Saturday, April 28, 2012

2012 NFL Draft: Round One

So I was hoping to do Round one separately, but by the time I got a minute to sit down and write it the second round was just an hour away so I've decided "to hell with it" and just bundled the three rounds together. Without further fanfare;


Round One

1. Colts select QB Andrew Luck: We knew it was coming. And it came. Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck was taken first overall by the Colts. I'm still not as high on Luck as everyone else seems to be, but the Colts have made two picks that we'll see later on that really help Luck. He really does have every chance to succeed in Indianapolis thanks to Reggie Wayne at wide receiver, a reasonably solid offensive line and the two tight ends picked up in later rounds. Just don't hold your breath for a massive rookie season. I think Luck is going to take time to settle in and find the ropes.

2. Redskins select QB Robert Griffin III: And we knew this was coming as well. And it came. Baylor QB Robert Griffin III will now lead the Redskins and, they hope, turn around one of the most poorly managed and miserable franchises in modern pro football. Honestly I don't see it happening. Griffin is pretty quick but as a passer he is phenomenally over rated and I think he's going to have a rough first year against the Eagles, Cowboys and Giants, all of whom he has to face twice. He better hope the Redskins give him more weapons throughout the draft.

3. Browns select RB Trent Richardson: The Browns bizarrely traded up a spot with the Vikings to take Richardson. Word on the interwebs is that they were afraid the Buccaneers might make the trade so they beat them to it. Regardless, they've picked up a fantastic running back to lead the franchise going forward. He's going to take a heavy pounding against the likes of the Steelers, Ravens and Bengals, but if anyone can take that punishment and then deliver some back of his own, all the while gaining yards, then it's Trent Richardson.

4. Vikings select OT Matt Kalil: I'm going to go back at some point and watch Kalil again because people are raving about him as a sure fire lock at the left tackle spot for the next ten years etc, but I distinctly remember being underwhelmed by him. I found him to be very speculative against pass rushers and I think his quarterback did a lot of the work to help his draft stock. To be picked this high you need to be a technical and physical beast, "sound as a pound" as we say over here. I didn't see that from Kalil.

..... I don't know why, but something drew me to go and watch Kalil again right now, before proceeding. I watched five games and in those five games I didn't see a single sack given up by Kalil. More to the point, I didn't see anyone come close to really beating him. I don't understand how I can watch the same games twice and be absolutely at the opposite end of the scale about a player the second time?

I have a suspicion that being the buffoon I can occasionally be that I must have watched the wrong team the first time around by accident. It's, I dunno, it's the only logical explanation I can think of and even then it doesn't sound right. I don't get it. I feel like a bit of twat now to be honest.

So having watched Kalil again, yeah he was fine. Like I say, I didn't see anyone come even close to beating him. He had good technique, was sure footed, well balanced and had a great punch. If he can play in the NFL like he did in college then there's no reason why he shouldn't be quite a handy left tackle. The only real knock would be that he played against a lot of suspect teams, but from a technical stand point he was fine.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

2012 NFL Draft: Corners and Safeties

As always, the order is not necessarily reflective of how I rate individual players, just how they appeared on my list when I collected their names.

- Alfonzo Dennard, Nebraska: We'll get this one out of the way first. Dennards stock had plummeted since he was arrested the other day on charges of assaulting a police officer, allegedly occurring when officers attended the scene of an incident that may or may not have involved Dennard in a fight. Connected with his on field fight with Alshon Jeffery last season, it paints a poor picture of Dennards character that has many teams reeling away.

Personally, even if he is completely exonerated of any wrong doing and can eventually rebuild his reputation off the field, on it I think Dennard is grossly, grossly over rated.

At the Senior Bowl and then later at the combine many scouts were left less than impressed by his agility and the flexibility in his hips - a key component of a corner being able to turn and run with a receiver. To me this is just another example of how badly scouts miss the obvious things that appear on tape.

Because without fail the one thing you notice about Dennard when watching him on the field is that he stinks when it comes to trying to run with receivers. He has made a career in college, like many corners before him, of grabbing the receivers jersey and/or arms and just holding them back. Now unless your name is Darrelle Revis, you're not going to get away with that in the NFL.

On the occasions when Dennard was unable to get to grips with his opponents (I mean that in the literal sense) he was left completely out classed by them. The phrase we might use here in the UK would be "beaten all ends up", a term from Cricket that is often heard when a batsmen swings at - but completely misses - the ball, which then passes through and takes out his stumps.

That's what happens to Dennard when he is unable to get his hands on a receiver. He swings so to speak, misses, and then has to watch as the receiver blazes past him while he fumbles around trying to get himself turned for the pursuit. He struggles against even some of the slower receivers, so don't count on him against the elite men. This was shown dramatically by his game against Jeffery where he was not even in the same class.

Dennard, to me, is a complete waste of a pick. Even without the character issues I feel that he has no place on an NFL field. He's just simply not that good. With the character concerns? I think you'd have to be a fool to pick him.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Update: 04/15/12

So we are one night removed from the NFL draft and..... I still haven't even started my post on Corners and Safeties. What that means is that I'm going to scramble over the next few hours to watch a few of the players and get down some thoughts on maybe just the top few corners and safeties who might go in the first round. Other than that, the rest will have to wait until after the draft.

What I've decided I'm going to do post draft is to go through each round assessing the picks of players that I know about, and then I'm going to do a round by round look at the guys I don't, then at some point get onto the undrafted players.

This will hopefully break up the boredom of the off season somewhat, then god only knows where I'm going from there.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

2012 NFL Draft: Linebackers

This is going to be quite the mix. Here we have linebackers, which is going to cover players who played the majority of their college snaps (at least recently) in any linebacker spot, be it inside or outside, 4-3 defense, 3-4 defense, 3-3 stack, whatever. And as has been the case with many of these other posts, I'm going to just focus in on some of the top players from this group.

It's now clear that my draft previews combined will probably cover most players in the top 2-3 rounds, and that after that I'll have probably covered the odd player here and there, but there will be some sizable holes in the coverage. After the draft has been completed my aim is to to cover at some point every player who was drafted, and then start working through some of the undrafted guys.

This should be quite a handy task given that the offseason is always a dead duck in terms of football news. My plan is to combine the ongoing analysis of rookie players with some coachy type stuff, maybe cracking out the play diagrams once again or doing some written breakdowns of... stuff. We;ll see.

For now, Linebackers. Starting with;

- Shea McCellin, Boise State: Although McCellin played some snaps with his hand in the dirt, he's really not big enough or strong enough to play defensive end for a 4-3 team. He just wont handle the run that well. That leaves outside in the 3-4 as the main home for him.

My issue with McCellin is that he's all about speed. He can chase down a play going in the opposite direction, but he's not going to stand up and hold the point of attack himself. That gives him rather limited utility, which I find odd given how everyone is raving about him being "versatile".

For my money, just because you rush the quarterback from a number of different positions that doesn't make you versatile. It just means your coach is being clever about trying to hide you from the quarterback and trying to get you good matchups. Nor does having two picks from odd plays make you a coverage linebacker.

And then we get to the pass rush itself and here we encounter the "Von Miller Dilemma". Von Miller, now of the Broncos, was pretty quick in college. He got a fair number of sacks just by speeding the long way around the outside of offensive tackle as the quarterback held the ball, or by being left unblocked. Typically he struggled when the tackle got his hands on him.

So should you credit Miller with hard work and having the speed to exploit broken protections. Or do you mark him down because in a technique battle he's often going to lose? This is the same dilemma I see with McCellin. Do I credit him for his speed as a pass rusher, for the fact that when he's not blocked he will almost guaranteed get to the QB before the guy can throw?

Or do I down grade him for being "lucky"? In a one on one match with an offensive lineman, usually a competent blocker will contain McCellin. He just doesn't have the strength to fight people off. So should I knock him down a peg or two because he might struggle against pro-tackles?

For me personally I think McCellin is a little too inflexible to warrant the high status he's getting. He's a pass rusher and not much else, played against a lot of not overly great tackles, there are some much better pass rushers in this draft, and overall he just doesn't jump out and grab your attention screaming that he's going to be a great linebacker.

While I see the merits in his speed and accept that he does chase plays all the way to the whistle, I can't shake that feeling that I think you could block this guy with a running back. I don't see him becoming an every down, high production pass rusher. I think he might end up as a 3rd down back.

Update: 04/22/12

So Blogger has taken it upon themselves to completely change the layout of the blogger interface once again. I should point out at this juncture that - as far as I can tell - they haven't actually made any improvements or significant updates to the interface, all they've done is just moved everything to new spots and changed some of the colors.

I can conclusively say that it is less intuitive now, as is the case with basically every software update in the world these days, and generally speaking it strikes me as a complete waste of time and money the likes of which Google has become accustomed to in the last three to four years. Literally nothing has improved, not a thing, while at the same time I now have to completely relearn how to use the interface. Pointless and bloody annoying to say the least.

Oh, and the auto save going off every two seconds and interupting me mid-type..... yeah, that's pretty fucking annoying. Thanks for nothing Google.

Ass clowns.

So anyway, I've nearly completed the Linebackers post which will go up in the next few hours but I just wanted to put out this update because I've heard from others who are having trouble with the new interface that it sometimes eats entire blog posts and I just wanted to check it out first before I post anything of actual importance.

Suffice to say that I will be sending Google some decidely curse riddled feedback.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Update 04/17/12

Still working on draft Linebackers post. Some on this list are giving me problems. I'm having what I would now call the "Von Miller Dilemma". That is to say do certain linebackers succeed simply because they are left unblocked or get "lucky", or should they be acknowledged for hard work and not giving up on a play? Can strong skills in one area such as pass rushing make up for a lack of skills in stopping the run? Interesting argument to have.

With myself.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Taking a break to Huddle up

So I'm going to take a break briefly from studying the 2012 crop of young prospective NFL linebackers and instead talk about an article from another site that typifies something that has always annoyed me about coaching.

The article in question comes from SmartFootball.com, the home of Chris Smart. Normally I love Smarts' articles and I think he covers quite an interesting range of topics over the course of a season. But every now and again I see the odd article that doesn't sit well with me, which is only to be expected. You can't please all of the people, all of the time, as the saying goes.

I want to highlight this article in question because it covers an interesting topic and an interesting discussion that is taking place among all coaches at all levels of the game. I'll post a link here to start with, and then I'll provide the link again at the end for convenience.

Basically the premise of the article is that the success of the Baylor Bears football team in 2011 - under the leadership of 2012 pro prospect quarterback Robert Griffin - was not only not a fluke, a one off season using a contrary offense, but indeed is almost the blueprint for the future of offense in football.

The element that is highlighted as being so critical is the No-Huddle component. Specifically the article states that; "It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that huddling is an archaism destined for the dustbin. I say it’s a slight exaggeration because there is a value to huddling, primarily when you have a great leader at quarterback as a huddle is an opportunity for him to show his leadership skills. But otherwise, it’s inherently inferior to going no-huddle".

Wow. That's quite the statement. I have to lay my cards on the table right away and say that I disagree with that assessment. Quite a lot actually. Hopefully I'll be able to articulate why in the course of this article.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

2012 NFL Draft: Defensive Tackles

So this list is going to include 4-3 defensive tackles, 3-4 nose tackles and 3-4 defensive ends, which will be highlighted as appropriate. As always the order is not neccessarily reflective of how I rate the various players and again, there are no guarantees. My opinions are just that, opinions.

- Dontari Poe, Mephis: So on that note, where better to start than with a player that is generating a ton of controversy. Poe is reportedly 346lbs and at the combine he ran a 4.87 forty yard dash and looked silky smooth in the field drills. For a defensive linemen anyway.

The reason I say "reportedly 346lbs" is because I call bullshit on that. Remember Terrence Cody, who was drafted by the Ravens in 2010? That guy weighed in at 370lbs, just 22 pounds more than Poe, yet he looked like the michelin man. I think Poe's weight is wrong. Even so, it was an impressive time for the big man.

But then we get to the game tape and what everyone has been wondering; how does an athletically gifted athlete like Poe only chalk up 1 sack in the Conference USA? The answer is because he's not very good. And by not very good, I mean awful. And by awful, I don't mean that he got double teamed a lot. He did draw a few double teams, but he faced plenty more single blocks and he still sucked.

Let me put it this way. I watched Poe, against a CUSA team, get jacked up by a running back in pass protection. Yes, a running back. Poe is just a big guy who has no idea how to play his position. He has no pass rush moves, he has no block defeating moves, he's just a big kid who can run a smart looking forty.

That is not a first round pick. I've heard Poe touted in the top 25, and in some cases the top 15. I think you would have to have your brain removed and inspected for defects if you used a pick that high on him.

Now he might, might, develop with the right coaching. But that's a big "might" and certainly one that you don't want to be staking your teams future on with a first rounder. He is literally just a raw clump of muscle and bone and fat with no discernable football talent. Or in other words he's a scouts dream.

As a much later pick, like going undrafted really but from say the 5th round down, Poe has value. You bring him in and you work on him to mold him into a future star. If you can teach him how to use his hands properly and to bend his knees, not his waist, you could possibly develop Poe over time into someone that could be a difference maker on defense.

Just not in one year. I don't see it happening. He's so raw it's almost comical. He needs time, investment, and a coach who believes in the long term process. With the way the NFL works these days that could narrow him down to maybe just the Steelers and Patriots, but we'll see. Much rests on the quality of his future coaches and where they see him fitting into their scheme.

Monday, April 09, 2012

Update: 04/09/12

The defensive tackles post is near completion and is likely to be posted in the next 24-48 hours.