Jalen Hurts of Oklahoma ran an official 4.54 40 at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Jalen Hurts put up a strong time in his 40 Thursday at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. In fact, it was the best time of all the quarterbacks who went through the exercise.
Donovan Peoples-Jones showed great lift at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Michigan wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones is 6-2 and 212 pounds. He’s also got springs in his legs, apparently. Check out this remarkable 44 1/2 vertical jump by the Wolverine at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Peoples-Jones had 103 catches in three seasons with the Wolverines. He averaged almost 13 yards per grab for Jim Harbaugh and scored 14 touchdowns.
âHe’s just not real dynamic, in my opinion, when I studied him,â NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah told the Detroit Free Press. âThat’s kind of the knock on him. In a normal draft, he’s probably a second-round pick. In this draft, he’s probably a third- or fourth-round pick, just because there’s so much depth.â
His leaping ability could impact what scouts think.
Albert Okwuegbunam impressed in the 40 for tight ends at the NFL Scouting Combine.
If NFL teams are looking for a tight end with size and speed, Missouri’s Albert Okwuegbunam opened some eyes in Indianapolis Thursday with his 40-yard dash.
6'5", 258 lbs.@MizzouFootball TE Albert Okwuegbunam runs a 4.49u 40-yard dash!
Would tie for fourth-fastest 40 by a tight end since 2003.
Fresno State offensive guard Netane Muti put on a show of strength Thursday during the bench press at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Check out the way the 6-3, 307-pounder pushes out those reps to the tune of 44 times at 225 pounds. BEST OF THE …
Fresno State offensive guard Netane Muti put on a show of strength Thursday during the bench press at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.
Check out the way the 6-3, 307-pounder pushes out those reps to the tune of 44 times at 225 pounds.
âThrough the guidance of the coaches and staff at Fresno State, I have learned what it means to be a leader,â Muti wrote. âThe importance of hard work and how the game of football can be taken away from you at any moment. Most importantly, I have learned that in life or football, when an opportunity presents itself, you have to take it with both arms and never look back.
âWith that being said and after much thought and discussion with my family, I have decided to forgo my senior season to enter the 2020 NFL Draft.â
Muti does have an injury history teams need to factor into their scouting.
He played the first three games this season before a foot injury sidelined him the final nine games. Muti also missed 12 of 14 games in 2018. And he did not play as a true freshman in 2016 after suffering an Achillesâ injury.
These 11 players could see their stock soar at the scouting combine based on their ability to ace the athletic tests.
INDIANAPOLIS — People in and out of the NFL have denigrated the scouting combine drills as the “Underwear Olympics” for years, but those same people are sure on hand when it comes time for prospects to go through those drills every year. And yes, draft decisions are made on a guy’s 40-yard-dash time, broad jump, and bench press numbers more than some would have you believe.
There are a number of new drills this year, created and enacted to more closely mirror the on-field experience. Whether it’s old-school or new-wave stuff, here are 11 prospects who could really stand out at the 2020 combine.
Jordan Love, QB, Utah State
Some evaluators have Love, who experienced an efficiency downturn in 2019 with 17 interceptions against 20 touchdown passes after a 32-touchdown, six-interception 2018, as a possible Next Patrick Mahomes based on his arm strength and athleticism. I believe there are too many legitimate questions about Love’s mechanics and overall form to make such comparisons just yet, but there’s absolutely no question that Love can sling the ball around. In the friendly confines of Lucas Oil Stadium, where he’ll be throwing different routes without any defensive pressure, Love could make a great impression on scouts, coaches, and personnel people who are already halfway to making that comparison in their minds.
“The most important thing to be is to be more consistent,” Love said this week about his own game. “You watch my film, there are some plays where I make an incredible throw, and the next thing you know, I miss a swing route on a checkdown. Being more consistent in all my throws, my footwork, in the pocket, under center, doing dropbacks and things like that. Itâs something Iâve practiced since the season ended.”
Love should reap the benefits of that practice in the quarterback drills.
More and more, defensive players are asked to play multiple positions. The importance of versatility comes up in the draft more than ever.
INDIANAPOLIS — In his 2019 season, per Pro Football Focus, Clemson linebacker Isaiah Simmons played 299 snaps in the box, 262 snaps at slot cornerback, 132 snaps at free safety, and 116 snaps at defensive line. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Simmons also played 13 snaps at outside corner, to make his versatility even more impressive. That Simmons was able to do everything he did at an abnormally high level in Clemson’s 3-1-7 defense is why he’s a top-10 prospect in this draft class.
In his 2019 season, per PFF, Alabama safety Xavier McKinney played 285 snaps in the box, 271 snaps at free safety, and 227 snaps in the slot. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound McKinney also played 38 snaps on the defensive line and five snaps at outside corner, to make his versatility even more impressive. That McKinney was able to do everything he did at an abnormally high level in Alabama’s multiple defense is why he’s a top-20 prospect in this draft class.
You get the idea. LSU’s Grant Delpit, by most marks the only safety ranked higher than McKinney in this class, played 385 snaps at free safety, 316 snaps in the slot, and 149 snaps in the box last season.
In an NFL where five different linebackers spent over 100 coverage snaps in the slot last season (Carolina’s Shaq Thompson, Seattle’s K.J. Wright and Mychal Kendricks, Tampa Bay’s Lavonte David, and Denver’s Todd Davis), and seven different safeties (led by Carolina’s Eric Reid) had over 40 tackles against the run, the importance of the multi-position defensive player — or, one might say, the “positionless” defensive player — has never been more obvious. That will be reflected in the 2020 draft class, and beyond.
Redskins head coach Ron Rivera, who coached Shaq Thompson and Eric Reid in Carolina, now has to find the kinds of versatile defensive players he had before. Rivera mentioned linebacker Cole Holcolmb as one possibility, and was happy to talk about the decisive advantage that kind of range gives your defense in general.
“There are a couple guys who will tell you that I love position flex,” Rivera told me. “I believe in it. I think it’s huge. Shaq was a great example. Here was a guy who could play the nickel position for you, and run with receivers, and at the same time, go back in the box and play the SAM linebacker position. That’s an invaluable player. That’s the kind of player you look for in the draft. The guy who has that position flexibility.
“I think we have some guys who can do that at different positions. [Holcolmb] went out in space, and then came back in as a box player. Those are the kinds of guys you want, because you want that position flexibility. If you don’t have to rotate a guy off the field — if he can stay on the field — you can change your defense, and your defensive looks, and your defensive philosophies. You start rotating guys in, and you’re tipping your hat a little bit: ‘Hey, here’s our nickel package.'”
Raiders general manager Mike Mayock, who saw his defense finish 31st in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted metrics in 2019, didn’t really have that guy last season, and the team paid for it — especially against today’s monster tight ends. First-round safety Johnathan Abram was supposed to help define that positionless position last season, but he missed all but one game in his rookie campaign with a torn rotator cuff. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the now-Las Vegas Raiders to gamble (sorry) on another such player in this draft.
âI think the leagueâs going that way too on both sides of the line of scrimmage,” Mayock said. “You start looking at guys on the offense that can play in the slot, play at running back, be H-backs, thereâs not really a label for them. Thereâs just either dynamic players, or theyâre not. And then you start looking at trying to match up with those guys on defense. When you start looking at any division, particularly ours, and the tight ends, for instance, that we have to play in our division, and you kind of go, âWho matches up?â Do you want to play man coverage, and who matches up with those type of guys. Theyâre big guys who run fast. Who do we have? So more and more defenses around the league are saying, who are the guys you donât necessarily have to put a label on, that are dynamic football players. Isaiah Simmons has played on the back end. Heâs played at linebacker, heâs come off the edge. And really, I think the only limitations on him, are the ones a defensive coordinator puts on him.â
Matt Rhule, who replaced Rivera with the Panthers, comes from a three-year stint as Baylor’s head coach in which his offenses tested opposing defenses to put athletes all over the field. So, he’s as conscious as anyone in the NFL of the new paradigm.
âI would just call it the position-less player,” Rhule said on Tuesday. “The days of saying, âHey, we need a MIKE linebacker or we need this.â Thereâs certain traits youâre looking for, but youâre looking for position-less players. The offenses in the league are changing, so the defenses have to be able to do a lot of things. I think weâre just looking for traits. Weâre looking for, âHey, this guy can really do this or really do that.â I think youâre seeing a lot more of that in the Combine as college football has really spread out. Weâre going to try and stay ahead of the curve on that, make sure we keep bringing guys in who can do a lot of different things for us, that give us multiplicity within the roster.â
Rhule said that it’s to the point now where he wouldn’t necessarily take what a player did in college and fit him into those same positions at the NFL level. It’s all about physical and mental attributes. The Steelers proved this last season when they traded for Dolphins Swiss Army knife Minkah Fitzpatrick, put him at deep safety almost exclusively, and turned their defense around. The ideal is not to fit a player in to multiple roles because those roles are needed; it is to align the player’s skills to those positions, regardless of need. Multiplicity becomes its own strength. On the other hand, Mike Tomlin and his defensive staff didn’t care that Fitzpatrick played six different positions for Nick Saban; they saw that Fitzpatrick could do the one thing they needed him to do.
âI think it comes down to traits and how they fit and thatâs why that whole process we had, âHey, this our vision for what a three technique looks like in our defense,'” Rhule said of the balancing act between traits and positional requirements. “Doesnât mean we have to find the best three technique in college, it means we have to go find the guy in college that has the traits we think we can coach. I think itâs really a fun process to find those traits and say, âWhatâs the vision for them within what we do?ââ
Cardinals general manager Steve Keim, who’s had multi-position players on his mind and on his defense since Arizona selected Washington State safety Deone Bucannon in the first round of the 2014 draft and turned him into a versatile “Moneybacker,” sees the game the same way today — through the eyes of players like Isaiah Simmons.
âI think with any player, you have to have a plan for him,” Keim said. “Which is, where are you going to play him, how is he going to align for you, and with players like that, his flexibility is his strength, his ability to match up in coverage and do the different things he can do. Heâs a dynamic athlete, you know he can play in the slot, he has some cover ability of wide receivers. I saw him play twice live this year, heâs not only a long athlete, but heâs got those short area movement skills that a lot of longer players donât have which again can translate to a very good cover guy at our level.â
Which is to say, Isaiah Simmons isn’t a linebacker or a safety or a cornerback; he’s an athlete. Xavier McKinney and Grant Delpit aren’t safeties per se as much as they are athletes who can be poured into the (hopefully) intelligent designs of their coaching staffs after their general managers pinpoint the traits that best match what the defensive is trying to do schematically. This is the way of the new NFL, which means it’s going to be the way of the draft, and the college pipeline that feeds it.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, âThe Genius of Desperation,â a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Associationâs Nelson Ross Award for âOutstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.â
For several coaches and general managers, the scouting combine was the time to open up about their fractious quarterback situations.
INDIANAPOLIS — While it’s true that the quarterback position is the most important and impactful position in the NFL, it’s also true that while the position is indispensable, the players playing that position are usually highly fungible. There aren’t many Tom Bradys who play two decades for one team, and as we all know, Brady himself might not be back in Foxborough in 2020.
Several head coaches and general managers were grilled about their fractious quarterback situations during their media sessions at the scouting combine, and here’s what we can gather from their words.
Last season, Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians, one of the league’s better quarterback instructors and passing game architects, had to watch in what we would assume was abject horror at times as Jameis Winston became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in the same season. Arians has said before that not all of Winston’s 30 picks were his fault, but even a cursory review of the most impactful interceptions shows a quarterback who tested Arians’ “No risk-it, no-biscuit” philosophy to its illogical end.
Winston will be a free agent unless the Bucs re-sign or tag him, and there’s a legitimate question to ask there: Why would they want to do that? On Tuesday, Arians was asked point blank whether Winston was “the guy,” and his answer was succinct:
“He could be.”
Winston had LASIK surgery this offseason, and maybe that will help. Was this a big deal to his coach?
âI donât think so,” Arians said. “Itâs more of a personal thing. His deep ball increased dramatically. So I donât think he has problem seeing the guys. He has problems seeing the scoreboard sometimes.”
Well, there is that. Like everyone else in the NFL, Arians is waiting to see what happens when the new league year kicks over on March 18, and a nearly unprecedented haul of free-agent talent at the position could be available. It makes the Winston decision easier and harder at the same time. Arians may believe that he can corral Winston’s rogue elements and bring out more of the guy who led the league with 5,109 passing yards.
âItâs amazing because you really donât know who is available until the tags come out and then youâll know,” Arians concluded. “Then you get a short window to talk to somebody. The legal tampering period. Right now, you donât even know if a guy is going to be on the market. Itâs hard to say. All these quarterbacks are out there? I think maybe two or three will be out there.ââ