Senior Bowl

Purdue DT Alex Magee is looking good. He's an interesting mid-round 3-4 DE prospect.

Cody Brown bull-rushed the hell out of former teammate William Beatty, but Beatty stopped him the next time.

B.J. Raji took out two blockers on a run play, allowing linebacker Scott McKillop to make a tackle behind the line of scrimmage.

Love both of those players. Unfortunately, Raji's a 3-4 NT (we've already got Shaun Rogers), and McKillop isn't a good fit for playing inside in a 3-4.

Culling from various sources, here are some guys our scouts talked to on Monday:

B.J. Raji, NT, Boston College (Round 1)
Max Unger, C, Oregon (late Round 1/early Round 2)
Eric Wood, C, Louisville (Round 3)
Kraig Urbik, OG-OT, Wisconsin (late Round 2/early Round 3)
Andy Levitre, OG, Oregon State (Round 3)
William Moore, S, Missouri (late Round 1/early Round 2)
Patrick Chung, S, Oregon (Round 2)
Keenan Lewis, CB, Oregon State (late Round 2/early Round 3)
Zack Follett, LB, Cal (late Round 3/early Round 4)
Shawn Nelson, TE, Southern Miss (Round 5, but he's making a case to go higher)
Cedric Peerman, RB, Virginia (late Round 5/early Round 6)
Nathan Brown, QB, Central Arkansas (Round 5)

Nice little blurb about the safety prospects:

Among safeties, David Bruton (Notre Dame) displayed better lateral movement than William Moore (Missouri), who actually looked more like a linebacker. Both are good closers when a play is in front of them. Oregon's Patrick Chung is a bit more versatile, looking smooth for his position in drills and able to play in the box without fear. Louis Delmas (Western Michigan) also exhibited sideline-to-sideline range as a free safety.

Delmas is a guy to watch; I've only heard positive things about him.

WPB Dawg Fan

Aloysius said:
Nice little blurb about the safety prospects:

I keep coming back to Chung...he is versatile, has the headhunter instincts of a Polamalu...and slightly better size.

I am not sure why he is still 2nd round material, as he supposedly has good speed as well.

JewDago

some people don't trust chung because they think he's too small. he's listed at 5'11" and 207 and people wonder if he can hold up in the NFL and if he'll be able to cover the larger TEs in the league.

any slight deficiency, especially for a guy whose position requires that he have excellent size and speed and be a hybrid LB/CB who can stuff the run, rush the passer and cover, is going to drop a guy's draft stock.

which is good news for the team that gets him. chung's a gamer and possibly the best prospect in this class, though it seems like delmas is closing in on him.

WPB Dawg Fan

@jewdago said:
some people don't trust chung because they think he's too small. he's listed at 5'11" and 207 and people wonder if he can hold up in the NFL and if he'll be able to cover the larger TEs in the league.
any slight deficiency, especially for a guy whose position requires that he have excellent size and speed and be a hybrid LB/CB who can stuff the run, rush the passer and cover, is going to drop a guy's draft stock.

which is good news for the team that gets him. chung's a gamer and possibly the best prospect in this class, though it seems like delmas is closing in on him.

Like I said, he is Polamalu's size. Polly is 5'10" and 207 now...so Chung is taller and can still fill out a bit. Anyway, I have been on his bandwagon (along with Lucky at RB) for a while. Hope we snag him in Rd 2.

Oldcrow1945

@jewdago said:
some people don't trust chung because they think he's too small. he's listed at 5'11" and 207 and people wonder if he can hold up in the NFL and if he'll be able to cover the larger TEs in the league.
any slight deficiency, especially for a guy whose position requires that he have excellent size and speed and be a hybrid LB/CB who can stuff the run, rush the passer and cover, is going to drop a guy's draft stock.

which is good news for the team that gets him. chung's a gamer and possibly the best prospect in this class, though it seems like delmas is closing in on him.

5'11" and 207 and pretty close to average for an NFL FS....Beathea, Reed, Nelson, Wilson, Dawkins, Rolle, Griffin.

All these Guys are in the 5'10" to 6' range and are around 200 lbs.

Chung's more of a strong safety. He was used as a rover at Oregon - more of a fourth linebacker, not a deep cover guy.

I wonder if our scouts are looking at free safeties as well. If we lose Sean Jones, Brodney Pool could move to the strong safety spot - IIRC, he played pretty well there when Jones was hurt.

If so, Delmas could be a guy we consider. He plays FS, and he's a Taylor Mays-like headhunter in the secondary (though he's not Mays' size, leading to questions about his durability).

EDIT: I guess Moore is considered a FS, but his deficiencies in coverage likely will lead to him playing at the other spot (if not at linebacker).

Oldcrow1945

Aloysius.....Do you ever worry about all these college DE's making a smooth transition to the OLB spot in the 3-4?

It does worry me. Seeing what happened to Vernon Gholston last year makes me wonder sometimes if some of these guys are simply not made to play an OLB spot, even with the fact that the NFL seems to be more and more demanding that they do.

If I had the perfect situation, I'd rather pick a true OLB to play play that postion rather than a converted DE.

The thing I like about Moore is his pure speed. The kid is really fast for a player that size. Could play either safety position.

I like him a lot but there is always the injury issue. At one time he was a mid first rounder. Is he still?

P.S. Do you realize that your username is the first name of Mr. Snufflupagas on Sesame street? Just some lighted heartedness here...lol!

Is there a story behind you using this old German name?

Ha. My username is a reference to Sebastian Flyte's teddy bear in Brideshead Revisited (one of my favorite novels). I didn't know about the snuffleupagus thing until after I'd registered here.

As for converting DE to OLB: there always is some risk there. Maybe I'm just a little less worried because 1) I didn't think Gholston was a good fit; and 2) it's still possible that he could succeed. Part of the reason he didn't get any sacks is that he had two good OLB's, Calvin Pace and Bryan Thomas, playing ahead of him.

Still, I'm worried about the two top conversion prospects in this year's draft: Orakpo because I think he's physically more a 4-3 DE and Brown because I think his style of play doesn't augur a smooth transition.

In a way, I'm more comfortable with some of the lower ranked prospects: guys like Larry English and Cody Brown. Cody needs to get a little bigger (he's 6'2", 242 lbs.), but he looks plenty athletic for playing LB.

And we're going to get a lot more info about all of these guys this week & at the Combine. That should help eliminate some of the risk.

On NFL Network right now: Parcells and Belichick sitting next to each other at the Senior Bowl. That's pretty cool.

A Phil Savage interview!

Highlights:

Likes Pat White as a player & team leader, but doesn't think he's "there yet" as a QB.
Thinks the 3rd QB spot will shift from being reserved for a 3rd QB to one given to a WildDawg QB-WR hybrid like White.
Talked about the evolution of the college game. Said that the spread offense made looking for 3-4 prospects more difficult because defenses are getting smaller to counteract the speed of the spread.

TE Shawn Nelson just buried Rey Maualuga in a pass rush drill.

Savage called Clay Matthews "a phenomenal riser", labeled him a fringe 1st Round pick

Also, Savage said Brian Cushing could fit either a 4-3 or a 3-4 & "has the physique of an NFL player. As soon as he walks into your building, you'll say 'There's a #1 pick.'"

Nelson beat Maualuga again.

Savage said Maualuga getting beat isn't a big deal because the drill simulates rushing from an on the line position, and Rey's more of a blitzer from the inside.

Savage said most people see Rashad Johnson as a nickel/6th defensive back who can help on special teams.

I don't think Mayock is one of them - he has Johnson ranked as his #1 safety prospect.

Said Alphonso Smith is a 1st Rounder, but his marginal size will hurt him when facing guys like Randy Moss.

Talked about Mike Wallace, a receiver from Ole Miss. Said that he visited Ole Miss midseason & the coaching staff was a little down on him, but he put up huge numbers in the last four games of the year.

Said West Virginia CB Ellis Lankster's 40 time will be key in determining his draft stock.

Oldcrow1945

Aloysius said:
Chung's more of a strong safety. He was used as a rover at Oregon - more of a fourth linebacker, not a deep cover guy.

But teams that run the Tampa two.....It really doesn't matter too much, does it?

I think it matters less, but there's still a difference:

Tampa 2 description

The two safeties are responsible for covering their respective halves of the field from 20 yards out and more. The safeties in the system are expected to be above-average cover men with the ability to break up passes, but each safety also is expected to have additional specific skills. The strong safeties, while not expected to be great tacklers, are expected to be hard hitters. The hard hitting strong safety protects the middle of the field from being exploited by small, fast receivers, and running backs on wheel routes, by intimidating them to not run their routes in that direction. The free safety will be called upon to do one of two things in certain situations, either blitz the quarterback, requiring him to have the skills necessary to beat a blocking halfback or fullback, or to assume the coverage zone left by a blitzing cornerback.

And if it's a Tampa 2 team, Chung will have a lot to prove as far as his coverage ability, which is very important in that system. From what I've heard thus far, Chung has looked solid in coverage.

Some more notes:

Alabama center Antoine Caldwell (a favorite of Heck's) did a great job against Georgia DT Corvey Irvin. But when Caldwell slid over to guard, he was unable to deal with USC DE Kyle Moore's speed.
USC DT Fili Moala overpowered and outquicked Auburn OG Tyronne Green on successive plays. Moala also split two battles with Eric Wood, a center the Browns' scouts have been looking at.
Hawaii DE David Veikune used his quickness to get past Ole Miss OT Michael Oher on successive plays. Oher also struggled at times with Tennessee DE Robert Ayers yesterday; he may be getting exposed a little at these practices.
EDIT: Oher later adjusted and dominated Veikune.
Ole Miss DT Peria Jerry looked solid, beating LSU's Herman Johnson with speed and Louisville's Eric Wood with power.
Everybody was able to overpower Arkansas center Jonathan Luigs. He won't be able to contain 3-4 NT's.