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POMPEI: The diverse input on output
Dan Pompei
Posted: 49 minutes ago
Whether you sell insurance or manufacture chocolate truffles for a living, production means everything. But in the NFL Draft, spectacular production by college players — or the lack of it — routinely is ignored. A prospect's college statistics can be surprisingly irrelevant to how he projects as a professional.
Take, for example, Texas Tech quarterback B.J. Symons. Led the nation in passing. Seventh-round pick by the Texans.
Or, if you prefer, Oklahoma defensive tackle Tommie Harris. Eleventh on his team in tackles. First-round pick (14th overall) by the Bears.
Symons' gaudy numbers hardly impressed NFL scouts. In fact, some of them might have held those numbers against him because they were enhanced by a run-and-shoot style passing game. Some scouts say they learned a lesson by overvaluing Kentucky quarterback Tim Couch when he came out of a similar offense in 1999. "Teams will downgrade a player like Symons for the scheme because you can be horrific and still be productive in it," one veteran scout says.
On the other hand, the scheme can be an excuse for players like Harris. Bears general manager Jerry Angelo believes Harris would have made a lot more plays if Oklahoma had not asked him to slant so much. Slanting means Harris was taking a predetermined angle to the quarterback, which often took him out of the play. On one 30-play profile tape the Bears created, Harris slanted 19 times.
"They didn't put him in an advantageous position to make plays," Angelo says. "He also saw an extra blocker about 50 percent of the time. He rotated a lot. And we're not discounting the fact that instincts might be a little bit of an issue."
Four receivers at Georgia were more productive than tight end Ben Watson, who had 23 catches for 324 yards. That did not deter the Patriots from drafting him in the first round — or other teams from ranking him as a premium prospect. "We don't worry about production with a tight end, because they don't throw the ball to the tight end in some schemes," Houston general manager Charley Casserly says.
At the combine, Watson showed he can run and jump like an Olympian. His Wonderlic score testified that Watson is bright enough to smash atoms, let alone safeties. His hands looked plenty sticky when Watson caught pass after pass during Senior Bowl week. Yet the Georgia coaching staff made no attempt to feature him.
At Oklahoma, coach Bob Stoops stayed true to his scheme-driven philosophy and decided not to bend for Harris, an exceptional talent.
So now an NFL evaluator has to ask: Why didn't the college coaching staff change the system to highlight the player? "You have to give the coaches some credit because at some point they made the decision that he's not the guy," Falcons player personnel director Tim Ruskell says.
Some NFL teams questioned Watson's toughness and said his incredible weight room strength did not translate into functional blocking strength. That might have been a factor in why Georgia didn't try to get more out of him.
Southern California got plenty out of cornerback Will Poole, who ranked sixth in the country in interceptions and fourth in passes defended. But as was the case with Watson, the NFL paid more attention to his measurables than his production. For Poole, that meant watching 13 cornerbacks go off the board before he was selected in the fourth round by the Dolphins. His 4.65 40-yard dash killed him. "There has to be a level of speed with corners, no matter the production," Ruskell says. "You can't get by the physics of it."
Production can be defined in different ways. Angelo considers production to be consistency and doesn't put Harris in the category of a top athlete who was not productive. Casserly concurs. "Technically, Harris didn't have a lot of production," he says. "But I liked him. He might not have made the play, but he was disruptive and hard to block. Production was a positive with him."
No player in college football had as many tackles per game as Southern Mississippi linebacker Rod Davis' 13.67. But Davis was not drafted until the fifth round by the Vikings because NFL teams put little stock in his production. "He had incredible stats," one front office man says. "But when you watch the tape, you don't think he's productive. He was not a factor in making plays. You saw him getting blocked into tackles, or falling down and putting an arm out and the guy going down."
Production might not help a player like Davis, but it can't hurt him. At worst, production demonstrates that a prospect found a way to get his job done at some level. "Production means a guy has figured it out — he has the feel, the instincts to play the position," Ruskell says. "It also means his team felt it should give him the opportunity to be a playmaker, and he did it. It's very rare an unproductive college player is productive in the NFL. There aren't many Terrell Davises."
There are, however, quite a few B.J. Symonses.
Senior writer Dan Pompei covers the NFL for Sporting News. Email him at [email protected].
Dan Pompei
Posted: 49 minutes ago
Whether you sell insurance or manufacture chocolate truffles for a living, production means everything. But in the NFL Draft, spectacular production by college players — or the lack of it — routinely is ignored. A prospect's college statistics can be surprisingly irrelevant to how he projects as a professional.
Take, for example, Texas Tech quarterback B.J. Symons. Led the nation in passing. Seventh-round pick by the Texans.
Or, if you prefer, Oklahoma defensive tackle Tommie Harris. Eleventh on his team in tackles. First-round pick (14th overall) by the Bears.
Symons' gaudy numbers hardly impressed NFL scouts. In fact, some of them might have held those numbers against him because they were enhanced by a run-and-shoot style passing game. Some scouts say they learned a lesson by overvaluing Kentucky quarterback Tim Couch when he came out of a similar offense in 1999. "Teams will downgrade a player like Symons for the scheme because you can be horrific and still be productive in it," one veteran scout says.
On the other hand, the scheme can be an excuse for players like Harris. Bears general manager Jerry Angelo believes Harris would have made a lot more plays if Oklahoma had not asked him to slant so much. Slanting means Harris was taking a predetermined angle to the quarterback, which often took him out of the play. On one 30-play profile tape the Bears created, Harris slanted 19 times.
"They didn't put him in an advantageous position to make plays," Angelo says. "He also saw an extra blocker about 50 percent of the time. He rotated a lot. And we're not discounting the fact that instincts might be a little bit of an issue."
Four receivers at Georgia were more productive than tight end Ben Watson, who had 23 catches for 324 yards. That did not deter the Patriots from drafting him in the first round — or other teams from ranking him as a premium prospect. "We don't worry about production with a tight end, because they don't throw the ball to the tight end in some schemes," Houston general manager Charley Casserly says.
At the combine, Watson showed he can run and jump like an Olympian. His Wonderlic score testified that Watson is bright enough to smash atoms, let alone safeties. His hands looked plenty sticky when Watson caught pass after pass during Senior Bowl week. Yet the Georgia coaching staff made no attempt to feature him.
At Oklahoma, coach Bob Stoops stayed true to his scheme-driven philosophy and decided not to bend for Harris, an exceptional talent.
So now an NFL evaluator has to ask: Why didn't the college coaching staff change the system to highlight the player? "You have to give the coaches some credit because at some point they made the decision that he's not the guy," Falcons player personnel director Tim Ruskell says.
Some NFL teams questioned Watson's toughness and said his incredible weight room strength did not translate into functional blocking strength. That might have been a factor in why Georgia didn't try to get more out of him.
Southern California got plenty out of cornerback Will Poole, who ranked sixth in the country in interceptions and fourth in passes defended. But as was the case with Watson, the NFL paid more attention to his measurables than his production. For Poole, that meant watching 13 cornerbacks go off the board before he was selected in the fourth round by the Dolphins. His 4.65 40-yard dash killed him. "There has to be a level of speed with corners, no matter the production," Ruskell says. "You can't get by the physics of it."
Production can be defined in different ways. Angelo considers production to be consistency and doesn't put Harris in the category of a top athlete who was not productive. Casserly concurs. "Technically, Harris didn't have a lot of production," he says. "But I liked him. He might not have made the play, but he was disruptive and hard to block. Production was a positive with him."
No player in college football had as many tackles per game as Southern Mississippi linebacker Rod Davis' 13.67. But Davis was not drafted until the fifth round by the Vikings because NFL teams put little stock in his production. "He had incredible stats," one front office man says. "But when you watch the tape, you don't think he's productive. He was not a factor in making plays. You saw him getting blocked into tackles, or falling down and putting an arm out and the guy going down."
Production might not help a player like Davis, but it can't hurt him. At worst, production demonstrates that a prospect found a way to get his job done at some level. "Production means a guy has figured it out — he has the feel, the instincts to play the position," Ruskell says. "It also means his team felt it should give him the opportunity to be a playmaker, and he did it. It's very rare an unproductive college player is productive in the NFL. There aren't many Terrell Davises."
There are, however, quite a few B.J. Symonses.
Senior writer Dan Pompei covers the NFL for Sporting News. Email him at [email protected].
