Thread: NFL Scouting Combine: Speed Thrills, But Does It L

Prophet wrote:

i_bleed_purple wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Mr Anderson wrote:

Just read it, not surprisingly, there are more booms than busts. It's when teams base picks on speed alone that they get in trouble. If the guy can play ball, and run like the wind, then you've got a guy who's gonna make an impact. But if he's Darius Heyward-Bey or Troy Williamson, you're screwed.

You can't teach speed, and there's no doubt it's a major factor on the game.

I would rather have someone that is relatively slow that has talent (Cris Carter, Percy Harvin, Jerry Rice, etc.)

since when was Percy Harvin relatively slow? The dude's fast as balls. He probably ran a 4.4 straight outta the womb.

There was talk of him dropping from the first round last year because of his relatively slow time, that's what I'm basing it off of.

Point is, fast is not the top shelf on a weighted average skill set in my book.

Still, if you look at the chart, there are more that have suceeded than naught and the ones who didn't succeed, well, there were questions about them going into the draft.

As someone said, all it takes is for one team to bite.

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

i_bleed_purple wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Mr Anderson wrote:

Just read it, not surprisingly, there are more booms than busts. It's when teams base picks on speed alone that they get in trouble. If the guy can play ball, and run like the wind, then you've got a guy who's gonna make an impact. But if he's Darius Heyward-Bey or Troy Williamson, you're screwed.

You can't teach speed, and there's no doubt it's a major factor on the game.

I would rather have someone that is relatively slow that has talent (Cris Carter, Percy Harvin, Jerry Rice, etc.)

since when was Percy Harvin relatively slow? The dude's fast as balls. He probably ran a 4.4 straight outta the womb.

There was talk of him dropping from the first round last year because of his relatively slow time, that's what I'm basing it off of.

Point is, fast is not the top shelf on a weighted average skill set in my book.

Still, if you look at the chart, there are more that have suceeded than naught and the ones who didn't succeed, well, there were questions about them going into the draft.

As someone said, all it takes is for one team to bite.

Ok, I'll take Harvin off my list and only use Jerry Rice and Cris Carter for my examples.

Prophet wrote:

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

i_bleed_purple wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Mr Anderson wrote:

Just read it, not surprisingly, there are more booms than busts. It's when teams base picks on speed alone that they get in trouble. If the guy can play ball, and run like the wind, then you've got a guy who's gonna make an impact. But if he's Darius Heyward-Bey or Troy Williamson, you're screwed.

You can't teach speed, and there's no doubt it's a major factor on the game.

I would rather have someone that is relatively slow that has talent (Cris Carter, Percy Harvin, Jerry Rice, etc.)

since when was Percy Harvin relatively slow? The dude's fast as balls. He probably ran a 4.4 straight outta the womb.

There was talk of him dropping from the first round last year because of his relatively slow time, that's what I'm basing it off of.

Point is, fast is not the top shelf on a weighted average skill set in my book.

Still, if you look at the chart, there are more that have suceeded than naught and the ones who didn't succeed, well, there were questions about them going into the draft.

As someone said, all it takes is for one team to bite.

Ok, I'll take Harvin off my list and only use Jerry Rice and Cris Carter for my examples.

Hard to argue with that. Give it a few more years and then we can revisit some of the speed guys.

By the way, speed at the OL, DL, LB kindof positions would be a interesting look as well.

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

i_bleed_purple wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Mr Anderson wrote:

Just read it, not surprisingly, there are more booms than busts. It's when teams base picks on speed alone that they get in trouble. If the guy can play ball, and run like the wind, then you've got a guy who's gonna make an impact. But if he's Darius Heyward-Bey or Troy Williamson, you're screwed.

You can't teach speed, and there's no doubt it's a major factor on the game.

I would rather have someone that is relatively slow that has talent (Cris Carter, Percy Harvin, Jerry Rice, etc.)

since when was Percy Harvin relatively slow? The dude's fast as balls. He probably ran a 4.4 straight outta the womb.

There was talk of him dropping from the first round last year because of his relatively slow time, that's what I'm basing it off of.

Point is, fast is not the top shelf on a weighted average skill set in my book.

Still, if you look at the chart, there are more that have suceeded than naught and the ones who didn't succeed, well, there were questions about them going into the draft.

As someone said, all it takes is for one team to bite.

Ok, I'll take Harvin off my list and only use Jerry Rice and Cris Carter for my examples.

Hard to argue with that. Give it a few more years and then we can revisit some of the speed guys.

By the way, speed at the OL, DL, LB kindof positions would be a interesting look as well.

Seems to me that speed at the draft is a little more heavily weighted as an asset and then when the athletes will invariably slow with age they make up for their decreased athleticism by using the wisdom they have gained. That is more than likely the case for both Rice and Carter. Some aren't bright enough to make that a conscious decision.

Prophet wrote:

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Marrdro wrote:

Prophet wrote:

i_bleed_purple wrote:

Prophet wrote:

Mr Anderson wrote:

Just read it, not surprisingly, there are more booms than busts. It's when teams base picks on speed alone that they get in trouble. If the guy can play ball, and run like the wind, then you've got a guy who's gonna make an impact. But if he's Darius Heyward-Bey or Troy Williamson, you're screwed.

You can't teach speed, and there's no doubt it's a major factor on the game.

I would rather have someone that is relatively slow that has talent (Cris Carter, Percy Harvin, Jerry Rice, etc.)

since when was Percy Harvin relatively slow? The dude's fast as balls. He probably ran a 4.4 straight outta the womb.

There was talk of him dropping from the first round last year because of his relatively slow time, that's what I'm basing it off of.

Point is, fast is not the top shelf on a weighted average skill set in my book.

Still, if you look at the chart, there are more that have suceeded than naught and the ones who didn't succeed, well, there were questions about them going into the draft.

As someone said, all it takes is for one team to bite.

Ok, I'll take Harvin off my list and only use Jerry Rice and Cris Carter for my examples.

Hard to argue with that. Give it a few more years and then we can revisit some of the speed guys.

By the way, speed at the OL, DL, LB kindof positions would be a interesting look as well.

Seems to me that speed at the draft is a little more heavily weighted as an asset and then when the athletes will invariably slow with age they make up for their decreased athleticism by using the wisdom they have gained. That is more than likely the case for both Rice and Carter. Some aren't bright enough to make that a conscious decision.

That tracks with me.

Quick question, did you catch Leber on NFLN last night? They were talking about the 3 cone shuttle and what the coaches look for when they are running it.

Kindof interesting.

Marrdro wrote:

...Quick question, did you catch Leber on NFLN last night? They were talking about the 3 cone shuttle and what the coaches look for when they are running it.

Kindof interesting.

Quick Answer: No.

It is fun to hear what these guys say, which is pretty sad to acknowledge, now that I think about it.

This pretty much echoes what I think about the combine:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/02/21/observations/index.html

The Scouting Combine is coming ... but I wish you wouldn't get very excited about it.

In my calls around the league in the last few days, I spoke to one club architect who shall remain nameless at his request. He told me his team had changed its way of doing business in the scouting realm this year, and his team's draft board is "90 percent set."

Quoth this architect: "You know why it's 90 percent set now? Because guys go to the Scouting Combine and they change their grade on a player based on things that have nothing to do with playing football. I'm convinced if you took the stopwatches away from a lot of these guys, most of 'em would not be able to tell you whether they liked a player or not.

"These guys go out and watch players all fall, then we all watch the tape of all these guys, and we see what kind of football players they are. That's scouting. Who plays good football in pads? That's scouting. Now we need the combine for the medical evaluations and the personal baggage stuff. But don't come in after the combine and tell me you want to change some guy and move him way up because he ran faster than you thought he would. That's where you get in trouble, and that's why our draft board is pretty well set."

If I told you who this speaker was, you'd all say, "Whoa, we have to listen to this guy. We respect him." Just take my word for it. He's legit.

I enjoy the combine. It gives me the chance to meet a lot of players I'll be covering in the future and to see people in the NFL and get team-by-team updates. It's valuable. But it's way overrated in terms of deciding who should get picked where in the draft, and it always will be.

=Z=

Zeus wrote:

This pretty much echoes what I think about the combine:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/02/21/observations/index.html

The Scouting Combine is coming ... but I wish you wouldn't get very excited about it.

In my calls around the league in the last few days, I spoke to one club architect who shall remain nameless at his request. He told me his team had changed its way of doing business in the scouting realm this year, and his team's draft board is "90 percent set."

Quoth this architect: "You know why it's 90 percent set now? Because guys go to the Scouting Combine and they change their grade on a player based on things that have nothing to do with playing football. I'm convinced if you took the stopwatches away from a lot of these guys, most of 'em would not be able to tell you whether they liked a player or not.

"These guys go out and watch players all fall, then we all watch the tape of all these guys, and we see what kind of football players they are. That's scouting. Who plays good football in pads? That's scouting. Now we need the combine for the medical evaluations and the personal baggage stuff. But don't come in after the combine and tell me you want to change some guy and move him way up because he ran faster than you thought he would. That's where you get in trouble, and that's why our draft board is pretty well set."

If I told you who this speaker was, you'd all say, "Whoa, we have to listen to this guy. We respect him." Just take my word for it. He's legit.

I enjoy the combine. It gives me the chance to meet a lot of players I'll be covering in the future and to see people in the NFL and get team-by-team updates. It's valuable. But it's way overrated in terms of deciding who should get picked where in the draft, and it always will be.

=Z=

+1, that's why I have a tough time getting excited about it.

The real deal is like in any profession, you get a bunch of qualified applicants and you want to see if any of them are psychotic or toss up any red flags that may be detrimental to the team's goals. At least get that data into the set so they can make an informed decision on someone and their attitude that may be perceived as a risk because of 'off the field' issues.

Prophet wrote:

Zeus wrote:

This pretty much echoes what I think about the combine:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/02/21/observations/index.html

The Scouting Combine is coming ... but I wish you wouldn't get very excited about it.

In my calls around the league in the last few days, I spoke to one club architect who shall remain nameless at his request. He told me his team had changed its way of doing business in the scouting realm this year, and his team's draft board is "90 percent set."

Quoth this architect: "You know why it's 90 percent set now? Because guys go to the Scouting Combine and they change their grade on a player based on things that have nothing to do with playing football. I'm convinced if you took the stopwatches away from a lot of these guys, most of 'em would not be able to tell you whether they liked a player or not.

"These guys go out and watch players all fall, then we all watch the tape of all these guys, and we see what kind of football players they are. That's scouting. Who plays good football in pads? That's scouting. Now we need the combine for the medical evaluations and the personal baggage stuff. But don't come in after the combine and tell me you want to change some guy and move him way up because he ran faster than you thought he would. That's where you get in trouble, and that's why our draft board is pretty well set."

If I told you who this speaker was, you'd all say, "Whoa, we have to listen to this guy. We respect him." Just take my word for it. He's legit.

I enjoy the combine. It gives me the chance to meet a lot of players I'll be covering in the future and to see people in the NFL and get team-by-team updates. It's valuable. But it's way overrated in terms of deciding who should get picked where in the draft, and it always will be.

=Z=

+1, that's why I have a tough time getting excited about it.

The real deal is like in any profession, you get a bunch of qualified applicants and you want to see if any of them are psychotic or toss up any red flags that may be detrimental to the team's goals. At least get that data into the set so they can make an informed decision on someone and their attitude that may be perceived as a risk because of 'off the field' issues.

I don't think the quoted FO puke is saying anything earth shattering here. Most believe that the combine is nothing more than a part of the process when it comes to player evaluation.

Some teams go to see if a player can be coached, some go just to get a crack at talking to them, hell some even go just to see what other teams are looking at, but I don't think you would find any team (other than the Raiders) who go and base thier draft off of the combine only.

By the by, thanks for the read Z.....

Prophet wrote:

Marrdro wrote:

...Quick question, did you catch Leber on NFLN last night? They were talking about the 3 cone shuttle and what the coaches look for when they are running it.

Kindof interesting.

Quick Answer: No.

It is fun to hear what these guys say, which is pretty sad to acknowledge, now that I think about it.

It was very interesting. Discussion got into some of the things they try to work on, that they new the teams were looking at.

Another LB was on with him (can't remember who) but he talked about how he worked on getting around just the last cone as that is were the coaches watched LB'rs the most.

Hip shift and explosion out of it.