Each year at about this time, all 32 NFL teams gather in Indianapolis. Their objective is simple: To poke, prod, test, and gather information on the incoming wave of NFL talent. While time will tell which players from a class will become stars, the Scouting Combine is just a part of the process that eventually leads to the NFL Draft. And while there's no real big need for either of the 2 position groups that went today for New England, here are some of my observations from what I saw through the NFL network's Day 1 coverage of On-field workouts, highlighting the OL and TEs.
1) Yeah, they get faster: While watching the OL today, Mike Mayock stated that each year, players get bigger, faster, and stronger. It's an obvious statement, but a true one. For example, who would have ever thought that an OL would run a sub 4.75 second fourty, even unofficially? It happened in today's workouts (Terron Armstead and his 4.65 unofficial 40, 4.71 official), and there were others that were fairly quick, at least to me. Although speed isn't the most important thing with OL (see Chance Warmack, who ran a 5.55 and 5.53 unofficial 40), it can help with showing how quickly an OL can get down field. In my eyes, the 10-yard split time is more important to an OL.
2) Footwork is EVERYTHING: I like listening to Mayock talk about footwork when it comes to OL. It's a very important factor, due to how the OL is operating in a phone booth. From what we saw during the kick-slide drills, you can sort of tell who has issues with footwork and who doesn't. Again, an obvious statement, but it's much more important for the Tackles to be quick on their feet than it is for a Guard, who can be much more of a mauler. Footwork is important for all OL though.
3) TEs and Hops: Being a Pats fan, I am a really big fan of how Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez are able to elevate in the Red Zone and go win a jump ball. And while watching the 3 best TEs according to Mayock (Tyler Eifert, Zach Ertz, Gavin Escobar) while they were at the Vertical Jump, they all seemed to have a decent amount of hops. Will be interesting to see how they all compare to each other at the end of the day.
4) Catch the damn ball: Of course, if one's a TE, one has to be able to catch the ball, as well as block. And from what I've seen of this year's crop of TEs, there's a pretty good number of them that are able to run solid routes, along with having good hands. Some of the ones that I thought were among the best from today were the big 3 (Eifert, Ertz, Escobar), along with Dion Sims, Jake Stoneburner, and Jordan Reed.
5) Run, Rich, Run: Of course, there were the average folks running 40s. Should be fun to see how Rich Eisen runs on Tuesday.
It will be a fun Sunday set, with the WRs, RBs, and QBs hitting the field. With WR being a potential area of need for New England, I'll more than likely be watching that area closer than some other areas, but I'm looking forwards to it. Alberto should have another post later on today or this weekend about his views on the combine. And yes, the Jets STILL S-U-C-K.
-TheRealZBD
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