Posts tagged NFL draft

Futures: Georgia LB Alec Ogletree

Now here’s a room of equipment my former trainer would have been proud of. I share my Jenny Craig Moment for Guys below to give you context about Georgia ILB Alec Ogletree in my latest Futures at Football Outsiders. Photo by Lars Hammar.

Six years ago, I met an athletic trainer for the University of Georgia football team. I joined a local gym and wanted to begin a weight training program. I was leery of the bells and whistles that “athletic clubs” have in their facilities and even more skeptical of the trainers who seem to be more about sales than fitness. I also wanted a workout that incorporated a lot of body weight exercises and the supervision of an experienced, educated, trainer. The gym management got my drift and recommended one guy.

The only appointment that this trainer had available in his schedule was 5:00 a.m. three times a week. The idea of studying a football game at 5:00 a.m. was one thing, an intense workout seemed like masochism. But as bleary-eyed as I was that first morning, I knew I’d made the right decision when this trainer walked us right past the the sea of Nautilus equipment and other gadgets.

“You see all of this here? This sells gym memberships. We’ll use maybe three of these machines. Let’s do some real work.”

And within two months, I lost 20 pounds and 10 percent body fat with a workout that consisted of free weights, sprints, jump rope, and medicine ball workouts.

 I’m sharing this Jenny Craig moment for guys because, as I got to know my trainer, I learned a lot about the Georgia football team. My trainer wasn’t a 23 year-old whose career prior to graduate school was that of a glorified towel boy. Besides working as a professional trainer for a number of years in Major League Baseball, he came from a rich football background. He was a second-string safety at Florida State, and his grandfather was a former head coach and scout in the NFL

Among the several great nuggets of information that he eventually shared with me about Georgia football was the school’s preference to Read the rest at Football Outsiders

Reads Listens Views 9/14/2012

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Chris Potter and Marcus Strickland, two of the better saxophonists of my generation playing with a great group that includes the fantastic Benny Green on piano, Martin Wind on bass, and Matt Wilson on drums.

Reads

From the “isn’t that charming and hip, but completely stupid file,” The USB Typewriter. If someone rigged any of my devices with this hipster pile of garbage as a gift, I’d deck them. Or at least I’d be imagining how I’d dismember them as I do the polite thing. Of course, I think the polite thing to do in the long term is throw a hay maker so they never do something like that to a writer’s helper ever again. If you want to pretend you’re Hemingway go ahead. Try writing a piece to deadline with that contraption and you’ll have killed yourself decades earlier than For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Back to School: How Mike Shanahan is Using RG3’s College Offense with the Redskins by Chris Brown

Futures: Tyler Wilson by Matt Waldman

Why Fathers Really Matter by Judith Shulevitz. A fascinating article touching upon epigenetics – or how your environment triggers your genes to change.

iPhone 5? Yawn. What Will the ‘Phone’ of 2022 Look Like by Alexis C. Madrigal. What will it look like? Most likely, none of the things in this article.

Listens

Superego – The Superego podcast is a great mix of old-school radio drama techniques, stream-of-consciousness, existential-style humor, and just plain funny. Set against the format of “case studies” of varying psychological profiles, the skits and sketches range from the absurd to the thought-provoking. Highly recommended (thanks Interlocuter, whomever you are on iTunes, for the description).

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Optical Illusion Photography

28 Mind Bending Examples of Optical Illusion Photography

Thanks

I mean it. And you probably know why. I’m just slammed with work like nobody’s business right now to go into detail.

RB-OL Collisions: Reading the Road with Marcus Lattimore

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A criticism I read about a few college running backs this week was the tendency for some of them to run up the back of offensive linemen. Sometimes this is a fair criticism of a player. However, it’s also an observation that requires a strong frame of reference about the critic. It’s easy to evaluate a running back, see him run into a lineman’s back, and conclude that he lacks patience, agility, or good decision-making.

However, there are numerous examples of plays where a running back is not at fault for colliding with the backsides of his blockers. Considering the number of Tweets I saw this week where this conclusion was made about a back, I thought it might be helpful to provide examples of when this type of behavior is not the fault of the runner. I’m using South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore and his teammates as an example. Continue reading

Reads Listens Views 8/24/2012

I can see my home from here! A photo from the surface of Mars. Kind of looks like Kansas with Georgia’s red clay. Cool, but not sure I want to live there.

Why I Thank You Every Week

Nearly eight years ago, I worked in the call center industry. Yes, thank you for that quick twinge of collective telepathic sympathy – the job is truly a weigh station for lost souls. Continue reading

Quarterback Development: When Practice Reports Are Useless

Tom Brady succeeds because he doesn’t avoid risking failure every day. It’s how great decision-making is developed and refined in the NFL. Photo by Jeffrey Beall.

 

“A lot of times you learn from your mistakes. You know, you gotta make the mistakes to learn from them,” he said. “And you never know how tight a window is until you throw it, and it was too tight. You try to force a ball into certain areas and then you learn from it, you say, ‘I can’t do that.’ You install new plays and you try to run them over and over and you try to identify all the problems where they come up and then really make good decisions.

“We’re out here running a ton of plays every day, 75, 80 plays a day,” he continued. “Believe me, they’re not all perfect, there’s a lot of learning every day in a lot of the situational stuff that we do. All of it is a good learning experience, whether Ryan or Brian are in there taking the snap, I’m paying attention to see what I would do if I was in there and vice versa. And that’s the only way to play football, you can’t sit here and only concentrate when you’re in. You gotta learn from every day on the field, every rep in practice, mentally and then physically when you get a chance to go out and do it, you gotta try to execute it as best you can.”

Tom Brady talking about the value of taking risks and making mistakes in practice

This quote from Field Yates’ piece posted yesterday on ESPN’s New England Patriots Report is a perfect example of why readers have to be careful about what beat reporters and analysts observe at practice. Continue reading

Separating The Dark From The Dark: QB Tyler Wilson, Victim or Perpetrator?

Prologue: M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School by Phillip Levine

Even 2.9 seconds of football can generate an hour of analysis. Photo by Erik Daniel Drost.

I love the phrase “separating the dark from the dark.” It signifies that we never have certainty about anything despite the fact that we often want to manufacture a world filled with absolutes. Life is rarely black and white. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Phillip Levine, a former factory worker who often writes about work-class life in Detroit, draws a great portrait Continue reading

Texas WR Marquise Goodwin: The Angles of Separation Part II

Austin Collie would lose a footrace to Marquis Goodwin every time, but at this point I’ll take Collie on a deep route over Goodwin every day. Learn why you would, too. Photo by Angie Six.

For more analysis of skill players like the post below, download the 2012 Rookie Scouting Portfolio. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2012 RSP at no additional charge. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. Here’s an update on my pledge.

Texas Longhorns receiver Marquise Goodwin is a world-class long jumper with track star speed. Earlier this week, I broke down a play of Goodwin’s that shows how he had to do a better job of using his body to prevent a defender from gaining access to his hip pocket as the ball arrived. Here is the second of the two posts I promised. This is also from the December bowl game versus Cal and it underscores the importance of body position to maximize his speed.  It also illustrates my oft-mentioned point that athleticism might be a game changer in college football, but it’s merely a baseline for the NFL. Continue reading

Reads Listens Views 8/3/2012

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Falcons receiver Julio Jones is a world-class physical talent as a football player. However, until he can make the plays you see in the video above, he’s still playing a “B-game.” Jones is a good player with flashes of excellence and this is the component of his craft to monitor in order to see if he takes the next step in 2012.

This Weekend

If Texas receiver Marquise Goodwin learns how to consistently gain and maintain position like he does on this catch, he has a future as a vertical threat in the NFL. Learn more from Sterling Sharpe in the link to a coaching video below. Photo by Aaronisnotcool.

More on the craft of gaining separation from the line of scrimmage, with a play-by-play example of Texas speedster Marquise Goodwin.

Coming Soon: Cecil Lammey Q&A

Finally, Lammey and I had a chance to spend an hour with a digital recorder running. The newly syndicated host of “Riding Shotgun” is an aficionado of cattle roping, boars, and running backs. I’ll let him tell you about the chaps – I’m still getting treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. Expect to see this posted at the eve of the regular season.

New Project on the Horizon: NSFW Week

Watch out now, I’m about to let it fly. Details below.

If you listen to The Thursday Night Audible Roundtable, I sometimes let my irreverent side out for a walk (with a choke collar and a sturdy leash). Somtimes I also do it here.  I don’t know when, and I’m not sure what form it will take just yet, but I have a feeling sometime this fall, I’m going to have a “Wildman Uncensored: Not Safe For Work Week at the RSP.”

Pretty much anything and everything I wouldn’t share and laying it down unfiltered. I’ll provide Continue reading

Texas WR Marquise Goodwin: The Angles of Separation Part I

If Texas receiver Marquise Goodwin learns how to consistently gain and maintain position like he does on this catch, he has a future as a vertical threat in the NFL. Learn more from Sterling Sharpe in the video below. Photo by Aaronisnotcool.

For more analysis of skill players like the post below, download the 2012 Rookie Scouting Portfolio. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2012 RSP at no additional charge. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. Here’s an update on my pledge.

There was a time that Texas receiver Marquise Goodwin thought about red shirting to prepare for the 2012 Olympics as a long jumper. Once he learned that NBC was covering the games, he decided competing for a Longhorns team that might slip below .500 in the Big 12 was more appealing. Truth be told, I haven’t watch the Summer Olympics at all so I can’t really take the smug stance of an arm-chair media critic.

However, I can critique Goodwin’s game. Most long jumpers have world class speed and Goodwin doesn’t disappoint here. However, as highlighted this spring with Stephen Hill’s game – Speed Kills, Now Learn How to Aim! – Goodwin has to refine what he does with his natural separation skills to become a dangerous NFL receiver. Here is the first of two posts Continue reading

RSP Writers Project: Matt Miller’s Roster – Bleacher Report

Matt Miller’s cornerstone at left tackle will be Nate Solder, a player capable of guarding his most prized investment – Andrew Luck. Photo by Beth Hart.

Bleacher Report’s NFL Draft Lead Writer, Matt Miller is the founder of the NFL draft site New Era Scouting. Matt’s work has been featured in Madden 13, on ESPN radio, SiriusXM, NFL.com, SI.com, and USA Today. NFL, CFL and AFL teams have utilized his services. Matt was the secondary and special teams coordinator for the three-time league champion Joplin Crusaders of the Central Football League.

Miller presents his roster with the unwavering belief that he selected personnel that will be the makings of a great football team – not to mention the bravado to believe he got tremendous value with players at the higher end of this exercise’s pay scale.  Readers may see it as spin typical of NFL owners and GMs heading into training camp, but what I like is Miller’s steadfast belief in players that may not have lived up to initial expectations. It’s an indication that Miller stands by his work as an evaluator. Continue reading