Date Archives April 2013

Futures: Why Scouting Gets a Bum Rap – A Front Office Overhaul

April 17, 2013 0 Comments read Matt Waldman

It's time to take front offices to the Wood Shed. No beatings though. Photo by Richard Elzey. — It’s time to take front offices to the wood shed. No beatings though. Photo by Richard Elzey.

Scouting gets a bum rap.

“Of course Waldman would say this,” you proclaim. “He’s a scout!”

I may perform the fundamental role of one, but I am not a scout. This elicits laughter from my friend Ryan Riddle. The Bleacher Report columnist who holds Cal’s single season sack record and played with the Raiders, Ravens, and Jets says I have a misplaced sense of honor when it comes to refusing to wear that label.

I prefer talent evaluator, tape watcher, tapehound, or tapehead. My friends – if I have any left since I started doing this work eight years ago – might say ‘Film Hermit’ is the best fit. I’ve never worked for an NFL team, so these names seem more suitable to me. Scouts have responsibilities that I don’t – among them is reporting to management within a company structure.

If you have the chance to learn about the pre-draft process for most NFL teams, scouting is the study of a player’s positive and negative characteristics. It’s also an evaluation of how easy it is to fix the player’s issues and his potential fit within a team system. But based on what former scouts, coaches, and general managers of NFL teams say about the machinations that go into a team’s draft, I am thankful that I am not a scout.

While fans and writers may take the lazy route and blame picks gone wrong on poor scouting, it’s the general manager, coach, and owner who hold the weight of the decision-making power. This is a huge reason why scouting gets a bum rap.

To take it a step further, I’ll advance the popular Bill Parcells analogy of ‘buying the groceries.’ I can spend months in the grocery store and tell you that it has quality cuts of grass-fed steak; a delicious, rosemary batard baked in-house; and every variety of apple found in North America. But if those holding the wallet or cooking the food demand a papaya, I can tell them until I’m blue in the face that if they want a good one, it’s only found in Jamaica and they’re still going to pick an unripe one, take it home, prepare it, and then watch it spoil the meal.

It doesn’t help matters when I have to read Mike Tanier describe draft analysis as a pseudoscience. He’s right for the wrong reasons. Scouting is a craft, not a science. However, teams haven’t made it the same priority to address opportunities to improve scouting the way they have upgraded technology and embraced other forms of analysis.

With all the advances that the NFL has made with equipment, strategy, cap management, and technology, they haven’t done enough to advance the process of talent evaluation. It shouldn’t the sports equivalent of Madam Zora’s, but until teams address the problems, Tanier gets to write entertaining draft pieces at their expense.

I think there is a lot that teams can do to improve their talent evaluation processes. What I will propose here are things I’ve learned from my experience in operations and process improvement. I base my solutions on problems I’ve gleaned in conversations with former scouts, reading and listening to former NFL general managers talk about their past roles, and extensive study of college prospects for the past eight years.

Some of these ideas may be new to the NFL, but I don’t begin to think they are revolutionary in the scope of other industries. I’m sharing these things because it’s too easy to listen to a gray-haired man in a suit on a television network and take what he says as gospel – especially processes that are in fact fundamentally flawed and then perpetuated from generation to generation of football men.

When viewing NFL front offices and how they cope with change, I get the impression that many of them have a buttoned-up, low-risk culture similar in dynamic to Wall Street. It also takes a lot for newer ideas to take hold in an NFL front office as it does for an investment bank to accept “new blood” from a business school lacking a history of established connections with the firm as a personnel pipeline.

Some of what I’ll suggest is not even about new ideas; just better implementation of old concepts. The first point below is a good example where leaders tend to talk the talk better than they walk it.

Read the rest at Football Outsiders.

No-Huddle Series: UConn TE Ryan Griffin

April 16, 2013 0 Comments read Players, Tight End

If you ask me, Ryan Griffin is a similar style prospect to Visanthe Shiancoe, but with better hands. Photo by xoque.

I love Draftbreakdown.com. We all love Draftbreakdown.com. Those guys help me look less like I’m profiling poor comics art.

But today, I have to go old-school and use stills with UConn tight end Ryan Griffin. It isn’t Draftbreakdowns’s fault. Their lack of attention to this prospect is a reflection of the sheer ignorance that the national media has when it comes to this prospect. No one has games posted of this Connecticut tight end Ryan Griffin, once considered a good – if not top-tier – prospect at his position at the end of 2011.

I don’t know what changed, but if you ask me, it’s a draft-season injustice. I know quite a few tape hounds agree with me. Dane Brugler is a prominent witness ready to testify. I wouldn’t even need to call him to the stand. He’d be shouting it from the cheap seats of the courtroom.

If I were into video production, I’d correct this travesty “right quick and in a hurry,” but that’s not my specialty. I will give you the next-best thing. What I enjoyed most about watching this 6’6″, 254-pound tight end in two games against Pitt (2011-2012) and one at Syracuse is his sneaky athleticism. Before you know it, you realize that you’re witnessing an NFL-caliber athlete in action.

2nd-and-three Drag

This is an I formation two-tight end set with Griffin on the wing to the quarterback’s right. The offensive runs a play-action pass with a roll out the opposite direction of the fake. This backside roll-out to the tight end on the drag route is one of the oldest plays around. Griffin slants inside, places a hand on the edge defender and then sprints right to the flat.

The ball arrives on-time and at the numbers for Griffin to extend his arms and make the catch with his hands. Although his hands could be extended a little more from his body, I like how he turns his frame to the ball to present a good target. There’s another practical reason to for a receiver to turn his chest to the ball: in case he has a lapse of coordination and the ball goes through his hands. If his chest is square to the incoming pass, there’s a greater surface area for the ball to bounce off his body towards his hands.

This technique gives the receiver another chance to catch the football whereas if his back shoulder is behind his outstretched arms, the ball is more likely to ricochet off the shoulder and behind the receiver, increasing the likelihood of a defender earning a shot at the rebound.

The UConn tight end secures the ball to his sideline arm, turns up field, and extends his separation from the backside pursuit. The yellow arrow in the upper left corner of this still is the path of the cornerback about to appear in this picture that seems like a lot of empty space for a ball carrier to roam.

Griffin has enough quickness to gain seven yards before the cornerback travels two and breaks down to attempt a tackle. Griffin isn’t the fastest tight end in this class, but he can move. It will be an pervasive theme throughout this analysis.

Griffin hurdles the Panthers corner, who breaks down too early. The UConn tight end is not ready for the high hurdles in a track and field event, but the move is fluid, well-timed, and effective. It qualifies as athletic by NFL standards.

I also like that Griffin sticks the landing in stride at the 25, and continues moving as the backside linebacker closes. Griffin nearly runs through the hit to his ankles. The play ends when his knee hit the 21. While the play call was a huge factor in this 23-yard gain, Griffin’s execution and athleticism deserves props.

1st-and-10 Corner

Griffin also demonstrates sideline awareness as a receiver and can make the smaller adjustments necessary to work the perimeter. This 12 personnel 1×1 receiver set has Griffin as the right end next to right tackle before the snap.

As the receiver at the top of the screen motions across the formation to the wing behind Griffin, the safety over top creeps to the line of scrimmage. The safety doesn’t pose a direct problem for Griffin’s release, but it does congest the release area just enough that the tight end has to have a good plan to avoid the defensive end’s jam.

This is not as easy to see as video, but Griffin does a find job of reducing his inside shoulder to avoid the contact of the defensive end and get a free path up the seam. I personally like this technique because it allows Griffin to avoid his opponent and maintain a position where he can drive off the line of scrimmage and achieve good acceleration into his stem. This release helps Griffin work past the linebacker dropping to the flat and avoid subsequent contact (see below).

The Pitt defense is play zone coverage and the quarterback has three reads to this side. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reads on this 1st-and-10 play go short to long because the flat and hook routes break first. The coverage is good enough in the flats that the quarterback waits for Griffin to make his break towards the corner.

The quarterback waits long enough for the tight end to get behind the safety before delivering the ball at the sideline. Griffin once again turns his shoulders and chest to the target and extends his arms to the football as he’s closing on the boundary. The next two stills demonstrate good hands, quick feet, and boundary awareness all working in coordination.

I like what I see with the little techniques and the they are all important when seeking a player with NFL skills. However, these are all basic plays in the tight end canon that you seek from any NFL option that will play at the line of scrimmage. What makes the lack of coverage of Griffin disappointing is his skill split away from the formation.

3rd-and-eight Post

Although Griffin doesn’t make the catch on this play, there is a lot to like here. First, is the confidence that UConn has in the tight end’s athleticism to split him wide of the formation against a cornerback in press coverage.

At the snap, the corner throws his hands towards Griffin’s chest, but the tight end is prepared for the jam. He greets his opponent’s effort by using his inside hand to meet the defender’s hands with a swat and then uses his outside arm to swim over the corner to get a clean release to the inside. This is hard to see below, but if you look close enough you get the idea.

Swat with inside arm . . .

Swim move with outside arm (yellow).

Inside release and driving up field.

The quarterback slides to his right to avoid pressure as Griffin maintains separation inside the corner and works behind the safety towards an open window to the post near the hash. The quarterback should lead the tight end inside as much as possible.

I think the quarterback should have thrown the ball to the region of this box inside the the goal post and over the safety to the right of it. Instead the quarterback’s pass is in the region outside the goal post and this gives the cornerback a chance to work behind Griffin and play the ball.

With a veteran NFL quarterback, this target results in a touchdown because of better pass placement inside. There’s not much more anyone could have expected from the tight end on this play. He executes a good move to wkr though the press coverage and get separation on a cornerback, but the quarterback doesn’t come through. A better throw and this is s touchdown, a highlight, and probably does a little more to pique the interest of the football media that is sometimes obsesses with the latest, greatest, shiny-new toy.

1st-and-10 Flat

Speaking of shiny-new baubles, here’s a play that I believe Griffin makes better than Zach Ertz on a consistent basis – receptions on low throws in coverage.

Griffin finishes a solid speed cut to break outside and I like that as he makes the break he gets a little more depth to work behind the first down marker (below) before he comes back to the ball.

Griffin slides as the ball arrives and extends his arms to get them under the football so he can still make the catch with his hands. The entire play, Griffin is in control despite leaving his feet and reaching low for the ball.

While Ertz makes these plays on occasion, he is rarely displaying this level of balance to attack the ball. Ertz often looks like a big man making an adjustment. Griffin who is not much smaller just looks like a man doing his job. On the following play, Griffin works from the slot, swims inside the contact of the safety in single coverage and beats him to the goal line for the touchdown. I’m not showing it because it’s not much different from what you’ve seen from him on earlier post route split wide against the cornerback.

Griffin is the type of prospect who I believe will have a longer career than half the players ranked above him and he’s a sneaky-good player to add to your fantasy rosters during the summer if beat writers begin to take a shine to him. If not, don’t be surprised if two years from now he has infiltrated the lineup as a subpackage receiver making plays and your buddy on the couch is screaming WHO IS THIS GUY?

For analysis of skill players in this year’s draft class, download the 2013 Rookie Scouting Portfolio available April 1. Prepayment is available now. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2013 RSP at no additional charge. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. You can purchase past editions of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio for just $9.95 apiece.

Peace

April 15, 2013 0 Comments read Reads Listens Views

If you’re not in the frame of mind to enjoy football this afternoon I understand. I’m not. Acts of violence happen around the world all too frequently. So if you’re seeking words or images of inspiration, words or images to meditate on tonight, words, images, or sounds to bring those feelings of sadness and mourning to the forefront, or just something beautiful to behold while still being mindful of the events from today, here are a few that I found.

Peace is not just a cliche

It’s not just a word

Peace is the power to fly [free] in a flock

– The statement accompanying the photo above

[youtube=http://youtu.be/72DiPNCwo6g]

Photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens:by B.S. Wise — Photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens:by B.S. Wise

“You have to carry the fire.”
I don’t know how to.”
Yes, you do.”
Is the fire real? The fire?”
Yes it is.”
Where is it? I don’t know where it is.”
Yes you do. It’s inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

AMAZING PEACE

by Maya Angelou

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound.
We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, and comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves,
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation:

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

Boiler Room: Oregon St. WR Markus Wheaton

April 14, 2013 0 Comments read Players, Reads Listens Views, RSP Boiler Room Videos (Short Form), Wide Receiver

My best three skill players at the Senior Bowl? Markus Wheaton, Quinton Patton, and Tyler Wilson would have earned my votes. Photo by John Martinez Pavliga. — NFL.com/Rotoworld’s Josh Norris had me pegged when he said last fall that Markus Wheaton was my kind of player. Photo by John Martinez Pavliga.

Wheaton is my favorite wide receiver in this draft. There are dozens of plays I’d like to show you and then there’s another dozen of one-on-one moments where he shined against a good class of corners at the Senior Bowl practices. He might not be the best receiver in this class, but I think he’s up there and I’m going to show you why.

A series I started this year at the RSP blog is The Boiler Room. One of the challenges involved with player analysis is to be succinct with delivering the goods. As the author of an annual tome, I’m often a spectacular failure in this respect.

Even so, I will study a prospect and see a play unfold that does a great job of encapsulating that player’s skills. When I witness these moments, I try to imagine if I would include this play as part of a cut-up of highlights for a draft show at a major network or if I was working for an NFL organization creating cut-ups for a personnel director. Unlike the No-Huddle Series, The Boiler Room is focused on prospects I expect to be drafted, and often before the fourth round.

It’s incredibly difficult to boil down any player with just one play. Yet, if I need a play to add to the highlight reel that will help a team make a decision where to slot Markus Wheaton on its board, this is my nomination despite the play after this one on the video is a beautiful touchdown just inside the end line (make sure to watch it).

Wheaton vs. UCLA

This target displays just about everything you want to see from a vertical threat because it begins with single coverage and ends with safety help that was good enough to derail a reception, but didn’t. I like physical players – it’s my old, AFC Central roots – and “physical” play is as much about taking the licks and making the play as dishing them out. Wheaton is small, but he plays like he owns you.

Oregon State is in a standard 11 personnel, 1×2 receiver set with Wheaton at the top of the screen with a cornerback pressing the line of scrimmage. The UCLA defense has both corners tight and seven defenders at the line threatening blitz. The strong safety is in the flat and accounting for the slot receiver on the twin side of the Oregon State formation. Here is the play in its entirety and then I’ll break it down with stills.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIs0pFOkR74&start=79rel=0&w=560&h=315]

It’s a nice, garden-variety NFL catch that a player like Domenik Hixon makes all the time. So why choose it if a reserve NFL wide receiver can make it? For starters, Hixon is a deceptive player. Not all receivers make this play – especially vertical talents with Wheaton’s speed. Many of these players are one-dimensional and get drafted on the promise that they can become fully formed weapons. While not completely one-dimensional, Marquise Goodwin is closer to this negative characterization of his game than Wheaton.

The first thing I like about this play is Wheaton’s willingness to use his hands as the aggressor and to own his space. He doesn’t get jammed at the beginning of the play, but once the receiver works outside the corner that is when the physical play begins.

Wheaton’s competition turns outside to use his hands, but it is Wheaton who establishes first contact with his inside arm. The intent of this contact is to maintain his space between the flat at the sideline. A receiver who allows the defender to bump him outside creates a narrower target for the quarterback to throw the fade. While I could have shown you some nice hand work from Wheaton in other highlights, I think this aspect of vertical routes is the one that holds back many fast, strong, and stick-fingered prospects.

Wheaton may get bumped off course early in his NFL career because an NFL veteran throws something at him that he didn’t anticipate, but at least I know he understands what he’s supposed to do and how to execute it on the field. If a players illustrates these skills at the college game and has the physical prowess to hang with NFL athletes then I’m optimistic of his chances of making a successful transition.

Despite some hand fighting, Wheaton has given up little if any horizontal space, but his speed is good enough to gain separation even while engaged in contact and unable to pump both arms or drive down field with his shoulders over his knees.

As Wheaton lengthens his vertical separation, I especially like that his hands remain low as he uses his eyes to track the ball. Despite having a step on the defender his hands are tipping off how close the ball in its trajectory to the receiver. This is another trick of the trade the separates that raw speedster who impresses fans enamored with stopwatch times from true NFL vertical threats with real potential for a lasting career as a starter.

Not two steps later, Wheaton turns to the ball and extends his arms. Although he catches the ball with his hands on most targets, I have heard some criticisms that Wheaton should extend his arms more to attack the ball. This play is a good example. However, I believe the fact that he’s good at hiding his intentions to make a play on the ball until the last moment often compensates. It doesn’t mean this criticism is invalid, but I do believe in many cases it’s less of a concern.

Note how Wheaton has the luxury of horizontal space to bend away from the defender to make the catch. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for a receiver to leave space between him and the sideline to make these adjustments. Most games involve establishing and maintaining position and this is just one of countless examples in football.

Wheaton brings the ball from his helmet to his side and demonstrates good ball security as the cornerback has nothing to grab but the receiver’s forearm. The best hope for UCLA’s defense to dislodge the football is from the safety’s impending hit.

No dice. It doesn’t appear this photo reveals much, but take a closer look at the receiver’s feet. The way Wheaton’s feet are pointed you can see that he has turned his body away from the incoming contact so the hit arrives at the receiver’s back rather than his arm. To demonstrate the skill to protect his body and the ball after making an athletic adjustment on a vertical route like this takes awareness and fluidity.

I value these little things about Wheaton’s game and it’s these small details that could make a big difference when he gets to the NFL.

Reads Listens Views 4/11/2013

April 12, 2013 0 Comments read Reads Listens Views

No one's path is a straight line - no matter how they spin their story. Photo by Sierrian. — No one’s path is a straight line – no matter how they spin their story. Photo by Sierrian.

Views

Many people think I’m living the dream. I’m often asked how I got into doing what I do. There are a lot more details to this story that you probably wouldn’t believe and I’m not ready to tell. This isn’t Barbara Walters.

The best place to begin is that I came to the realization nine years ago that I was as far away from what I wanted my life to be like as I could get.

I had a reasonably successful career that served me well for many years, but I got into it because like many people in life, I had knots to untie. Some of those knots took a while figure out. One of them was arriving at the realization that if I could work my ass off and do a good job for other people in something that I didn’t care for, what if I focused on something that mattered to me?

Writing was part of that realization. My first football columns weren’t for anyone in particular. I wrote them as an exercise of self-encouragement – an active, conscious step in the direction I wanted to go and having faith that the Universe would respond in kind.

It did. The first three columns at the bottom of this page where written before I even thought to freelance for a site. In fact, The Gut Check was the column name before it even had a home for me to write it.

Although the opportunity came to me more than I actively looked for it, I took that first step and embraced the equal and opposite force. It hasn’t been easy. It isn’t happening fast enough. And like everyone else, I have bad days, but my life is a lot different now – and the road ahead is worth the adventure.

This isn’t the living the dream lifestyle some believe, but it’s my conscious choice. It’s my passion. And I now understand those who first inspired me in some part of life meant when they said, Don’t go this path unless you can’t do anything else.

Technically, I could do something else if I had to. But I think I’d be a shell of who I am for a while if forced – possibly until I keeled over. So while I take pride in something like the testimonial you’ll see below, I want to express my appreciation to you for helping to support where I’m heading by reading what I write.

While I’d do it even if no one read what I write – it’s that important to me. To say I have an audience is a special thing.

I’m sharing this because if one of you reading this is out there trying to figure out how to change the direction of your life, I think it’s important to hear someone say that you can do it. Understand that once you make one major change several other changes you didn’t anticipate often accompany it. Be prepared for a marathon rather than a sprint. And be willing to reassess what is important to you often so you don’t gain the world and lose your soul.

Thank You

A 261-page online publication that provides 1029 pages of play-by-play notes from my evaluation database and 10 percent of your purchase is donated to fight sexual abuse.

“BTW – Best pre-draft scouting report on every conceivable guy [at the skills positions] is by @MattWaldman. Very good read – mattwaldman.com”

–Chris Brown, author of Smartfootball.com and Grantland contributor

I learn something every time I read Chris Brown’s work. So when guy who teaches me things feels good enough about it to share what I do, I’m proud of it.

The Rookie Scouting Portfolio alone isn’t going to help you win your fantasy league. It’s not going to have perfect rankings. And it doesn’t have pretty pictures (yet). However, it makes a winning difference for fantasy football owners in dynasty and re-draft leagues for the past eight yards. It gives you quality information that backs up my assessments. And readers tell me every year that they heard about the RSP, but until they downloaded one they really didn’t know about the RSP.

If you want a comprehensive pre-draft and post-draft guide for one price that gives you rankings, overrated and underrated players, skill breakdowns and ratings for each position, player comparisons, and play-by-play analysis, then look no further.

For those of you who have bought the RSP or buy it every year – thank you. As I just mentioned, your support makes a tremendous difference my life because it gives me more time to focus on something I love – writing about this game.

If you’re new to the RSP blog, I write this type of post most Friday’s. It’s my chance to link to other fantastic football and non-football content. Most of all it’s a chance to thank you for reading the blog or downloading the 2013 RSP. Remember, you also get the post-draft update the week after the draft and 10 percent of each sale goes to Darkness to Light, a non-profit that combats and prevents sexual abuse in communities.

If you haven’t bought the RSP before, do yourself a favor. Once you do, you’ll understand why it is becoming a Rite of Football Spring for those who want the goods on skill position players entering the NFL draft.

Views (RSP Demonstration)

The fish is Russell Wilson in the third round of last year’s dynasty drafts, the two with the poles are your competition. What comes next is you with the 2012 RSP . . . (audio NSFW)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcuYjDR2tSg&start=35rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Sometimes a visual helps . . .

Listens – MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Starring Football Outsider Aaron Schatz

[youtube=http://youtu.be/wxv3HGV6gok]

Fascinating panel. Worth a listen and coming back to as you have time.

Football Reads

D’Brickashaw Ferguson and How Tackles Age – A Chase Stuart jam.
Quanterus Smith Scouting Report – A Sigmund Bloom production.
Historical Draft Efficiency: Best and Worst Drafts – A Football Outsiders operation.
Lance Zierlien talks offensive line with Mike Mayock – A Sideline View.

Non-Football Reads

A great comic about Mantis Shrimp – They have super powers compared to the rest of the living beings on this planet.
Izakayas – I want to go to one, drink saki and beer, and talk football and life with many of you.
Serenity Amidst a Sea of Haze – If you need to some mind travel as a substitute for the real deal, this blog will help.
The Beauty of Letter Press – I make a lot of my living writing for print and the Internet. Some of my Web brethren take a dismissive tone with the state of print publishing. I say respect and honor what came before you.

Listens

[youtube=http://youtu.be/uOo8QoJEE6I]

Beautiful and sad music. Life is sometimes this way. Nothing wrong with embracing that on occasion.

2013 RSP Scavenger Hunt Contest – Closed

April 11, 2013 0 Comments read RSP Publication

Catch a free 2013 RSP if you know where to find the key to the lock. Photo by Hank.

Most of my readers find my contests challenging. I try to make them difficult, but sometimes they wind up easier than I thought. This one could go either way. Ready?

The first three people to email me the link to a page on my blog that has a picture with collard greens wins a 2013 Rookie Scouting Portfolio. If you already have the 2013 RSP, I’ll award you one of the RSPs of your choice from 2006-2012. Make sure you email me at mattwaldmanrsp@gmail.com otherwise your entry won’t qualify.

Good luck!

Contest Closed!!!

Congratulations to Matthew Freedman, Jared Ladbury, and Etienne Groulx for finding the collard greens and they were tasty, too!

I’ll have another contest soon.

Boiler Room: Geno Smith and Gradkowski Tangent

April 11, 2013 0 Comments read Players, Quarterback, RSP Boiler Room Videos (Short Form)

Geno Smith reminds me of Tony Romo. I see it, but I also see the other players on that spectrum of style. See below. Photo by Football Schedule. — Geno Smith reminds many of Tony Romo. I see it, but I also see the other players on that spectrum of style. See below. Photo by Football Schedule.

Geno Smith may not be a quarterback I’m super-excited about as an NFL prospect, but it doesn’t mean he won’t develop into a decent starter. Smith’s game travels to the Boiler Room where I distill what makes him a solid prospect at the position, including a tangent about a player who belongs in the family of quarterbacking styles where Smith resides – Bruce Gradkowski.

It’s incredibly difficult to boil down any player with just one play, much less a quarterback. Yet, if I need a play to add to the highlight reel that will help a team make a decision where to slot Geno Smith on its board, this is my nomination. Actually, I’m breaking my own rule and supplying two for Smith. Both plays are displays of pocket presence.

The Gradkowski Tangent

Before I do, I’m leading off this Boiler Room installment with a quarterback who I believe fits in the Tony Romo-Rich Gannon spectrum of quarterbacks where I would place Smith in terms of his playing style. If you’ve read my work at this blog long enough then you know I place great value on a quarterback’s skill to maneuver a pocket. A quarterback can have all the physical tools and accuracy to become an NFL superstar, but if he lacks the feel for the pocket and the mental and physical discipline to make the subtle adjustments in tight quarters to avoid the rush and stay prepared to throw the ball then the gloss of his promise is not as bright in my eyes.

Likewise, if the passer lacks the plus-arm but commands the pocket even as its walls are crumbling at his feet, then I at least know he’ll be a serviceable player. I’m not 100 percent on board with this statement, but I’m close.

This affords me a moment to talk about a player whose game I appreciate – perhaps too much when I first began a formal method of study for the Rookie Scouting Portfolio eight years ago, but in the scheme of quarterbacks that are still standing, perhaps not enough – Bruce Gradkowski. I thought the former Toledo star had as good or better feel for the game – and especially the pocket – than any of his peers in that 2006 quarterback class that included Jay Cutler, Matt Leinart, and Vince Young.

At the time, Gradkowski was the only passer in NCAA history to complete 70 percent of his passes for two seasons and this was in an offense where Gradkowski dropped from center. He also ran a 4.59-second 40 at the combine and was among the better all-around athletes at the position in the drills at the NFL Combine. I had Gradkowski ranked fourth behind Cutler, Young, and Leinart.

He was in a virtual tie with Leinart. The only reason I had the USC quarterback above Gradkowski was at that time, I wasn’t writing an RSP post-draft publication and I had to account for opportunity. What I didn’t expect was Gradkowski doing well enough in the preseason that Jon Gruden opted to start the rookie in Tampa Bay.

I was tempted to wait on a quarterback in this RSPWP2 Draft, take Gradkowski, put him in a west coast offense, and damn the jeering from the cheap seats. The only thing that Gradkowski lacks is a franchise-caliber arm and if surrounded by great talent, he could have that Rich Gannon presence I believe Gruden saw in Gradkowski when the coach drafted the Toledo Rocket.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/gDWEiHxdw1U]

This was Gradkowski’s third touchdown in the fourth quarter to beat the Steelers in Heinz Field. If you didn’t know, the Steelers signed him in the offseason as Roethlisberger’s backup. In Todd Haley’s quick-decision, short(er)-passing offense, it’s a good fit.

Watch how economical Gradkowski is in the pocket. He’s also willing to step into the pocket and take the hit to make the throw and even the incomplete passes are accurate throws under pressure where he often throws open his target.

2:51, 3:20, and 6:19 to the end of the clip

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1k-EwFiLWM&start=220&w=560&h=315]

It’s a simple-looking throw, but the willingness to stand in the pocket and use his athleticism in tight spots and odd angles to distribute the ball under pressure is something that he has in common with Romo, Gannon, and Smith. These small plays make a difference. If you watched Jon Gruden’s QB camp with Matt Barkley this week, then you saw the coach tutor Barkley on the same basic play that grilled Andrew Luck for messing up at Stanford. The play is a short-to-long read that is practically an automatic dump to the fullback in the flat.

During the episode, Gruden laments that only the Peyton Mannings of the football world seem to realize that you “can’t lose money when you’re always making a profit.” Young quarterbacks are often too aggressive and overconfident and they don’t know how to balance when to pick apart a team and when to go for the jugular. Gradkowski has this balance – just not the vast arm talent. This touchdown pass is another good example of how a player must be willing to stand in and own the pocket.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1k-EwFiLWM&start=171&w=560&h=315]

This play required some eye manipulation and a pump fake to set up the safety and the patience to hang in the pocket to complete the throw on time. Gradkowski demonstrated this at Toledo and his stints with the Bucs, Rams, Browns, Bengals, and Raiders. The fact that I mentioned five teams in a seven-year career means Gradkowski is an utter failure if you’re a fantasy football owner, but only NFL media and marketing cares about your fantasy interests.

But if NFL operations – specifically individual team operations – values a player who can put his team in position to win. The final two plays on this video below are the type of plays that give a receiver a chance to win the game and Gradkowski has a knack for it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1k-EwFiLWM&start=379&w=560&h=315]

I’m not touting Gradowski as a future superstar. However, it is important to show that a quarterback can have long-term value in the NFL if arm strength isn’t at the top of his resume, but the top two bullet points are pocket presence and accuracy. He’s a savvy quarterback who I still believe can be an effective starter in the right situation.

Of course, there aren’t many of these situations in the league and fewer would value him as a long-term option. The importance of this tangent is that if Geno Smith were to fail as a starter that his style of quarterbacking will make him a viable long-term backup who can fill a need for several teams. It means Smith has little downside as a talent – even if he doesn’t work out as an initial investment with a team.

Smith in the Boiler

Unlike Gradkowski, Geno Smith has enough arm strength to earn a spot on a draft board for most teams as a future starter. What you just saw from Gradkowski is where I think Smith has potential. I like the Mountaineer’s wherewithal in the pocket.

This is a 3rd-and-18 pass with 9:23 in the third quarter and a 10-point lead at their own 29. Forget about analyzing Smith’s read of the coverage and just watch how he maneuvers a pocket against a four-man rush.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1zqqutj6Uo&start=440w=560&h=315]

Maryland may only send four defenders, but the defense does a good job of constricting the pocket. The end forces the left tackle backfield and in this situation many quarterbacks try to break the pocket inside the right tackle and are dropped before they reach the line of scrimmage. Smith escapes the blind side rush with the intent to throw down field.

Although he his initial climb of the pocket is as fast as most quarterbacks move when they drop their eyes and run for the escape hatch, Smith’s head remains up and his eyes on his receivers. When he feels the defensive tackles collapsing the middle and clogging his passing lane, Smith moves just like the quarterback footwork drills you always see in practice but not performed this textbook in a game.

The West Virginia quarterback slides to his left, remains in a throwing position and find the comeback for positive yards. This leads to a punt, but with a 10-point lead in their own territory, this is a good outcome.

Maryland shows Smith the possibility that it is sending seven defenders on the next play; opting for five at the snap. What I like about this play is Smith’s ability to work though pressure up the middle.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1zqqutj6Uo&start=495w=560&h=315]

This isn’t just a climb of the pocket. While a nice thing to see from all quarterbacks, I especially like the way Smith waits until the last moment to avoid the middle linebacker coming free of the running back up the middle. Although the difference is tenths – or even hundredths – of a second between a quarterback I’d consider patient and one who not, the extra beat that Smith waits to look down field before opting to reduce his shoulder and climb is a critical part of having “feel” for his surroundings.

I also like that he sees the pocket one step ahead and his already working to the inside of the next rusher so he can slide to the open lane and deliver the ball on this 2nd-and-two play. Although the receiver drops this pass in tight coverage and one could make a weak argument that tucking and running was a better recourse, I think if you isolate Smith’s skill to maneuver and deliver on this play and others like it, you see a budding field general.

I’m not as high on Smith as others, but I do believe he has the basic skills to develop into a successful starter and pocket presence tops the list.

Futures: OLBs Dion Jordan and Barkevious Mingo

April 10, 2013 0 Comments read Players

Mingo's skill as a pass rusher tilts the field in favor of his teammates. Photo by Crawford Orthodontics. — Mingo’s skill as a pass rusher tilts the field in favor of his teammates. Photo by Crawford Orthodontics.

Imagine you’re considering two final candidates for a job. Both possess top-drawer talent, which is what you’d expect at this point if their resumes are the remaining two on your desk.

Candidate A is refined, smooth, and versatile. If you needed him to start today, he’d be up to speed and produce with minimal training. If you improved the rest of the surrounding talent in your workplace, Candidate A could become a star.

In contrast, there’s something disconcerting about Candidate B. You see how it could all go wrong if you opt for him – but that’s not what’s nagging you. It’s that his talent leaves you wondering if three years from now you’ll look back on your decision and conclude that you settled for less by taking Candidate A.

What Candidate B lacks in experience is compensated by a singular talent that not only jumps off the page, it grabs you by the neck and squeezes until your eyes bulge from their sockets. Candidate B carries more risk and he may never do everything as well as Candidate A, but he has the potential to do one thing so well that it could elevate the performance of your team’s surrounding talent.

Many organizations would take Candidate A and not look back. However, it is not that that clear cut.

A decade ago, I knew several people who worked for one of the top hospitality organizations in the world. This award-winning company’s philosophy on hiring placed a priority on talent over experience.

“Experience often means you spent more time ‘doing it wrong,’” one director told me. “We would rather hire someone with the basic talent for the job, the capacity to learn, and a personality geared to excel. The last two things we can’t teach. So when we spot it, we know we can teach the rest.”

There’s something appealing about this philosophy, but you have to know how to spot these behaviors beyond an interview. I believe the Baltimore Ravens have this perspective. Before NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah worked with the Eagles, he talked about his time with the Ravens in his old podcasts.

I remember him mentioning that one of the qualities Baltimore sought in players was a comfort level with – and penchant for – hitting. If it wasn’t there, they weren’t interested.

I believe the Steelers also have this on their list of fundamentals a player must possess. If these teams discover they were wrong about that player later on, he won’t last long with either team.

But an organization has to have a strong understanding of what they can and cannot teach a player. If they don’t possess this knowledge of what is and isn’t teachable – or worse yet, they lack these teaching skills as a staff – then you have what the Oakland Raiders are trying to work past with some of its personnel decisions.

This philosophical quandary underscores the difference of opinion that I bet a few teams may have when considering the talents of outside linebackers Dion Jordan and Barkevious Mingo. Both are exceptional athletes, but despite playing the same position these two are as Robert Frost once wrote, “two roads diverged in the wood.”

The consensus prefers Jordan, who is the more experienced and versatile of the two. The question is whether Mingo – a player with higher risk-reward potential – represents to one NFL team what Frost meant as, “the road less traveled by will make all the difference.”

Read the rest at Football Outsiders

Character, Media, and the NFL Draft: A Sour Cocktail

April 8, 2013 0 Comments read Walk on the Wild Side

It's a bad idea to evaluate a smile the way you critique his release. Photo by PDA.Photo — It’s a bad idea to evaluate his smile the way you critique his release. And I dare say that I’m more qualified than most of my peers when it comes to interviewing a perspective employee. Photo by PDA.Photo

I’m 43 years old. Since I was 15, I’ve held 16 types of jobs with 9 different companies. I’m not counting the four soul-sucking hours I spent as a stock boy at a Winn-Dixie.

On my lunch hour at that job, I walked out the door and kept walking. Two miles later, I made a beeline to the manager’s office at the apartment complex where I grew up. The next morning I was collecting trash and cleaning the grounds.

Yeah, I would have rather hauled other people’s garbage and take a blower to a parking lot filled with pollen that made “sinus irritation” an understatement than to stand around a grocery store all day. There’s considerable irony to this story once you learn that my wife and daughter have an ongoing joke that the two grocery stores in town are my mistresses: Kroger my ‘around the way girl’ and Earth Fare my ‘hippy chick’. Other than work and home, these two places are where you can find me.

Good thing I wasn’t a star quarterback or the way I ended that job might earned this kind of headline:

NFL Draft Analyst calls star quarterback ‘unreliable.’ Cites behavior of quitting jobs without notice among evidence.

I’m only half-kidding. Although not a serious example of behavior that would even register amid the range of nitpicking stories on character that we read this time of year, it is an example of how a lack of context can alter the truth. A writer could easily speculate that a guy who walks off the job without notice is not the best candidate to lead a team.

Judging by what has been said about Cam Newton and Geno Smith, some writers relish a challenge. They examine smiles and facial expressions with the same fervor and methodology as tracking short shuttles and dissecting throwing motions. This is where their experiences as a football players fails them.

They fail to consider that the greatest amount of emotional maturation from childhood to adulthood happens between the ages of 16-25. This is when young people are given their first adult-level responsibilities. With new responsibilities comes new experiences.

And if you’ve been a human long enough, then you know that experience is the product of mistakes.

My career in the workplace didn’t start well. Between the ages of 16 and 21, I walked off three of my first five jobs without notice. I could provide a convincing argument that two of those three walkouts were based on extenuating circumstances. However at the end of the day, I didn’t give notice and that is on me.

If I was a star quarterback and a private investigation firm was looking into my behavior, they might report to a director of scouting that I was unreliable, unprofessional, and immature. If a general manager opted to use these three adjectives to describe me in this context during a phone call or email with a draft analyst, I might be labeled a character risk and potential bust.

But what if I told you that those jobs were taken so I could practice my craft of quarterbacking at the only time of day where I had access to the tools and resources to get better?

What if you knew I woke up at 4:30 a.m. each morning during the summers, worked this part-time job until 1:30 p.m., and then from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I practiced without fail?

What if I told you that the company hired me after I told them of my scheduling needs and it was only after several weeks or months that the company’s needs changed. Rather than hiring someone for those needs, they gave me an ultimatum to either switch my hours or walk out the door and not come back?

Was I immature or were my priorities based on developing the skills of my future job over being flexible to the new terms of my present one? While I wasn’t a star quarterback, I was a musician who couldn’t practice after 8:00 p.m. without disturbing neighbors and needed my nights free to perform with others.

Even if the right answer is still being flexible, context is important.

If I was a college quarterback and this was a question clouding my character, I could only hope that those team-hired investigators were thorough. Even then, I’d have to wonder if those teams wouldn’t use these questions as a bargaining tool to drive down my stock and ultimately the price of my rookie contract.

Around the same time a college quarterback would be making the transition to a professional career, I was making mine. A couple of years earlier, I stopped performing music and changed career paths. My next five jobs were part of a 12-year career with the same employer.

I began as an entry-level employee while in school. Within a year I was a part-time supervisor and by the time I finished college, I was an assistant manager. Over that four-year period between the final years of my college life and the early years of my full-time professional career, I had probably interviewed, hired, trained, and disciplined a few hundred employees.

I made my share of mistakes. I made poor hiring decisions and I mishandled issues with clients, employees, and customers. In hindsight, most of these mistakes happened because I was young, inexperienced, and often immature.

There was a back I encountered 20 years ago whose physical skills and level of maturity reminds me of Christine Michael. This back ultimately had a successful career. Photo by SD Dirk. — There was a back I encountered 20 years ago whose immense physical skills and level of maturity reminds me of Christine Michael. This back ultimately had a successful career. Photo by SD Dirk.

During my brief time covering football practices a couple of years earlier, I encountered a star running back who was also displaying his own youthful immaturity. He rarely made it to post-practice interviews during his career.

His teammates intimated to me that their teammate was not a guy to be counted on. I got a sense that they didn’t like him very much. It wasn’t what they said, but how they said it. They rolled their eyes, shook their heads, and made dismissive sighs when I asked if this lead dog of the Georgia football team would be coming to the assigned sessions.

What they would say in conjunction with their physical displays of dissatisfaction was He’s never on time. I also had a friend who had a class with the runner. He told me stories about this future first-round pick of the Arizona Cardinals, including how the back spent more time carving his name into the desk rather than listening to the teacher.

I had good info to write about his immaturity before he was drafted, but I didn’t think it was worth discussing. I knew lots of students who came to class hung over, slept through lectures, or did half-hearted work with their assignments and still transformed into quality professionals in their respective careers. Why should Garrison Hearst be any different?

For all I really knew, Hearst’s teammates liked him even if they didn’t like that he was often late or a no-show to after-practice press sessions. It’s not hard to imagine that Hearst cared more about football than an interview or an English class. During my 20’s I thought Hearst was a slacker, but 20 years later and with a lot more life experience and perspective, I have a different view. One of those experiences happened just a couple of years later.

Imagine being 22 or 23 and months away from earning a first-round contract with a professional football team. Better yet, imagine being 22, winning $5 million in the lottery, and going to work in a job that you don’t like. How difficult it must be to stay focused when what you’re doing won’t make a real difference in how you will earn the majority of your money?

Just like any of these prospects, we know the right answer: keep the straight and narrow. But it doesn’t change how difficult it is to maintain these priorities. Even if the fear of becoming academically ineligible during the season and watching one’s draft stock plummet might seem like a strong enough deterrent, it wouldn’t be easy.

I know it wouldn’t.

When I was 24 and two months from graduating from Georgia with dual majors in English and Spanish, my company promoted me to a full-time position at the time I was also headlong in a serious relationship with a woman who was moving in with me. That 500-level linguistics course that was 2.5 hours per session and taught in the native language by the head of the Spanish department three times a week was the lowest priority in my life.

I was in love. This was one of my last two classes. And I was getting paid.

And if you knew how little I was making, then you would realize the depths of my immaturity. I thought I could juggle it all. Only when I learned (all too late) that the final exam in this course had material on the front and back of each page did it hit me that I wasn’t thinking straight.

I failed the test, earned my first-ever D in the last class of my academic career, and settled for a major in English and minor in Spanish.

Someone I know and trust (and so do you if I told you who it was) with connections to a college program that has a marquee player entering this 2013 NFL class told me that this player barely emerged unscathed from a similar scenario. When I heard about this, I understood the difficulty of maintaining one’s focus and priorities. And he really is about to get paid!

This prospect is dedicated to learning the game of football, but he lacked the maturity to keep his academics from becoming a potential problem that could have hurt him and his team. This probably earned the ire of his teammates and coaches. It’s the type of situation that could have been leaked to the media in a way where a writer could deem the prospect as “not well-liked,” or “lacking a good work ethic.”

Would you take a chance on a player in his early 20’s who works his ass off in practice and the film room, but had issues balancing his priorities with the classroom? In the scheme of things, I’d say it’s non-issue.

It became a non-issue for me. My immaturity as a student and young employee wasn’t fatal to my career. My successes outweighed my failures and I eventually became an operations manager, then a director at this company.

I can safely estimate that by the time I transitioned from a career in management to a writing career, I had interviewed, trained, and managed thousands of people ranging from entry-level employees to middle management. I was one of the few people in our company’s history who had a dual role as an operations manager and primary client contact.

I wasn’t a corporate superstar, but I was good at my job. I bet my career experiences are no different from many of you reading this.

If you have at least 10 years of experience as a manager in an environment that is a mix of blue-collar and white-collar cultures then you have probably faced unusual situations in your jobs where the everyday priorities of production, efficiency, and quality paled in comparison:

Bomb threats.
Fist fights between entry-level employees.
A broken windshield courtesy of a disgruntled former employee who was fired because I wouldn’t allow him to sexually harass employees.
Workplace romances.
Challenging and dysfunctional client relationships.

Despite the way I make it sound, most of my employees enjoyed working with me and these crazy situations above were rare events. Like most, the workplace has its headaches and if you’ve worked long enough then you’ve seen things you’d never think would happen.

It’s these experiences that add perspective about human nature. The capacity for a young adult to undergo a quick maturation is one of those major lessons.

Whether it’s the NFL, a blue-collar job, or Corporate America, there’s nothing like looking Career Death in the eye to grow up fast. It happens to everyone. What’s even more profound is when you are given the responsibility as Career Death Incarnate to a soon-to-be former employee.

One of my worst days as a manager came when I had to fire a young woman who was avoiding her assignments. Even when she was working, she mistreated customers. During her firing, this part-time employee told me she had been recently been diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. She was afraid to tell her mother, who had also been diagnosed just months earlier.

Although paling in comparison to her situation, firing someone dealing with cancer was not a good day in my life.

As unbelievable as it seems, she dropped by the office a few weeks later to ‘thank me for firing her’. Apparently, our conversation motivated her to find a job in an environment better suited to her needs. She told her mother about her cancer and it brought them closer. It was a blessing for them – and a minor, but rare blessing that she took the time to share it with me.

The experience of getting fired helped her make changes in her life. Her mistakes put her on a road towards gaining the maturity needed to make her life more fulfilling. This maturation in the face of a career death – parallels what many young NFL players face.

If there's a player who looked Career Death in the eye multiple times and matured, but still was far from a perfect professional and role model, Favre tops the list. Photo by Elvis Kennedy. — If there’s a player who looked Career Death in the eye multiple times and matured, but still was far from a perfect professional and role model, Favre tops the list. Photo by Elvis Kennedy.

I think Garrison Hearst stared Career Death in the eye a few times. The first-round pick of the Cardinals (third overall) had a rough start to his career. He drew the ire of Buddy Ryan, who once gave Hearst a wheelbarrow filled with sand to tote around practice after his rehab from a knee injury wasn’t going as fast as Ryan believed it should.

Eventually, Hearst had to fight is way from the bottom of the Bengals depth chart to split time with Kijana Carter. Even then he wasn’t offered a contract on par with Eric Bienemy. Hearst’s agent had to fight hard for the 49ers to even give Hearst a shot and when the former Georgia star began camp in San Francisco, Terry Kirby was the starter.

This all happened before Hearst had an ankle injury that was so bad – and complications during recovery that were even worse – that most players would have never seen a field again. Hearst’s experiences made him a battle-tested professional.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/5dgrjrp6jXE]

Physically, Hearst could have made this run early in his career but I believe the adversity he overcame made him mentally prepared to finish a 96-yard run in overtime.

But the maturity to be a prepared professional and a media-savvy one was something that Hearst never learned during his career. When asked about the idea of gays in the locker room, Hearst’s growth as a professional didn’t include dealing with people:

“Aww, hell no! I don’t want any faggots on my team. I know this might not be what people want to hear, but that’s a punk. I don’t want any faggots in this locker room.”

While I don’t like Hearst’s views (at that time of his life) and perhaps someday these views will (hopefully) pose a greater problem to a team, I’m more concerned about whether a player will show up to work on time and give 100 percent to his job.

If you’ve worked with or led a group of people, you learn that not every member of a team is likable or reliable in situations outside the job. However, when it comes to his specific job, there may be few who are better.

I can think of several examples from my work experiences. These were people who made youthful mistakes before their employment or even had major issues on the job, but grew up and became good at what they did:

The trumpet player who removed his wedding ring before every gig, but was always on-time, demonstrated great range, and read everything right the first time.
The short-order cook who would have gotten punched out by a customer if he had to ever deal with one, but never messed up an order and could balance multiple tickets at a time.
A former employee, who had a DUI charge reduced and expunged from his record as a teen, but a creative, reliable, and resourceful analyst.
A co-worker who was in a string of bad relationships and was once disciplined due to an inappropriate relationship with another co-worker that nearly got her fired before her career began, but eventually became a charismatic manager and teacher.

In a year or two, we might be able to add Christine Michael to this list. His displays of immaturity included sleeping through his Combine interviews. Still, it hasn’t kept me from ranking him within the tier of future starters in this running back class.

I have no doubt that he can mature into a reliable player with a long, productive career. I also have no doubt that he could get cut and never fulfill his talent. However, based on my experiences with young adults, I would rather count on the likelihood that a young man is going to make mistakes and learn from them. Even commenting on it is a dangerous game because the weight it adds to an evaluation can be heavier than warranted.

Even if you’re a pessimist you have to concede that people often mature just enough to compartmentalize their flaws. At the very least they become good at preventing their issues from bleeding into their work long enough to address the issues and overcome them. I know this was the case for me.

I shared my career history with you because I feel confident that my skills and experience have helped me become a decent judge of character. And if someone with my qualifications and experience is reticent to evaluate and judge a prospect’s personality and character when my available data is news clippings, press conferences, and second and third-hand reports, then why should anyone give credence to these assessments from other writers or television analysts who lack any real experience interviewing, managing, or leading adults?

Outside of well-documented problems involving drugs, alcohol, and violent crime, any members of media passing significant judgment on an NFL prospect’s character that changes the outcome of his evaluation – even if they are eventually proven correct – are making a foolish decision on principle.

The fact is unless we look these players in the eye, ask them the tough questions, and have past experience as managers living with a player’s behavior – better or worse – as our employees, then we don’t know.

Sometimes it’s okay to say, I don’t know.

Behind the Scenes Thoughts on Tight Ends in 2013 RSP

April 6, 2013 0 Comments read Players, RSP Publication, Tight End

Eifert is the one tight end where I have nothing to add behind the scenes. He's good and I feel good about him. Photo by Neon Tommy. — Eifert is the one tight end where I have nothing to add behind the scenes. He’s good and I feel good about him. Photo by Neon Tommy.

With the launch of the 2013 RSP, Sigmund Bloom suggested that I share a behind the scenes retelling of my thoughts and feelings about players – something that delves deeper than rankings and profiles of skills ad potential. A few days ago, I wrote about running backs. Today, it’s tight end – a position where three years from now I can imagine three players I had ranked in the wrong direction. It’s also a class where I could have justified making a good player look great (but didn’t).

The 2013 Rookie Scouting Portfolio is now available for download. One of my favorite things about this time of year is the reactions I get from new readers. It reflects everything that I want to tell those unfamiliar with the RSP:

“I actually won last yrs RSP in a contest from you last yr. Definitely found out it was worth buying, just got this yrs!!”

-Mark Caneva

“Purchased @MattWaldman RSP last night. Barely scratched the surface. Much more depth than I expected.”

-Nate Hodges

I can tell you that I’m not exaggerating when I describe the RSP, but it’s like telling someone what ‘hot’ feels like if they’ve never experienced the sensation. So if you’re reading these behind the scenes posts and wondering whether to make the jump, what I can tell you is that I’ve been doing this for eight years and other than the rare person who expected this to be an analysis of prospects at every position, most tell me the RSP exceeded their expectations.

What You Should Know About My Rankings Process

I have five steps that help me develop my rankings. They are each a process in their own right. If I were working for an NFL team as a decision-maker in this capacity it would be six, but I’m a one-man band and I don’t interview prospects that often. I also don’t have resources to hire a PI firm.

These steps aren’t meant to impress you. I don’t have the end-all, be-all rankings. I think they are helpful and entertaining, but the act of ranking players is a troublesome process without a specific team philosophy in mind.

Evaluating player performance is difficult because you have to try to objectify a lot of subjective material. There are also times where you don’t get to see a specific skill from a player because of game situations or the system featuring the player. How to factor this into an evaluation process that ends with a ranking is challenging.

Despite its problematic nature, these processes help me learn more about the game, the players, and my strengths and weaknesses as an evaluator. If you want to learn more about the steps, read the beginning of this post.

Predicting My Errors in Judgment Three Years From Now

If I were to guess three years from now where I will err with my rankings, I believe it will be that I ranked Gavin Escobar too high and both Joseph Fauria and Ryan Griffin too low. I can see reversing the order of their ranking because I think Griffin is more athletic than some realize and Escobar much less when it comes to blocking – an important aspects of the game that many project Escobar will get better.

Griffin made plays as a receiver that I thought were as impressive as Escobar and he’s a better blocker right now. I also thought Griffin was asked to make tougher plays as a receiver where Escobar was often fed the ball in ways that generate easy yards. Not that I could fault Escobar with smart play calling, which is why I have him over Griffin and Fauria. It’s just something I feel and I behind the scenes take that I’m sharing.

From the gut: Fauria is underrated. From my analysis: I had to underrate him. Photo by Neon Tommy.

When I first watched Fauria, I had a gut feeling that he would be a good NFL prospect. I think there’s a good chance he’ll prove that he’s athletic enough to block and become an every-down tight end – not just a red zone receiver. There were several plays over the years where I saw Fauria make that one move that I didn’t think he’d be able to make. It was either a cut block, sinking his hips on a hard break, or an adjustment to the ball in an area that belied his size.

Again, this was a gut feeling and not a reason enough for me to rank him ahead of Escobar. I wanted to do it. If Fauria is matched with team where it looks like a good fit, I might make the adjustment.

I Could Have Ranked Him Higher, But My Conscience Wouldn’t Let Me

I’m talking about Zach Ertz. Based on my system of adding skill sets, Ertz has enough starter and committee level skills for me to make a reasonable argument for him 3-6 spots higher in my rankings. The higher it went, the more it would have been a stretch, but I think I could have made a convincing argument to everyone but myself. The reason is that there were too many skill sets where I could have placed Ertz in the reserve tier instead of the committee tier: vision, balance, blocking, and power.

Ertz may go high, but I did't love his game enough to match that projection in my rankings. Photo by Han Shot First. — Ertz may go high, but I didn’t love his game enough to match that projection in my rankings. Photo by Han Shot First.

His balance is already a skill set that I gave a reserve-caliber ranking and to me that’s a red flag. Great football players – especially those who handle the ball have excellent balance. Ertz is a somewhat high-cut athlete in the first place and most high-cut guys lack great balance.

I think Ertz has potential as a situational receiver, which isn’t a bad thing at all in the scheme of having pro potential. I just have difficulty projecting him as a top-tier prospect at his position in this class despite the fact that he’s likely to earn a that kind of pick.

I Still Like These Guys

Western Kentucky’s Jack Doyle isn’t fast and he looks ungainly for his 6’5″, 253-pound frame. He’ll never be a stud athlete who can become a major threat in the NFL. However, he plays a smart game, he’s tough (he was sick the entire week of practice at the Senior Bowl), and he can catch the football. Fantasy owners will probably never have reason to pick him except as a reserve in the deepest of leagues where tight ends are a premium. Yet, just the fact that I can imagine they might have that future value is another indication that I think he’ll be one of those guys who might force his dreams to die a hard death and carves out a spot.

Zach Sudfeld of Nevada has enough athleticism where I think he could surprise. His 6’7″ frame and soft hands make him a nice option on seams, fades, and corner routes. He’s also a fluid receiver who displays comfort in tight coverage. I also think his blocking is underrated. It’s definitely better than the likes of Jordan Reed, Chris Gragg, Gavin Escobar, and Zach Ertz – all players I ranked ahead of Sudfeld. If health is no longer a question mark, I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes a competent reserve who sees time in a starting lineup.