JackPMiller wrote:

If Jay-Z says you go somewhere, you go there.

If so I agree, then Gurley should not have him as a player agent.

Your agent is not supposed to order you around in ways that cost you in terms of your football career.

You may not see a problem in that but I see several.

.

Source tells @sn_nfl that Chris Shula – @DonShula grandson – hired to @RamsNFL staff (likely defense). College teammate of new HC Sean McVay

— Alex Marvez (@alexmarvez) January 28, 2017

zn wrote:

So maybe some of the flaws in Gurley’s game that people have been talking about this season (poor vision – not seeing the holes, impatience, etc) have always been there but last year they were mitigated by the occasional long runs and second half blocking adjustments by Cigs.

That’s possible.

I just remember that we used to worry about SJ in roughly similar ways early in his career until he seemed to hit his groove plus they gameplanned for what he was.

.

Mackeyser wrote:

The only difference is that there would be a soporific quality about it.

We’ll never agree on this Mack. Which is fine.

What we will get with Trump…ARE getting with Trump…is not only far worse than any other alternative, it’s even worse than we have yet imagined.

And that’s not being said by a dem apologist.

That’s worse in every area. Foreign. Domestic. Cultural. Economic.

We may just have to agree to disagree on this.

All I know is that I am living under both LePage and Trump, and if Trump gets ousted, then it’s Pence.

What You Don’t Know About: Being a Punter

JOHNNY HEKKER
PUNTER / LOS ANGELES RAMS

link: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/johnny-hekker-rams-punting/

“What do you do for work?”

I was in the backyard of my house outside of Seattle when my neighbor poked his head over the wooden fence that separates our yards and asked me about my job. It was like something out of Home Improvement — one of those Wilson-type situations.

“I’m a punter for the Rams.”

“Oh, so you’re the kicker?”

“Uhhh, well … not exactly.”

I get this a lot. People find out what I do for a living — either they ask and I tell them or they see me on TV and recognize me — and they confuse me with the kicker. They’ll say something like, “That’s gotta be a tough job, because you’re either making them or missing them.” Or, if they’re a Rams fan, they’ll say, “Thanks, man. You got us some points last week!”

Sometimes I correct people. It depends on where I am and what the situation is.

Most of the time, I just let it slide.

I knew my neighbor wasn’t a football guy, so I explained to him that the punter is not the kicker — that they’re two different people with two entirely different jobs. He says that now, when he watches games and sees the punt formation, he’ll be like, “Hey, that’s what Johnny does!”

So he’s learning.

Being a punter isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. I’m sure you didn’t think it was all that glamorous to begin with, but the truth is, like anything, it has its upsides and downsides. I mean, if I pin the other team down inside the 10-yard line, guys aren’t lining up to high-five me. Nobody in the stands is getting out of their seat to cheer. If anybody gets out of their seat when I’m on the field, it’s probably to grab a hot dog or a beer.

I’m the bathroom-break song at a concert … but I’m O.K. with that.

On game day, 95% of being a punter is waiting around. For most of the game, I’m just standing on the sidelines, trying to keep things light and encourage the rest of the guys. Then, when it’s my time to shine, I gotta go execute, because I don’t get that many opportunities.

But it’s not like I just show up on Sunday like, “Hey, guys. How was your week? I’m here to punt now….”

There’s much more to it than that.

True story: I actually wanted to be a quarterback.

I mean, I was a quarterback … in high school. I had every intention of playing quarterback in college, too. Growing up in Bothell, Washington, I always dreamed of playing in what was then the Pac-10. Oregon State was one of the schools I was considering. I attended the Beavers’ quarterback camp in high school, and talked to the coaches after they watched me throw. They said they would be in touch.

A few weeks later, I got a call from their special teams coach. I remember thinking, This is kinda weird … why would the special teams coach be calling me?

In college recruiting, coaches are typically responsible for a specific region. So you could be a wide receiver, but — because you live in a certain area — get recruited by a team’s running backs coach. So I figured the special teams coach was calling me because I was in his region.

He almost made it sound like one of those halftime gimmicks, like sinking a half-court shot to win free tuition.

Turns out Oregon State had already made an offer to another quarterback in my class, and they didn’t have enough scholarships to offer another QB.

So they had another idea.

“We watched some of your film,” the coach said. My highlight tape was about seven minutes long — six minutes of me slinging the rock, one minute of me punting.

He had watched the final minute.

“We think you could come here as a preferred walk-on. We don’t have a punter, and we think we can turn you into a scholarship punter.”

He almost made it sound like one of those halftime gimmicks, like sinking a half-court shot to win free tuition, or seeing who can throw the most footballs into giant Dr. Pepper cans to win an oversized check.

“You can come down and compete for the job. Whoever wins it will get a scholarship.”

I had gotten a couple of offers to play quarterback at smaller schools, but playing in the Pac-10 was a goal of mine. Oregon State had the prepharmacy major I wanted and I really liked the coaches … all I had to do was win the starting punting job.

Problem was, I didn’t really know how to punt. I knew that if you kicked a spiral, that was good. But after that, I knew about as much about punting as my future neighbor.

But I decided to take a leap of faith. I agreed to walk on at Oregon State, sacrificing my desire to play quarterback for my dream of playing in the Pac-10. The summer before my freshman year, I went down to a kicking and punting camp in Alabama to essentially learn how to punt.

I went to train with coach Mike McCabe at his One On One Kicking camp — one of the elite kicking and punting camps in the country. On the first day, I walked onto the field wearing the same clunky hightop cleats I had worn while playing quarterback in high school. So The coaches told me that the first thing I had to do was to get a pair of soccer cleats, something really tight on my foot that would help me get a good feel for the ball and make solid contact, and that wouldn’t result in me wasting any energy. A thicker shoe, I was told, would absorb the energy from my foot instead of transferring it to the football, decreasing my punting power.

So before I even got on the field they were probably thinking, This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.

I was working out with other incoming freshmen — true punters who were recruited to be starters at their respective universities. And once I got on the field and we started punting footballs, the other guys were smashing them. Every time. Bombs away.

For me it was more like … smash one, shank four.

I noticed that when the other guys punted, everything was super compact. They’d catch the ball, take a couple of short, choppy steps and then boot the hell out of it.

But I was all over the place.

When I was in high school, most teams didn’t focus on blocking punts, so I would have all day back there to get the kick off. I would catch the snap, fiddle with the ball a bit and then take three or four steps before launching it. But in college you’re playing against all the fastest guys from high school, and they’re coming hard for the block just about every time.

Plus, I’m six-foot-five, all legs. So I was taking long, sweeping strides.

That’s when I first learned about operation time, or get-off time, which is the time from the moment the ball is snapped to the moment it comes off your foot. Optimal get-off time is somewhere around 1.9 seconds, which seemed lightning fast to me.

So once the coaches identified the things I needed to work on — which was pretty much everything — I stopped punting footballs and started working on the individual steps of the punting process. Because the art of punting has little to do with actually kicking the ball, and everything to do with what happens before.

First, we worked on catching the snap. When I caught the ball, I was bringing it into my body, like a receiver trying to secure a pass. But bringing it into my body meant that I had to bring it back out in order to drop it and punt, which was wasted motion — which was wasted time.

The coaches made me catch 100 snaps before they let me move on to anything else, and I had to get it right every time — away from my body, laces up, repeat.

Next we worked on my steps.

Like I said, I’m six-foot-five, all legs. If you’ve ever seen me run, you know why people tell me I have the gait of a giraffe. So my long strides were robbing me of power. How to keep my long legs in tight for short, choppy steps — almost like winding up to coil your energy before driving it up into the football — was probably the most difficult thing for me to learn.

And I use the word coil because when we finally worked on punting an actual football, I learned that I had been approaching things all wrong. I thought that forward momentum was how you generated kicking power. But a punter’s power actually comes from his plant foot — from the ground up. So when you drop the ball, instead of swinging your leg forward and driving the ball out in front of you like a field goal kicker, you have to drive vertically off your plant foot — kind of like a high jumper — and explode up through the football.

But I definitely had to get worse before I got better. There was a lot of repetition, and a lot of shanked punts. But because of the great coaching I received at One on One Kicking, I went to Oregon State and won the starting punting job — and a scholarship — as a true freshman.

Crazy story: There were actually two walk-on freshman punters at Oregon State that year — me, and Ryan Allen — and we had both been at Coach McCabe’s camp in Alabama the summer before. Ryan redshirted his freshman year and was my backup in 2009. The next season, since I had the only scholarship for a punter, Ryan transferred to Louisiana Tech, where he went on to win back-to-back Ray Guy awards (as the nation’s best punter). Today, he plays for the Patriots and has a Super Bowl ring.

So two knuckleheads who walked on at Oregon State at the same time both made their way to the NFL. Pretty cool.

And Coach McCabe has done so much for us — teaching me how to punt and taking Ryan from a good punter to the best in the nation — that we still train with him today.

So now that I’ve given you the same Punting 101 course that I got, let’s talk about some of the finer points of the craft.

If you’re thinking, Wait, we’re still talking about punting? I don’t blame you. But I promise I’ll try to make it as exciting as humanly possible.

So I’ll start by talking about Devin Hester.

That guy terrified me — and probably every other punter in the league. The first time I punted to him was in the third game of my rookie season. I had obviously seen his highlights, so in my mind, punting to him could result in three possible outcomes:

A punt that goes out of bounds
A fair catch
A return that brought the ball back halfway — or maybe all the way

With a guy like Devin, you really have to be on point with your directional punting. I mean, you can’t just punt the ball down the middle of the field and let him choose where he wants to go. You have to use the sideline as a defender, pin him into a corner and give your coverage team a chance to bottle him up.

Sounds simple — but what makes directional punting so difficult is that when you punt the ball, you want it to spiral so it cuts through the air, increasing distance and hang time. But a spiraling ball doesn’t fly off your foot straight. If you’re rightfooted, a spiraling ball is going to naturally fade to the right because of the way the ball spins.

So you’re never facing the direction in which you’d like the ball to go. You just gotta know how much your ball fades, account for the wind and adjust accordingly. That’s what makes directional punting so difficult. Kicking it out of bounds is equally tricky because of the way the ball fades in the air off your foot, but also because the referees don’t mark the ball out of bounds where it lands, but instead where it crosses the plane of the sideline in the air. So unless the conditions are perfect and you’re really striking the ball well, it’s usually a last resort.

Forcing a fair catch is actually your best option — and there’s actually a recipe for that.

Let’s say you want to hit a 45-yard punt. For the ball and your punt coverage team to meet at the returner, forcing him to signal for a fair catch, you need 4.5 seconds of hang time. For a 50-yard punt, you need 5.0 seconds of hang time. See where this is going?

The amount of hang time relative to the distance of the punt gives the coverage team enough time to get downfield, forcing the returner to make a fair catch instead of giving him space to return it.

When you start getting up into punts of more than 50 yards, the hang time gets harder to nail consistently — just like when a field goal kicker’s success-rate drops when he gets beyond 50 yards. How far you want to punt the ball just depends on where your team is positioned on the field.

So I guess the moral of the story is: Punters are people, too. It’s kind of a thankless job, and it does tick me off a little when somebody says, “Oh, you’re a punter. You’re not a real football player.” I mean, I think I speak for all punters and kickers when I say that we have a ton of respect for the guys who are out there the whole game banging, getting tackled and doing all the dirty work. That’s just not what we’re asked to do.

We practice all week just like the rest of the team. We watch film all week, too, studying the tendencies of opposing special teams units, focusing on their punt-blocking tendencies and protection packages and seeing where we might be able to exploit them with fakes. We’re in the weight room and out on the practice field working on our timing and situational punting — all the same stuff the other units work on.

There’s also a different level of pressure to what we do.

When my team is backed up in its own end zone late in the fourth quarter with a two-point lead, and I need to back the opposing team up out of field goal range so they can’t just kick an easy game-winner — and if I don’t do my job, my team loses — that’s pressure. And that’s one of the things I love about my job.

There are definitely times when I miss playing quarterback. I mean, there’s nothing like the thrill of hitting a guy in a tight window and watching him taking it to the house, or being in the huddle during a long touchdown drive.

I’m just lucky that I’ve had coaches who have let me sling the rock from time to time.

Remember: I’m six-foot-five, all legs, with the gait of a giraffe. So you won’t catch me running up the middle on a fake punt anytime soon. But it’s definitely a throwback to my high school glory days when my number gets called on a fake — a little nerve-racking, but still pretty cool.

Being a punter is definitely not as glamorous as playing quarterback, but hey, this is the life I chose when I walked on at Oregon State. I took a chance, and I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

I may be on the sidelines for 95% of the game, but at least I have the best seat in the house.

Mackeyser wrote:

Cuz I keep reading variations of the same things and then keep reading about each time, how people are struck with these new insights.

Yeah…maybe it’s me. I dunno.

I liked the article, myself.

It’s especially good, I think, on how deflecting the issue of race is done in such a way that it appears to occupy higher ground while, in the end, being the same white nationalist stuff in essence.

Interesting movie review (…of a movie I will never see because it’s graphic horror):

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/77120

Plot: A young black man visits his white girlfriend’s diverse family estate only to learn that many of its black residents have gone missing, and the horrible truth when another frantic African-American warns him to “get out”. It becomes clear that this is easier said than done.

The surprise midnight screening at the Sundance Film Festival this year wasn’t much of a surprise by the time it began rolling, but I think it shocked more that a few attendees at just how strong, topical and occasionally shocking it was. First-time writer-director Jordan Peele (half of the great comedy team Key & Peele, who made KEANU last year) has been talking for a couple of years about his horror-comedy script GET OUT. But when the details of the plot begin to reveal themselves, I’m not quite sure anyone will be prepared for how he dives headfirst into the deep waters of racism in America, told through a story that makes it quite clear that, while racism might seem more at bay than ever before (I’m talking about the pre-President Trump era in which the film was conceived and made), the real fear amongst African-Americans is the white people are just better at hiding it.

GET OUT begins harmlessly enough. A young, interracial couple—Chris (Daniel Kaluuya of SICARIO) and Rose (Allison Williams from “Girls”)—decide to head to her parents’ palatial estate (I don’t recall if the film ever names the state in which the action takes place, but it was shot in Alabama), where Chris can finally meet the folks for the first time. He’s worried, as any new boyfriend would be, about what they’ll think of him, in particular, the fact that he’s black (apparently he’s Rose’s first black boyfriend). But parents Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener) seem positively darling, almost trying too hard to make Chris feel at home. (“I would have voted for Obama for a third time,” says Dean.)

It doesn’t take long for Chris to feel like something is amiss, especially when he meets the household staff, Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), who seem more Stepford than Southern. They are overly smiley and surface-level nice, while seeming suspicious and not eager to engage in chit-chat with Chris. Peele is a smart enough filmmaker to drop subtle hints about what’s really going on in the house and community; even still he never gives away too much.

At the top of the film, we see a young black musician (played by Keith Stanfield of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, “Atlanta,” SHORT TERM 12, SNOWDEN) lost on the streets of this same affluent neighborhood; he’s plucked off the road by a passing car, and when we see him again, at an annual party thrown by Rose’s parents, he’s the date of a middle-aged woman, dressed like a codger at a pricey nursing home. But something unintentional happens that seems to snap him out of his condition, and he immediately begins to scream at Chris to run before he’s whisked away by others at the party and taken into a room with Missy, who just happens to by a psychiatrist who specializes in hypnotherapy. She even conducts a seemingly harmless experiment on Christ that results in him quitting smoking.

It seems unlikely that Jordan Peele would ever make something that didn’t have a great deal of subtext, and GET OUT is loaded with it—much of it not even sub-. The way the guests (all white) greet and speak to Chris is polite to the point of overreaching, attempting to appear friendly and even flirty, staring at him out of the corners of their eyes like a prize farm animal. More than being awkward for Chris, a gradual sense of being demeaned creeps in, especially from Rose’s troubled brother (Caleb Landry Jones), a character the film could have easily lived without, mostly because Jones overplays the part to such a degree that it breaks the mood of the perfectly toned movie.

One very necessary supporting character is that of Chris’s best friend, a TSA agent (LilRel Howery) who fancies himself an amateur detective. And when Chris and Rose don’t return home when scheduled, Howery begins the process of finding them using local authorities or his own intuition (he’s thinking the white people kidnapped Chris to turn him into a sex slave). I don’t want to say too much more about the plot, but the entire third act is certifiably nuts and occasionally grotesque. Every actor meant to be duplicitous here does a terrific job finding both good and awful qualities in their characters, especially Whitford and Keener. And Kaluuya is tremendous as a man placed in a situation that he could never have conceived of. He’s brave when he has no other choice and terrified when he has a moment to think about how deep and unspeakable certain actions are.

Peele also finds a few moments to make things genuinely tense and scary. Some of the jumps are cheap and obvious, but for the most part, the filmmaker wants the fear experience to be genuine and heartfelt. Nothing is more critical in a horror film’s success than getting the audience to care about the characters in danger. Then toss in veiled statements about cultural appropriation and how “cool” being black is (this is the old white people saying that, mind you), and you have a thought-provoking and entertaining offering.

This is a tough film to review without giving certain aspects away, so I’ll leave you with this: GET OUT is so damn smart, funny, and scary impressively directed by Peele, who embraces certain great horror tropes, but never forgetting that the best horror and sci-fi often includes clandestine messages and commentary on modern society. And the idea of using the monster of racism as the true villain here is handled beautifully. The filmmaker brings us into Chris’s life is by giving us a bit of his troubled and painful past regarding his parents, some of which are brought of the dark recess of his memories with a little hypnotic kick from Missy.

Peele doesn’t spare us a bit of the old gore, but he manages to find a few gross-out tricks in GET OUT that surprised even me. But his main goal seems to be to provide a sustained sense of dread, punctuated by a handful of genuinely terrifying moments. It’s an impressive debut that has me eager to see what Peele has to offer next both within and without of his comedy team.

Mack, no offense, and speaking just for myself, I don’t care about Clinton. Or the various views of her, from the most extravagantly overdone to the most understated.

That’s just me being bluntly honest in a tough time.

And I don’t even think the real issue is Trump. I think it’s Trump and the republicans, who are probably at this point 2 ships sailing in the night, both in the same direction.

Here we have a very interesting essay about the mindset that (most likely) got Trump elected. Lots to discuss there. And at least 2 responses take issue with the author’s brief and minor remarks about Clinton.

Others will have different responses I am sure. Mine is that I am not interested.

I don’t know…in comparison to endlessly debating a candidate who lost (something I have never done before, after any election)…to me, there are real things to worry about.

Besides. There is not a single sin we can hang on the dems that Trump isn’t going to make look like kid’s stuff in comparison. That to me is very real.
…

Ozoneranger wrote:

The kid in the coveralls bought it hook, line and sinker.

Plus he thought Reconstruction was bad because the federal government SUCCEEDED at what it was trying to do.

That’s like saying, hey, we have to get rid of top-notch offensive coaching, because look what it did to the Rams offense last season.

To state the obvious because it;s fun to state the obvious in response to revisionary history. The federal government lost the battle of reconstruction.

Plus I like, we didn’t really have to force the end of slavery on them…it probably would have just gone away. Yeah the slaves in the civil war era were probably going “I dunno, just wait. Give em a chance. We’re patient. In the meanwhile, where’s the harm?”

2017 Senior Bowl Wide Receiver Preview

link: http://insidethepylon.com/nfl/2017-nfl-draft/2017/01/23/2017-senior-bowl-wide-receiver-preview/

Ryan Switzer, North Carolina, 5-10 185 lbs

Ryan Switzer is a true senior who played in 53 career games as both a wide receiver and punt returner for 4 years for the North Carolina Tar Heels. He had a career year playing from the slot in 2016, registering 96 receptions, 1,112 yards, and 6 touchdowns. He is small for a wide receiver, but he possesses good athletic ability, which North Carolina took advantage of with screens and flare routes.

Switzer’s mental processing is probably his biggest asset. When running routes, he has a good ability to read a zone defense and find holes between zones to get himself open. He also does a good job of reading the defensive back covering him in off coverage, using the stem of his route to attack directly at the defender and chew up the cushion the defender has before making a quick jab in one direction to get DBs to turn their hips, or lean, in the wrong direction before quickly breaking in the other direction with space to catch the ball. He employs a similar strategy after the catch, getting behind blockers and working in one direction to get the defender to commit one way before cutting back and giving his teammates a good angle to block with.

There is no bigger glaring weakness in Switzer’s game than his inconsistent use of hands when catching the football. At North Carolina, they did a good job of running plays that worked him into space as previously noted so he had many uncontested opportunities and got away with catching the ball against his body. When he did use his hands to catch, he still has issues securing the ball and would “double catch” passes where the ball would bounce off his hands before he finally secured it against his body. He ran a pretty limited route tree in college and would round off certain cuts in his routes such as on out routes. He is not the most physical player, at times electing to quickly run out of bounds instead of taking on a defender after the catch.

Trent Taylor, Louisiana Tech, 5-8 178 lbs

Trent Taylor is a true senior who played in 53 career games over 4 years for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs as both a wide receiver and a punt returner. He led the nation in receiving yards with 1,803 and was also second in the nation in receptions with 136. He is a smaller option at wide receiver, but the Bulldogs used him well in the slot and gave him plenty of opportunities to succeed with his good athletic ability and quickness.

Taylor is a smart receiver who reads a zone defense well and looks to adjust his route to exploit holes in the defense. He utilizes his quickness by getting to those spots in a hurry before the defense can adjust to him and he shows good awareness of his position on the field, and makes sure to go the extra yard if he is close to the first down. Despite his smaller stature, he does a good job of extending his arms and securing passes with his hands outside of his frame, giving the quarterback a bigger target to throw to. He is a physical football player, as well. He can use his quickness and athletic ability to create YAC, but he is also not afraid to lower his shoulder and grind for extra yards if need be.

Playing from the slot a majority of the time, he had the luxury of getting to play in space plenty and was able to release cleanly off the line of scrimmage. Though he is aggressive and willing to be a physical player, when facing a defensive back playing press coverage with a jam at the line of scrimmage, he struggled to get a clean release, often taking too long to be a factor in the play. His route running was not as precise at times and instead he would have to revert to using strength at the top of his stem, which he struggled use effectively.

Taywan Taylor, Western Kentucky, 6-0 195 lbs

Taywan Taylor is a true senior who played in in 52 career games over 4 seasons for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Playing as an X, Z, and even slot receiver at times, he set the school mark in 2016 for receptions (98) and receiving yards (1,730) while also tying the record (also set by him in his junior season) for touchdown receptions (17). He has good size for a wide receiver and is a good athlete overall, displaying good quickness and very good ability to change direction.

Taylor’s athleticism is a big strength in his game, as he uses it to create separation to get himself open often. He likes to set up the DB on his slant and post routes by making a quick jab in one direction to get the DB to begin to turn his hips, or at the very least hesitate and lean that way, before quickly cutting in the other direction. His ability to change directions so quickly makes him dangerous when running a double breaking route as he does get the DB to fully commit to his first move before breaking in another direction. He does a good job tracking the ball on deeper routes, as well. Though he benefited being open due to blown coverage, he does a good job of tracking the ball and adjusting to it in the air.

Although he is listed at 195 pounds, Taylor’s play strength and just overall physical toughness is a weakness. He struggled to fight through jams at the line of scrimmage quickly enough to be a real threat in a play. On contested catches, he allowed himself to be boxed out too easily by DBs and would have to try to out jump them to go over them to make the catch, which he did not do successfully very often. After the catch, he could use his speed well to create YAC, but if he wasn’t able to work in space, he was quick to take the ball out of bounds instead of trying to fight through tackles to gain extra yards. Though he is quick and explosive through certain cuts like on his slant route, a majority of the time he lacked that attention to detail and rounded off cuts for other routes. He played against off coverage a lot so he was still open plenty, but in a league where coverage is much tighter, he will need to be more precise with his routes.

Amara Darboh, Michigan, 6-2 215 lbs

Amara Darboh is a redshirt senior who has played in 48 games, starting 28 of them for the Michigan Wolverines. This last season he played in all 12 games, starting 11 and amassed 57 catches, for 862 yards and 7 touchdowns. Born in Sierra Leone, Darboh’s parents were killed in the Sierra Leone Civil War and he moved to Iowa when he was 7 years old.

Darboh has the ideal size for an NFL wide receiver and can be effective as both an outside receiver or in the slot. During his time at Michigan, Darboh ran a lot of slant routes, crossing routes and curl routes and can find holes in zone coverage, particularly when the play breaks down into a scramble drill and the quarterback is forced on the move. He is very strong when it comes to contested catches, not only due to his size but also his great athleticism for someone his size, as well as his sure hands. He also has the ability to track the ball well in the air even when a defensive back is draped all over him, showing good concentration.

While he ran a decent amount of routes throughout his college career, a lot of the time he doesn’t look fluid in his route running, and at times doesn’t sell a route well, particularly curl routes. He played against a lot of off coverage so was able to get open, especially on screen passes, but may struggle a little against the tighter coverage in the NFL and will need to make better use of his body to shield off defenders on those curl routes. He’s also an inconsistent run blocker and was easily knocked off his feet at times.

Zay Jones, East Carolina, 6-1 197 lbs

Zay Jones is a senior who spent 4 years amassing huge numbers for the Pirates, hauling in 399 catches for 4,279 yards and 23 touchdowns in 50 games played. Jones is the son of former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Robert Jones, who won 3 Super Bowls and was NFC rookie of the year in 1992.

Although Jones is listed as 6’1’’ he looks taller on film. His biggest strength is his hands, which he uses extremely well. He has long arms so is able to extend his hands towards the ball and catch cleanly rather than letting it come into his chest. Jones shows good footwork and his route running is solid. The WR can ‘’stop and go’’ very well on vertical routes and ran a diverse route tree at East Carolina including slants, posts, curl and corner routes. He is also versatile having played his first 3 years in the slot and his senior year as an outside receiver. Solid run blocker and wasn’t afraid to get physical and open up running lanes on the outside.

Jones does have a slight frame and could do with bulking up just a little, otherwise he could struggle against tight, physical man coverage in the NFL especially if he’s lined up outside. Although he can find space, he sometimes doesn’t make good use of it with the ball in his hands, and so needs to improve his decision making as to where he takes the ball when he has it in his hands. Was a little inconsistent in following his blockers out in front of him particularly on screen passes.

Amba Etta-Tawo, Syracuse, 6-2 202 lbs

Amba Etta-Tawo was born in Oman but grew up in Georgia. He is a senior who transferred from Maryland to Syracuse for his senior season. Statistically he had a strong season with 94 catches for 1,482 yards and 14 touchdowns in 12 games. He certainly benefited from the Syracuse passing game which has now put him well within reach of the NFL.

Etta-Tawo has very good size and measurables as well as the ability to fight for contested catches. He also breaks tackles extremely well and fights through arms tackles with ease. The WR is effective in open space with the ball in his hands and works the sideline well on deep vertical routes, which he ran a lot of last season. He played against man coverage and won some of these matchups to come up with big plays. Etta-Tawo follows blockers well on screen passes and when he gets free down the sideline or across the middle of the field he showcases very good speed to get away from would-be tacklers.

He didn’t run much of a route tree in his college career and is inconsistent with his hands and at times dropped easy deep balls. The WR needs to improve his route running which at times appeared to be poor. For a guy his size he isn’t as consistent at the contested catch as he should be and this seemed to be down to lack of concentration at times, while having a propensity to wait for the ball to come to him rather than work towards the quarterback on short to intermediate routes. His timing on routes where he has to turn towards the quarterback also needs improving.

Travin Dural, LSU, 6-2 203 lbs

Travin Dural is a senior who spent 4 seasons at LSU but only played in 3 due to a season-ending knee injury in his freshman year. Statistically he doesn’t jump out after compiling 72 catches for 1,436 yards and 12 touchdowns in 3 years, but it’s key to remember he played in a run first offense and opportunities to see a lot of targets were at a minimum. But there is more to his game than you might think.

First, Dural has great speed for someone his size. Has the look of an NFL receiver and in particular his straight line is speed allows him to get down the field and behind defenders quickly. Has good athleticism for his size and he shows good acceleration out of his stance and will use speed and agility to get away from jams at the line of scrimmage to good effect at times. Dural is a good run blocker on the outside, showing good strength and technique.

Although Dural has good hands, he doesn’t show this when thrown to across the middle of the field and can easily lose concentration if he sees a big hit coming. Didn’t run a variety of routes during his college career, running mostly deep routes to make use of his speed. Bigger, more physical DB’s will give him trouble when playing press coverage as he has poor hand usage when jammed at the line of scrimmage. Some scouts may find it hard to get past his lack of production so will need a strong senior bowl showing.

Josh Reynolds Texas A&M, 6-3 193 lbs

Reynolds played in 38 games during his career at Texas A&M. He performed well for the Aggies in 2016 while playing on the outside having career highs in receptions and yards with 62 and 1,039 respectively. Reynolds also caught 12 touchdown passes making him a serious scoring threat for whoever lined up against him.

Reynolds displays good athletic ability using his speed and quickness to eat up cushion given by DBs playing off coverage on him. Against press coverage, Reynolds beats the jam using his hands to swat away defenders at the line of scrimmage to get into his route. It will be interesting to see how he develops this skill as he transitions to the NFL. Like most players entering the NFL he may want to add more weight to develop his strength. Reynolds has good mental processing abilities by settling in voids that zone defenses give him. He does a good job of getting inside positioning on the slant route to create separation between himself and the defensive back. Also has good hands to catch the ball within the strike zone and has a good catch radius to extend beyond his frame to catch some poorly placed passes. Reynolds has the ability to be a deep threat as he displays good ball tracking skills. With his height and competitive toughness, Reynolds should also be a red zone threat as quarterbacks will like throwing the fade to this target. Showing solid play strength with his knack for working back to the ball and extending his arms to pluck the ball on contested catches against corners, Reynolds has solid YAC ability as he can break waist tackles to gain yards after the catch.

Reynolds will have a focus drop here and there due to him wanting to make a play before he secures the ball in his hands. Like most wide receivers coming out of college he’ll need to work on his blocking abilities and deepen his route tree.

Fred Ross, Mississippi State, 6-2 207 lbs

Ross played in 42 games for the Mississippi State Bulldogs amassing 200 career catches and 2,545 yards, mainly during his Junior and Senior seasons. Ross’s catches and yards took a dip in 2016 compared to his 2015 season, but that could be attributed to Mississippi State losing Dak Prescott to the NFL. Although, sophomore Nick Fitzgerald did find Ross in the end zone for a career high of 12 touchdowns in 2016.

Ross is a reliable receiver who is used on the outside and in the slot. The WR eats the press by being physical using his hands to push cornerbacks off him to get into his route. Has good mental processing as he can diagnose a defense and sit in voids of the zone. Ross creates separation with his quickness at the top of his route as well as using the cornerbacks cushion against him. He does a good job of getting inside positioning on defenders and displays good hands with the ability to go over the middle and make tough catches with multiple defenders surrounding him try to free the ball loose. Ross has a good catch radius and can adjust to the passes thrown outside his frame while being quarterback friendly by working back to the football. He has very good competitive toughness displayed by his ability to hustle down field to throw the additional block on a run play. Once the ball is in his hands Ross will use his elusiveness to gain YAC, but can also break low tackles.

Something Ross could work on would be that he did run an array of routes while at Mississippi State. While he’s a willing blocker it’s something that has to be refined while transitioning to the NFL. I believe Ross could be a good number two receiver in the NFL if a coaching staff is able to develop and help refine his overall game.

Jamari Staples, Louisville, 6-3 195 lbs

Staples played two seasons at Alabama Birmingham before transferring to Louisville in 2015. He didn’t put up much production in his four year career catching only 113 passes for 1901 yards and 10 touchdowns in 38 games. He played both on the outside and in the slot for Louisville.

Staples has the ability to extend beyond his frame to reel in errant passes due to his long arms. He also displayed toughness while at Louisville by holding onto the ball while being hit from behind from defenders. Louisville used Staples as a blocker in the screen game where he was to create a path for his blocker to run.

Without much production and film on Staples publicly it is difficult to come up with a true evaluation of his game. I’m hoping scouts are able to get a clearer picture of the receiver down in Mobile, Alabama this up and coming week.

Cooper Kupp, Eastern Washington, 6-2 215 lbs

Kupp has played in 52 career games for the Eastern Washington Eagles. The Senior has NFL bloodlines with his father, Craig Kupp, and grandfather, Jake Kupp, both playing in the NFL. Kupp certainly impressed with his production despite coming from a FCS school as the Eastern Washington product holds the Division 1 record in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. He put up more impressive statistics in 2016 with 117 receptions, 1,700 yards, and 17 touchdowns in 13 games.

Kupp is a big slot receiver who has good athletic ability. He made a lot of catches where he had to adjust to a ball thrown behind him. Kupp has good mental processing ability as a lot of his catches come on settling in voids of the zone. He has good hands and is a reliable receiver who will come down with contested catches at the point of attack. The WR has very good competitive toughness as he’s not afraid to make a catch over the middle. He also suffered a left shoulder injury during the FCS playoffs, but played through it anyway. Kupp has good speed and quickness to outrun defensive backs to get YAC. Kupp also has good play strength and plays with a physicalness to his game, displaying the ability to break tackles for yards after the catch.

There are a few questions with Kupp, however. He did not face press coverage much as he mainly lined up in the slot. Also, many will question whether Kupp can play at the NFL level because he comes from a small school. I think the Senior Bowl will help answer a lot of questions surrounding Kupp’s ability to play against higher levels of competition.

Artavis Scott, Clemson, 5-10 190 lbs

Scott is a Junior, but is Senior Bowl eligible because he graduated early. He’s played in 42 games and has made an impact in every season he’s played thus far. He’s caught at least 76 passes in each of his first three seasons and accumulated 2,480 receiving yards and 19 touchdowns.

Clemson used Scott in a plethora of ways. He returned punts and kicks for the team at various points in his career and was also used as an outside and a slot receiver. Although, I think at his size he’s best used as a slot receiver going forward. He is good at working the underneath areas of the field using his good quickness and settling in voids of the zone. Clemson used him in the screen game as he has the ability to read his blockers allowing him to burst through the right path. A high effort player who is a willing blocker in the run game, Scott is also an unselfish player as he’s been able to learn the subtle art of (link to Ted’s Pick Play piece) being the man who sets the “pick” on pick / rub plays. Clemson has also motioned Scott into the backfield as a running back on outside plays made for him to get to the edge.

Scott’s size limits his ability to go against larger cornerbacks on the outside as he doesn’t possess the play strength to win 1 on 1 battles for contested catches.

wv wrote:

it most often describes the return of an undesirable condition, such as a war or a plague, or the return of an undesirable idea.

Well, okay. Like throwing for 4 on 3rd and 5.

.

PFF: WHY AARON DONALD WAS THE NFL’S BEST PASS-RUSHER THIS SEASON

By SAM MONSON

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-why-aaron-donald-was-the-nfls-best-pass-rusher-this-season/?utm_content=buffer28169&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=nfl

Los Angeles Rams DT Aaron Donald was recently named the winner of Pro Football Focus’ Defensive Player of the Year and Best Pass-Rusher awards for the 2016 NFL season. To see the winner of every PFF award, visit our NFL awards page.

The Rams may have returned to Los Angeles and the bright lights of Tinseltown, but the team finished the 2016 season 4-12. With that losing record, very few players on the roster received much positive attention, but defensive tackle Aaron Donald was once again excellent in the heart of the Rams’ defense.

When recognizing individual achievement at awards time, it’s important to try and look beyond the overall defensive unit. There are obvious yardage and scoring milestones for offensive players that get recognition and celebration, even if the offense they play in has been ineffective or lackluster, but defenders tend to be tarred with the brush of overall unit success or failure. The Rams had a top defense in terms of yards per game and yards per play, but because the offense was so poor, they were 23rd in points per game. Whatever the success of the defense as a whole, an individual defender is just one of 11 players, and no one man can make a defense.

Aaron Donald led all interior defenders with 82 total pressures this season, a mark that tied for third overall in the NFL. He may have recorded “only” eight sacks, but nobody was better at generating consistent, impactful pressure than Donald, especially when you consider the position he was playing.

Generating 82 total QB pressures from defensive tackle is not the same as recording them as an edge defender, or even generating slightly more from those perimeter rushing spots. Edge rushers generate pressure at a higher rate than interior rushers. They are typically one-on-one and have less traffic to navigate to get to the QB, or at least to affect his drop. The average edge rusher in the NFL this season generated pressure once every 8.8 pass rushes, but it takes almost five full pass-rushing snaps (13.5) more for an interior rusher to generate the same pressure, on average.

Donald had fewer pass-rushing snaps than many edge rushers, and yet still outperformed almost all of them in terms of total QB pressures. He generated pressure once every 6.1 pass rushes, which was the best figure of any interior defender, but also a top-10 figure compared to edge rushers (seventh).

Of course, not all pressure is created equal, and raw numbers can sometimes mislead. Pressure can take the form of a sack after a defender beats a double-team in under two seconds, a clean-up pressure where the QB is forced to move into a pass-rusher’s leverage, or from a defender having an unblocked path straight to the QB.

Where Donald really separates himself from the pack is in how his pressure comes about. He generated decisive pressure (graded at +1.0 or better in PFF’s incremental, play-by-play grading scale) once every 8.7 rushes. That figure would be the third-best rate of pressure among interior defenders, and it’s only counting Donald’s most impactful pressures.

The next-closest interior pass-rusher was Arizona’s Calais Campbell, who generated the same level of decisive pressure once every 18 pass-rushing snaps, almost 10 more between those plays than Donald. Put another way, Donald was generating decisive pressure more than twice as often as any other interior pass-rusher on a per-snap basis.

71 percent of Donald’s pressure was decisive in nature. He was a player that was forcing the issue, and not just benefitting from plays where he was unblocked, or the play was forced his way. Donald was actively defeating blocks and affecting the QB in the pocket more than any other pass-rusher in the league, and at a rate that leaves his true peers—interior pass-rushers and defensive tackles—flailing in his wake.

Oakland’s Khalil Mack and Denver’s Von Miller each had outstanding seasons themselves, and they may have each posted game-defining impact plays involving strip sacks and fumble recoveries, but their position as edge rushers allows them to have far more plays where they can come at the QB completely unseen, while Donald is almost always going to be rushing from a spot in the quarterback’s line of sight.

Donald in 2016 may not have been quite as dominant as he was a year ago—he was named PFF’s Best Player of 2015, winning what was then named our Dwight Stephenson Award—but he was still the best defender in the game this past season, and the most unstoppable pass-rushing force in the league. For that, he wins PFF’s award for the Best Pass-Rusher in the game in 2016, as well as Defensive Player of the Year.

off the net from jrry32

The simple truth is that unless you’re getting a proven coach, you have no idea what the results will be. Hell, even then, you’re not guaranteed of anything. Fisher was a proven coach.

McVay has a couple things clearly going for him that make success a lot more likely. The two most important things to succeeding as a NFL HC are surrounding yourself with a great staff and being capable of leading a NFL locker room.

It seems that McVay checks both those boxes.

1. He has put together a great staff of experienced coaches. Based on what we’ve heard, he’s managed to get the #1 DC on the market, the #1 OL Coach on the market, the #1 Special Teams Coach on the market, and a QB Coach with a hell of a lot of experience as an offensive coordinator.

More on Kromer. Getting him is putting some foolish hope in me. He gives us a top tier OL Coach. We desperately need that. He turned some raw guys into really good OLs.

His DC, OL Coach, and Special Teams Coach all have NFL HC experience. The most important thing that a head coach can do is surround himself with a quality and experienced staff of assistants. McVay has succeeded in that respect.

2. McVay’s leadership skills have been praised by every player and coach who have spoken about him. I haven’t heard a single negative word uttered about the guy.

We’ll see if it was the right move. Success isn’t guaranteed. We might come to find out that McVay isn’t capable of leading as a NFL HC. But as it stands now, we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

Waiting for Shanahan means no Wade Phillips.

McVay did great things with Kirk Cousins (more than Kyle Shanahan did).

Unlike our past few coaches, he has hired a veteran staff and an expert to handle the side of the ball he’s not familiar with. (Fisher hired a veteran staff but chose not to hire an offensive expert as coordinator, an equivalent of Williams.)