Combine numbers. The story of one Bruce Campbell

Mayock had him ranked as the third best DE after Quinn and Bowers end January. Nolan Nawrocki had him going to Dallas in his first mock on February 8th. ESPN’s Todd McShay also had Watt going to the Cowboys a little later, as did Scott Wright of draftcountdown.com.

I knew about Mayock, not the other guys, thanks for the links.

I agree with you in principle that we shouldn’t overrate Combine performances at the expense of film study, but in Watt’s case, I don’t think his jump happened after the Combine. Perhaps he wasn’t getting the media exposure some of the other DEs were getting prior to the Combine.

I can agree with that, but after his Combine a lot of fans are now in love with him and I’m not sure that he’s a 3-4 DE. I think that a good comparison is a lesser Chris Long, a 4-man front edge defender that can play the run and pass, not a 5-tech.

As to your question, Jordan or Watt: ask 5 different scouts and you’ll probably get 6 different answers.

Yeah, I’m sure of that.

While I’m not sure about the potential along the DLine (as Sturm said, I can’t see one of the Cowboys DEs becoming great against the run or pass), I can certainly see a HUGE need for help along the OLine.

What’s the bigger area of importance in relation to the prospect value is a really nice question.

I can see points in favour and against both positions and I’m certainly thankful that I’m not the one making the decision.

Unless you think the OL prospects are really weak this year .. I dunno. To me, if the OL sucks, then the the players that hold the ball can’t do much. But if the DL has a hole (or two), the LBs and secondary give you a fighting chance.

Sure, that guy [JJ Watt] was considered high 2nd Round – late 1st Round material earlier in the year, so comparison with Bruce Campbell is kind of silly.

leave Mamula alone …

Mamula’s status as the combine’s pre-eminent failure requires two things to be true: (1) He was drafted far higher than his level of play in college would suggest because of his performance at the combine, and (2) he underperformed as an NFL player. Both are false.

At Boston College, Mamula was a stud defensive end. Over his final two years at BC, Mamula racked up 28 sacks, and that was back when the Big East wasn’t a punch line. He played outside linebacker in the 3-4 and defensive end in the 4-3, so there weren’t concerns about where he’d fit as a pro. In reality, if Mamula had an average combine, he still would’ve gone in the first round; he’s not someone like Matt Jones, a player with a third-round grade who moved into the first round because of the combine.

When Mamula made it to the pros, he actually wasn’t half-bad. His problem wasn’t production; it was injuries: He tore his ACL and his meniscus in the preseason in 1998, and although he came back with 8.5 sacks in 1999, he couldn’t stay on the field and was done after the 2000 season. He finished with 31.5 sacks in five seasons — not what the Philadelphia Eagles were expecting, sure, but he was better than a league-average player. Compare him to the New York Giants’ Cedric Jones, taken a year later with the fifth pick: Over five seasons, Jones had 15 sacks. In 1998, Arizona Cardinals defensive tackle Andre Wadsworth went off the board with the third pick; he was done in the league after 36 games. Why is Mamula the precautionary story and those guys aren’t?

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/the-myth-of-mike-mamula/

There are just two problems with that perception of Mamula:
1. The Eagles didn’t make him the seventh pick in the 1995 draft based solely on his combine performance.
2. His N.F.L. career wasn’t terrible.
As to that first part, yes, it’s true that Mamula helped himself by showing strength, speed and quickness at the combine. But he also helped himself by showing great production on the field during his career at Boston College. N.F.L. personnel evaluators liked Mamula long before they knew how fast he could run or how high he could jump. As just one example, take this Times story by William N. Wallace on November 13, 1994, after Boston College beat Syracuse, 31-0. Wallace wrote:

There were several National Football League scouts watching the game, and they could not help but give good grades to Mike Mamula, the Boston College defensive end who spent most of the day in the Syracuse backfield.

Mamula was an excellent college player who was attracting N.F.L. attention for his play on the field before the scouting combine.

And what about the second part, that Mamula’s N.F.L. career was terrible? Well, it wasn’t. A year ago at this time, Reuben Frank did something extraordinary: He wrote an N.F.L. draft story that actually analyzed Mamula’s career objectively. And an objective analysis of Mamula’s career shows that he was a fine player who had some bad luck with injuries. For his first three seasons in Philadelphia, Mamula was a starter on one of the best defenses in the N.F.L. He missed all of 1998 after suffering a preseason injury, returned in 1999 to record 8.5 sacks, and then suffered more injuries in 2000 before finally calling it a career.

tanstaafl,

I have to know bc for the life of me I can’t figure it out.

what’s your point with Mandarich, Mamula, and Freeney metrics?

Anybody for bad numbers, bad film?

Eeney-meeney-miney-moe? Red rover, red rover, send…?

considering:

-most players are not great pass rushers
-Cam Jordan didn’t rack up lots of sacks in college, and
-Cam Jordan didn’t have elite athletic markers.

I don’t think Cam Jordan will be making a big impact as a pass rusher at the NFL level.

Honestly, it probably had a lot to do with him being white…

Why ya racist (muttering)…

Now, before anybody gets their panties all in a bunch, it’s said in Carlin-esque humor. I’m white, not that it matters. Well, no that’s not true, I’m kinda, well, human colored. So I could be red, brown, golden, pink, maybe whitish like an albino or maybe anything, even green (with envy, not Eaglism, though even they’re human, mostly).

Just found the “reverse racism” ironically humorous.

There are many examples of players that had let’s say underwhelming measurables in the meat market (Rice and Emmitt are a couple of examples) and stilll managed and continue to manage decent or Hall of Fame kind of productivity.

Jason Witten is another example.

Having bad combine numbers can definetely hurt the draft position, a couple of examples would be Maualuga and Posluszny, but that doesn’t make them bad players.

Watt played in a conscious of his skills scheme. He has good speed and quickness, average hands and technique, so they moved him around from the right to the left side and they kept lining him up wide outside the Tackle, just like a pass rushing 4-man front DE.

He was expected to be more productive than a player like Jordan, who played the role of dancing elephant in the square 3-4 in Cali.

Maybe we have an inherent stereotype that when we see a big white guy that we underestimate his athleticism.

I’m gonna say BINGO. Watt wasn’t a big recruit either. He had a late growth spurt (from his combine interview). He was 6-3 / 230 coming out of HS. Then he grew to 6-6 250 his freshman year of college and thought he might be able to make the NFL. So he transferred to Wisc and bulked up to 290 and switched to DE and walked-on

Call me crazy, but I’m gonna say scouts are not going to OVERRATE the white former walk-on.

A great underrated movie!

“First you want to kiss me. Now you want to kill me. Blow.”

I am in no way a draftnik, but this debate has confused me. Why are we debating 3-4 DEs? We don’t need a DE. Yes, people are unhappy with the Bear, but he is serviceable. The front 3 in a 3-4 are supposed to be unsung. They are supposed to occupy OL-men and allow the 4 LBs to get the glory.

We need an ILB and a safety on defense and a RT or RG on offense. Instead of debating which guy you want, please tell me why that position is so important to you. I’m not being a di*k, I really want to know.