that at the end of this process.”
He, along with defensive end Johnny Walker Jr., will be pushing for a spot in the draft’s later rounds or an opportunity to sign with a team as an undrafted free agent. Cook told media at the Shrine Bowl that he has met with the Pittsburgh Steelers multiple times and enjoyed conversations with the Seattle Seahawks.
Cook is another player who, given his track record within Missouri’s strength program, should test well at workouts.
Wide receiver Theo Wease Jr. is also in attendance at the Shrine Bowl to meet with NFL teams, but he isn’t doing any on-field work as he heals from a broken hand suffered in the Music City Bowl.
While these showcase events are valuable, centralized ways for prospects and scouts to converge, Mizzou will likely hold a pro day in Columbia near the end of its spring practices, giving more of its former players a chance to work out in front of NFL personnel.