Rob Rang ranks the top sleepers in the 2021 NFL Draft | FOX Sports

Some are players who played at prominent FBS programs but battled injuries, a stacked depth chart or off-field concerns and therefore are being overlooked by many.These players are hoping to overcome the huge leap in competition, just as many of today’s key NFL players have done since they were featured on similar lists from previous years.Some examples of these players from years past include quarterback Gardner Minshew (Washington State, 2019), running back Kareem Hunt (Toledo, 2017), wide receiver Cooper Kupp (Eastern Washington, 2017), tight end Dallas Goedert (South Dakota State, 2018) and two elite guards, Ali Marpet (Hobart, 2015) and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (McGill, 2014).On the defensive side of the ball, notable "sleepers" from the past decade include defensive end Maxx Crosby (Eastern Michigan, 2019), defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi (Charlotte, 2017), middle linebacker Bobby Wagner (Utah State, 2012) and defensive backs such as Robert Alford (Southeastern Louisiana, 2013), Kyle Dugger (Lenoir-Rhyne, 2020) and Jeremy Chinn (Southern Illinois, 2020).The 2021 NFL Draft features plenty of small-school prospects, including potential top-five pick Trey Lance out of North Dakota State. The point of this article is to dig much deeper than Lance, however, with most of the players listed below (along with their schools, heights, weights and 40-yard dash times) likely to be chosen on day three and needing just a little more polish to become "surprising" NFL starters.QUARTERBACKSZac Thomas, Appalachian State, 6-1, 205, 4.56Boasting a 32-6 record as a starter, which ranks second in this quarterback class only to that of presumptive No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence (34-2 at Clemson), Thomas epitomizes this year’s diamond in the rough class. A team willing to invest a likely midround draft pick (and perhaps a redshirt year) could be handsomely rewarded when Odeyingbo returns to action.Other interior defensive linemen: EDGE DEFENDERSWilliam Bradley-King, Baylor, 6-3, 252, 4.75In a year when some players opted out of the 2020 season, Bradley-King deserves kudos for gambling on himself, jumping up a degree of competition to sign with Baylor as a graduate student after back-to-back All-Sun Belt seasons at Arkansas State, the only FBS school to offer him a scholarship out of high school.