Tag: bucky brooks

Ravens QB Lamar Jackson ranked as one of ‘scariest’ QBs by NFL.com analyst

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was ranked as one of the “scariest” quarterbacks in the league by an NFL.com analyst

The Baltimore Ravens have found a gem in quarterback Lamar Jackson. The team moved up in the 2018 NFL draft to select the former Louisville star, and the rest is history. The quarterback has accomplished many feats in the NFL through four seasons, which includes bringing in the second-ever unanimous MVP award, the most rushing yards by a quarterback in a single season, and multiple team records. The Ravens were lucky to have Jackson fall in the draft, and it shows every time he takes a snap.

Last season, Jackson suffered a bone bruise that forced him to miss the final six games of the regular season. The quarterback’s importance to the team showed heavily as Baltimore would not win any of those contests. Despite Jackson missing a quarter of the season in 2021 and him not attending voluntary organized team activities, one analyst sees the quarterback being one of scariest at his position entering the 2022 NFL season in a good way.

Bucky Brooks of NFL.com detailed his five scariest quarterbacks entering 2022 NFL season, and he placed Jackson at No. 4 on the list. When explaining why, Brooks credited Jackson’s dual-threat ability that will continue to give opposing defensive coordinators fits.

“The so-called slump from the former NFL MVP in 2021 has led some observers to have amnesia when recalling Jackson’s impact as a playmaker on the perimeter. After tallying a pair of 1,000-yard seasons as a rusher, defensive coordinators are well aware of his ability to take over the game on the ground. No. 8 is an explosive runner with superb ball-handling skills as an option quarterback executing a variety of power-read and counter-read plays. He has shown the ability to take it the distance as a runner from anywhere on the field and that forces opponents to pay extra attention to him in the box. With the fifth-year pro displaying enough proficiency as a passer down the middle of the field to punish opponents for overplaying the run, defensive coordinators have to pick and choose when to ratchet up the pressure against a quarterback who possesses the athleticism and arm talent to counter aggressive tactics.”

Jackson has often been critiqued on his passing ability, but he has shown improvements and looked decent last season prior to the injury. He is able to both run and throw at a high level, which makes him one of the most unique talents in the NFL. After missing a good portion of last season, Jackson will be ready to show that he has not missed a beat and continue to play great football in what is at this moment in time a contract year.

Bucky Brooks names Denzel Ward in his top 5 cornerbacks

Top 5 list for the newly extended Ward. Top AFC cornerback in a conference full of great quarterbacks could be huge for the Browns:

While the AFC North may still be a run-oriented conference, the passing attacks of Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson are still forces to be reckoned with. The AFC as a whole is on another level with an elite list of quarterbacks for the 2022 season.

While defense doesn’t win championships to the same degree anymore, the Cleveland Browns have prioritized some important positions on that side of the ball. After drafting Greg Newsome II and Martin (M.J.) Emerson with their first picks in back-to-back drafts (first and third round, respectively), the Browns signed Denzel Ward to a big extension this offseason.

While Myles Garrett is the key to the defense, it is obvious that Cleveland’s front office values the secondary greatly.

According to Bucky Brooks of the NFL Network, the Browns locked up the second best cornerback in all of the NFL when they extended Ward:

Ramsey has been considered the top corner in the NFL for a couple of years while Ward rarely gets mentioned in the conversation. Brooks placing Ward about J.C. Jackson, who signed a big deal this offseason in free agency, and Jaire Alexander, whose extension just barely eclipsed Ward’s, puts three AFC corners together on the list.

With Newsome blossoming as a rookie, Greedy Williams back for one more year and Emerson providing depth, Ward has a great stable of corners with him. Staying healthy and continuing to develop will be key for the former Ohio State Buckeye great to continue to ascend. Off the field, Ward continues to be an important part of the community.

NFL Network analyst explains why Lawrence will emerge in Year 2

An NFL Network analyst expects Trevor Lawrence to show people this season why he was the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s NFL Draft. NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks spoke about the former Clemson star and current Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback, giving …

An NFL Network analyst expects Trevor Lawrence to show people this season why he was the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s NFL Draft.

NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks spoke about the former Clemson star and current Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback, giving three reasons why he believes Lawrence will emerge in his second NFL campaign.

“My podcast partner, (NFL Network analyst) Daniel Jeremiah, likes to talk about the three Ps – it’s about protection, play-caller, playmakers,” said Brooks, a second-round pick of the Buffalo Bills in the 1994 NFL Draft who played for five different teams (Buffalo, Jacksonville, Green Bay, Kansas City and Oakland) in five NFL seasons.

“You improve in those areas, your young quarterbacks will improve.”

Brooks, who is also a former NFL scout, expounded upon that point, citing the Jaguars’ hire of former NFL quarterback Doug Pederson as their new head coach and their free-agent additions of weapons such as wide receivers Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, and tight end Evan Engram, as key reasons why he thinks Lawrence is poised to take a big step forward in Year 2.

“So, I’m looking at the Jacksonville Jaguars,” Brooks said. “Doug Pederson comes over with a reputation for helping quarterbacks – any quarterback – improve. And then you look at the moves that they have made… upgraded the wide receivers with veteran wide receivers – Christian Kirk, Zay Jones. You have Evan Engram coming over, guys that can play, Marvin Jones. Because you need veterans, because consistency and stability… They’re going to be at the spot where they’re expected to be at, and he can deliver the ball with trust.”

Lawrence flashed his potential at times during his first NFL season in 2021, including in Jacksonville’s regular-season finale against the Indianapolis Colts when he went 23-of-32 passing for 223 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions while leading the Jaguars to a 26-11 win.

Although Lawrence experienced his share of struggles as a rookie – he finished the season with a 59.6-percent completion percentage for 3,641 yards and 12 touchdowns with 17 interceptions – Brooks sees Lawrence as the NFL’s most intriguing second-year signal-caller due to the potential leap he could make in 2022.

“Overall, the talent, Year 1 to Year 2 is when you see the biggest jump,” Brooks said. “I think we’re going to see and appreciate why he was the No. 1 overall pick, this season.”

–Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images 

Commanders select defensive star in NFL.com’s expert live mock draft

Will Kyle Hamilton make it out of the top 10?

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Throughout the offseason, we’ve been under the assumption the Washington Commanders would go with an offensive player with the No. 11 overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft.

However, recent reports have some believing Washington would have difficulty passing up Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton if he were to slip outside of the top 10. Once Washington traded for quarterback Carson Wentz, many penciled in a wide receiver for the Commanders.

Not so fast.

In a new NFL.com expert live mock draft in which Daniel Jeremiah, Bucky Brooks, Colleen Wolfe and Rhett Lewis take turns making picks for making selections, Brooks makes the pick for Washington at No. 11.

His pick? Hamilton.

Wolfe asked Brooks if he was going to go wide receiver for Wentz, and Brooks cracked:

“Wide receiver, oh no, I’m not sure if he (Wentz) would hit him anyway,” he answered. Ouch.

“I am going to go and get someone on defense because we got to make sure we gotta play great defense. Let’s go Kyle Hamilton. He was outside the top 10, I am at No. 11, so I am going to take him. Remember, this is a guy who always wanted to be Sean Taylor coming up. He doesn’t necessarily give them exactly what Sean Taylor did, but he certainly will be the best safety we’ve seen play there in years. Jack Del Rio, Ron Rivera have a lot of fun finding ways to keep Kyle Hamilton in the mix.”

We’ve certainly heard plenty of young safeties say they want to be the next Taylor. No one is the next Taylor. However, Hamilton is arguably the best safety prospect coming out in years and could be a dynamic defensive weapon if Washington coaches employ him properly.

Bucky Brooks’ mock draft 2.0 has a CB for the Commanders

Bucky Brooks’ pick for the Commanders in his latest mock draft will surprise you — but it would be a terrific pick.

Only 24 hours earlier, Mel Kiper’s Mock Draft went perfectly for Washington. Bucky Brooks has produced his 2022 Mock Draft 2.0 and it has a significantly different result for the Commanders.

Ron Rivera has been nothing short of absolutely clear, Washington is looking for an upgrade at quarterback. Kiper’s 2.0 mock draft Tuesday saw everything fall perfectly for the Commanders at No.11, enabling them to select the first quarterback off of the board, Pitt’s Kenny Pickett.

Brooks sees it differently; quite differently. Brooks feels the Carolina Panthers at No. 6 will take the first quarterback off of the board, and he agrees that is Pickett.

Brooks does not have Washington reaching for a quarterback with Pickett off of the board. He sees the Commanders taking whom they feel is the best player on the board. Therefore, at No. 11 the Commanders take the second cornerback off of the board Derek Stingley (LSU), according to Brooks.

Thus, Brooks and Kiper agree that quarterback Malik Willis (Liberty U) will go at No. 20 to the Steelers. Kiper believes Willis will be the second quarterback off of the board. However, Brooks has Ole Miss QB Matt Corral going earlier at No. 18 to New Orleans.

Other significant differences were the No. 1 overall choice for Brooks, with Jacksonville selecting Evan Neal, OT Alabama while Kiper selected OT Ikem Ekwonu (NC State).

Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton has thus far been a very early consensus pick by analysts, including Kiper who has the Jets at No. 4 selecting Hamilton. Surprisingly, Brooks has Hamilton sliding all the way down to No. 15 and taken by NFC East rival Philadelphia.

When seeing Brooks have Carolina take Pickett at No. 6, and Washington picking at No. 11, my thought was, “Wow, if Kyle Hamilton remains available, I think Rivera might want a big safety with the range and versatility of Hamilton to pair with Kamren Curl.”

Bucky Brooks has Washington selecting a quarterback in his first mock draft

Bucky Brooks has Washington selecting a quarterback in his first mock draft.

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Mock drafts in January mean nothing. Mock drafts in February mean nothing. However, they’re still fun, as draft analysts assess a team’s biggest need and slot some of the draft’s top prospects to the team based on their needs.

Now, free agency comes before the draft, so many teams’ needs are filled in March, an entire month ahead of the NFL draft. But, for the most part, there are some needs you can’t fill in free agency.

If you need a quarterback in January, you’re going to need one in April unless you pull off a trade like the Rams last January, landing Matthew Stafford.

Washington needs a quarterback. And the answer isn’t in free agency. Washington either needs to swing big in a trade for a veteran or prepare to select one of the draft’s top passers in April.

Former NFL player, draft analyst and co-host of the “Move the Sticks” podcast with Daniel Jeremiah, Bucky Brooks released his first mock draft Tuesday.

Yes, he picked a quarterback for Washington.

At No. 11 overall, Brooks pegged Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral to Washington.

It’s time for Ron Rivera to get his franchise quarterback. The Ole Miss standout is a prolific playmaker with some dual-threat capabilities.

Corral checks off some of the important boxes for Washington coach Ron Rivera. Corral is mobile and has a live, accurate arm. There are concerns if his body will hold up at the next level, but Corral is a player who continued to improve in college, playing against the best competition in the country.

Brooks only had two quarterbacks go in the first round. Kenny Pickett went No. 9 to the Broncos.

 

Former NFL player, current analyst on what this year has taught him about Lawrence

A former NFL player and current NFL Network analyst still thinks Trevor Lawrence is made of the right stuff, despite the struggles he has endured during his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. NFL Media and Jaguars Media analyst Bucky …

A former NFL player and current NFL Network analyst still thinks Trevor Lawrence is made of the right stuff, despite the struggles he has endured during his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

NFL Media and Jaguars Media analyst Bucky Brooks — who was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the second round of the 1994 NFL Draft and played for five different teams (Buffalo, Jacksonville, Green Bay, Kansas City and Oakland) in five NFL seasons — talked about Lawrence in the latest edition of the Jaguars.com feature, “Huddle Up with Bucky Brooks.”

Assessing what he’s seen from Lawrence in his first NFL campaign, Brooks believes Lawrence will develop into the franchise quarterback the Jaguars envisioned when they made him the No. 1 overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft.

“I think he’s wired the right way,” Brooks said. “I think, if anything, this year has taught me that he has all the maturity and the poise and the professionalism to be an A1 player, and I think his game will eventually show that.”

In 14 games this season, Lawrence has completed 58.1 percent of his passes for 2,945 yards and nine touchdowns with 14 interceptions.

While those statistics are clearly subpar by Lawrence’s standards and not what many expected heading into a season in which he was the Offensive Rookie of the Year favorite, Brooks pointed out that Lawrence lacks the type of weapons around him that help other elite signal-callers around the league thrive.

“I think we like to romanticize the quarterback position as if they’re John Wayne in the western — that they just take down everybody, they do it all by themselves and they don’t need anything else to be able to thrive and flourish,” Brooks said. “And when you really look at it, all great quarterbacks typically have a handful of playmakers around them that are high caliber. I mean, Aaron Rodgers is playing with Davante Adams. Tom Brady has everybody. Pat Mahomes has Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, and the list goes on and on and on. And so, before we really can even understand what Trevor Lawrence can be in this league, you’ve got to make sure that you have enough high-end players around him.”

Brooks says in order to truly evaluate the caliber of quarterback Lawrence is, the Jaguars must surround him with an adequate level of talent and make that an objective this offseason.

“So, the challenge for anybody in the offseason in terms of building this team back, you have to make sure that you build an offense with enough high-end personnel to allow the quarterback to function at a level that will allow us to judge whether he is legit or not,” Brooks said.

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Bucky Brooks offers perspective on Dolphins’ minicamp headlines

Bucky Brooks offers perspective on Dolphins’ minicamp headlines

The past week has seen plenty of the Miami Dolphins in the headlines — although unfortunately their presence as a national talking point wasn’t necessarily for all the right reasons. There was a wave of reactions to reports from Miami’s minicamp that the team’s quarterbacks collectively tossed 7 interceptions on the first day of practice — the majority coming from second-year starter Tua Tagovailoa.

But as the week drug on, we saw the opportunity for some to push back against the negativity, including former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky. And now, highly regarded analyst Bucky Brooks of NFL Network has joined in on the assertion that June criticisms of ball security is much ado about nothing.

“Despite our insatiable appetite for real live football games, we need to remember that offseason workouts are a completely different animal. Some people are panicking about Tagovailoa’s performance in seven-on-seven and team drills, minicamp activities in shorts and T-shirts. This is silly.

As a young player with the Jacksonville Jaguars, I was encouraged by defensive coordinator Dick Jauron to experiment with different techniques during practice time, to determine what kind of approach best suited my skill set. The longtime NFL coach and former defensive back told me that you will never know your limits if you fail to test them. In addition, Jauron stressed to me that there is not a scoreboard on the practice field and the mistakes made while experimenting do not count. That’s why we should not overreact to reports of Tagovailoa’s struggles, particularly when he is working on becoming a more aggressive big-play hunter from the pocket.” — Bucky Brooks, NFL.com

Thankfully, there will be no more practice headlines for the next month or so as the team breaks one last time before the opening of 2021 training camp at the end of July. And when that rolls around, the hyper-analysis of the Dolphins’ young quarterback room will resume; only then will it be closer to something of substance than what this past week provided.

No Longhorns were selected in Bucky Brooks final 2021 NFL mock draft

No Texas Longhorns were taken in the first round of Bucky Brooks’ final 2021 NFL mock draft.

The 2021 NFL draft kicks off on Thursday night, therefore, analysts and writers have began to release their final mock drafts projecting which player(s) each team will pick.

It’s rare that analysts get these right. These projections are based on a combination of team needs, expected players available to fall to those respective teams and just a general feel for the board.

NFL analyst Bucky Brooks released his final first round mock draft for the 2021 draft, but interestingly enough, he didn’t include any Texas Longhorns to be selected in round one.

Offensive tackle Samuel Cosmi and pass rusher Joseph Ossai are both considered fringe first or second round players, but neither ended up in Brooks’ final mock.

In Brook’s top-5 rankings for each position, he mentions two Longhorns: Ossai is his No. 3 outside linebacker and Caden Sterns is listed as his No. 4 safety. There is a notable absence of Cosmi.

This is interesting considering Brooks had picked Ossai to go in the first round of his mock draft 1.0 previously. Obviously, you should take whatever mock draft with a grain of salt, but given Brooks’ connections and respect he has around the league, he might know more than he’s willing to let out.

It’s certainly possible that we will not see a Longhorn taken until day two of the draft.

Lamar Jackson responds to Bucky Brooks’ suggestion that Ravens let him ‘graduate’

The Baltimore Ravens have their franchise quarterback in Lamar Jackson. After Bucky Brooks challenged that, Jackson responded to him.

The Baltimore Ravens drafted Lamar Jackson to be their franchise quarterback and were committed to building their offense around him. They did just that, and Jackson has blossomed into one of the best young stars in the league.

Despite Jackson’s success, NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks floated the idea that Baltimore could move off the fourth-year signal-caller in favor of a younger option like Justin Fields. Jackson is due for a major extension soon, so Brooks believes that the Ravens can get the most out of their roster by resetting at quarterback.

The comment caused quite a large amount of controversy, and it seems that it reached Jackson. After ESPN’s Marcellus Wiley defended the quarterback to Brooks’ face, Jackson tweeted out the clip with a message.

Jackson made sure that his tweet was playful, adding in two laughing emojis, but his statement still carried some weight. He believes in himself, just like the organization, but hearing criticism 24/7 must be tiring. Jackson does a phenomenal job at tuning out and making sure he doesn’t see the hate, but some of it most likely trickles through.

Brooks’ idea makes sense to an extent, but suggesting that Baltimore follow his plan is extremely bold, especially considering any rookie quarterback wouldn’t be able to come in and immediately be as good as Jackson. The offense is tailored to him, so if any other player tried to run it, there would be some struggles.

Jackson has earned the lucrative contract extension he’s eventually going to receive. It wouldn’t be smart for the Ravens to part with him for the sake of money. Jackson has given so much to the city of Baltimore both on and off of the field, and it should stay that way for a very long time.