Posts tagged Futures Matt Waldman

Futures: Brandin Cooks vs. Ifo Ekpre-Olumu

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Oregon State's No.7 is the headliner, but the best football player on the field was arguably No.14. Photo by ACase
Oregon State’s No.7 is the headliner, but the best football player on the field was arguably No.14. Photo by ACase

The Oregon State receiver may be a headliner, but Cooks was upstaged in this game in resounding fashion by a fellow junior with a higher draft stock that has chosen to stay in school. 

Futures: WR Brandin Cooks vs. Ifo Ekpre-Olumu

On most Saturdays where he treads his feet, Oregon State junior Brandin Cooks is the most dangerous athlete on any college football field. The 2013 Biletnikoff Award winner has earned comparisons to a slightly bigger, slightly slower Tavon Austin with flashes of playmaking that have some comparing Cooks to Steve Smith.

I recognize that Cooks is a marquee name who possesses the big-play potential and the athleticism to develop into a mainstay with an NFL offense. Yet that’s not as much of a foregone conclusion as many want to think.

Cooks may be a headliner, but there was a game this year where Cooks was upstaged in such resounding fashion that the receiver looked like a pedestrian player by comparison. The player who stole the spotlight from Cooks was Oregon cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu.

Like Cooks, Ekpre-Olomu is a junior. The Oregon cornerback is also considered one of the top prospects at his position.

Unlike Cooks, the second team All-American corner is returning to school for his senior year to get his degree.

I like to watch players get tested in ways where the right answers are not the numbers in the box score, but the techniques, concepts, and athleticism that show up regardless of the data. One of the most compelling dramas on the field is a wide receiver-cornerback matchup.

Earlier this year, I watched Ohio State cornerback Bradley Roby and couldn’t take my eyes off Wisconsin Jared Abbrederis, who won their September matchup. It was a similar dynamic with Cooks and Ekpre-Olomu, except this time it was the cornerback’s performance that was far more compelling.

This matchup with Ekpre-Olomu is a good indicator of the challenges Cooks will need to overcome for his game to translate to the NFL. Unless Ekpre-Olomu is a special player with a future as one of the top shutdown corners in the NFL, the Oregon corner offers a challenge that will be the norm for a player like Cooks when he sets foot on Sunday grass.

Ekpre-Olomu exposed flaws with Cooks’ route skills, tested Cooks’ strength in space, and revealed the limits of Cooks’ speed. Cooks’ best moments came against the Oregon’s other corner Terrance Mitchell. The Ducks’ other junior corner is one of the top defenders in his conference, but not in the same league as Olomu. Even those plays Cooks had against Mitchell weren’t all that impressive.

In contrast, it often appeared that Ekpre-Olomu was baiting Cooks when matched in single coverage. Ekpre-Olomu had the confidence that he could match the receiver’s athleticism and stay a step ahead of Cooks.

Ekpre-Olomu was one of the most impressive defenders I’ve seen in college football this year. Today you’re going to see how he made Cooks look ordinary.

Read the rest at Football Outsiders

Futures at Football Outsiders: UCLA RB Malcolm Jones

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Malcolm Jones by Neon Tommy

Futures: Buy One, Get Three Free?

by Matt Waldman

“Fit” is a recurring theme in this year’s Futures. Talent plus fit can create a superstar. The stories about LaRoi Glover and John Randle’s career births are prominent examples. Drew Brees was a Pro Bowl performer in San Diego, but his fit with Sean Payton in New Orleans helped Brees -– and the team –- play at the highest level attainable.

But talent minus fit is a recipe for failure. Who’s to say that Brees’ career wouldn’t have washed out if he landed in Miami? Take one look at Nick Saban’s offensive proclivities and it’s not a stretch to say that Brees would have been a glorified game manager.

Because Saban and the Dolphins used Brees’ injury as a bargaining chip and failed, the Saints are now fortunate to have an innovative offense that uses Brees’ mobility to open passing lanes. Brees will now be forever known as one of the most dangerous vertical assassins in the game without ever having a star vertical threat like Randy Moss,Calvin Johnson, or even Isaac Bruce.

Fit is why we’ve been so elated and disappointed with Robert Griffinthe past two years. Washington’s coaching staff did a great job retrofitting Griffin’s skills to its existing offensive personnel last year. The result was a dangerous offense built on simple concepts that were hard to defend. A year later and an injury still on the mend, and we’re seeing the consequences of an imperfect fit.

Just last week I made the point that if Ray Rice was on Andy Reid’s incarnation of the Eagles the offense could keep rolling with minor adjustments, but it wouldn’t be the same in Baltimore if the Ravens stuck Brian Westbrook in its system. We sometimes think of players as cogs in a machine. Even if there’s truth to that notion, not all components have the same properties or fit the exact same way.

The safe method of finding talent that fits a team is to look in all the obvious places: starters at big-time programs; players with consistent production; and athletes with some combination of eye-popping height, weight, strength, and speed. Find enough of these characteristics in one player and the perceived risks to invest vast sums of money in him is lower than other prospects with a limited supply of these resume bullet points.

However, the greatest advantages often come with the most startling discoveries. In football, it’s often players who are exceptions to the rule. They can elevate a team’s standing.

Futures at Football Outsiders: UNC Guard, Jonathan Cooper

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/RxnFNnW0IoM]

Explosive, agile, and purposeful, Cooper has what it takes to play in the NFL for a decade if he can stay healthy.

There was an important decision to be made at the offices of Futures this afternoon: the boss or the wife? The work boss saw Knile Davis run a 4.30-forty at Indy; calculated the Razorback’s Speed Score; saw my tweet that I’d take Jonathan Franklin over Davis 10 times out of 10; and Monday afternoon asked me to write a Futures piece that addresses my take on the fastest big back at the Combine.

Truth be told, I have mixed thoughts about Knile Davis’ prospects. In some respects his style reminds me of DeMarco Murray. His style also reminds me of Keith Byars and late-career Herschel Walker. As much as I like these two players, this isn’t a complement to Davis. I’m going to study another game and review my notes of the others before I take a final stand on the Speed Score’s latest darling.

This brings me to the boss at home. My originally scheduled player this week was Jonathan Cooper. My wife is from North Carolina. A Tar Heel through and through, she turned down a track scholarship to Florida as well as a spot on Syracuse’s vaunted women’s team to attend Chapel Hill.

The fact that I still have an office to write from tells you that Carolina won out. Read the section “But My Wife Might Be Smarter,” for a greater understanding of her Tar Heel fanaticism and uncanny skill at guessing a prospect’s state of origin by his first name.

On to Cooper, who –- compared to the flashy picks that teams with the top picks in the draft –- is this year’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich; a good, safe choice that will get the job done. Despite the fact that he has been starting since his freshman year, the 6-foot-2, 311-pound left guard still has room to get stronger.

Cooper is the total package who has the potential to work at center and, in a draft where the top end of the player pool lacks the perceived flash of recent seasons, that helps explain the speculation that the left guard might go higher in the first round than guards usually do. Even if Cooper falls to the late first or early second round, he is the type of prospect that a team in need of interior linemen will take in a heartbeat. Read the rest at Football Outsiders