The similarities between Cravens and Shaq Thompson are striking. Conventional thinking is that they are just too similar for the Panthers to draft Cravens just one year after taking Thompson. That kind of thinking is why nobody saw Carolina trading up for Devin Funchess.
Both Thompson and Cravens were highly recruited high school prospects. Both played in the PAC-12. They both played safety as freshman, before transitioning to linebacker.
Cravens was asked to play all over during his career at USC. As a freshman Cravens was about 210ish and played a lot of deep safety. As a sophomore he started to transition to the role of an in the box player and this year especially, he was basically a strong-side linebacker in their defense