Right Guard - it’s not just deodorant

Unsympathetic

Looks like Kalis has the pole position to RG starter as of today

Gotta love UDFA's who knuckle their way to a career.. One thing we can say about Kalis is that he won't cost much.

Orion

As 'someone' would've said, 'The fat-ass offensive linemen are a dime a dozen'. The defensive linemen get the ball back for your QB.

But the OL is charged with Protecting your QB. The DLinemen are not. If your QB gets hurt, you're sunk. I hope we have someone who can man that RG position.

Flugel

For some reasons, I have a really good feeling about this kid. Love the way he stays with his blocks and finishes people... I think he could provide the reliability we need at RG to replace Zeitler with.

Tour2ma

@flugel said:

For some reasons, I have a really good feeling about this kid. Love the way he stays with his blocks and finishes people... I think he could provide the reliability we need at RG to replace Zeitler with.

Looks more OT-ish to me... plays too high to handle NFL-grade DTs.

Coach Flugs would be all over him about standing up at the snap and hopping into any movement (wasted motion).

What I do like is that even with the wasted motion early he gets to smaller, quicker 2nd-level defenders consistently and eliminates them from the play without having to reach for them. That takes some quick feet.

TexasAg1969

I'm always a little leery of highlights, especially against far lesser competition than the NFL. But I do like how he is always looking around when he knocks one down and immediately searches for another to hit.

Flugel

@tour2ma said:

Looks more OT-ish to me... plays too high to handle NFL-grade DTs.

Coach Flugs would be all over him about standing up at the snap and hopping into any movement (wasted motion).

What I do like is that even with the wasted motion early he gets to smaller, quicker 2nd-level defenders consistently and eliminates them from the play without having to reach for them. That takes some quick feet.

Some good points Tour. Thanks! He does have a tendency to spring up too quickly into a higher pad height.

Speaking of wasted steps. What I could work with is he doesn't belly back when he pulls or traps. By staying tight to the line of scrimmage it reduces the steps and works well with his quick feet at getting there in time to be efficient. I saw quite a few examples of that in the film. What I don't like about pulling/trapping Guards and Tackles together is if the Tackle is quicker than the Guard, it either slows up the Tackle or he trips over the Guard (which I could see happening in programs with less scholarships). That makes life incredibly easy for the defenders that originally lined up across from them to swoop in behind them and stop the play for a loss. The hardest thing for newbies to it all is they don't always trust the linemen next to them are firing out so the tendency is to angle the first steps backward rather than than laterally. "Coach what if someone gets jacked up backwards?" Then you're not bei

A lot college Tackles have far less training at trapping and pulling than many of the Guards so it isn't uncommon to see some things that might need to be coached up. The good news is that hop can be solved and improved in stances and starts. That's where I learned how to do it as a teen back in the day. If I can learn it - anybody can. In fact, when I coached at the high school level in an offense that always had the guards on the move trapping and pulling - I don't remember too much difficulty with them picking it up. Teams knew we did a lot of that so it was our job to make sure we didn't have anyone in their stance leaning to tip off the play. Part of that process, is having the right kids for the position. The other part is teaching something to them that is very doable with practice and repetition.

All that said, Cleveland has had problems in the past with how quickly some college Tackles have picked up the art of tapping and pulling. The 1 guy that comes to mind was the late round small school pick with red hair and freckles that overcame a heart defect (whose name escapes me). Anyway, injuries threw him in at LG next to Joe Thomas before he was ready. I remembered seeing him belly back away from the line of scrimmage to the extent he collided with the playaction (fake handoff setting up the misdirection trap) and he smothered the whole thing in our backfield. That's not the way you want to learn how to do it. If you're going to change a guy from Tackle to Guard in an offense that likes mis-direction traps or leading sweeps/bootlegs with a Guard - you better spend significant time on stances and starts at the beginning of the year or you've flushed the entire opportunity down the toilet IMO. Also, when you change a guy's position mid-season - he may not have all that down yet. Then you gotta be patient with growing pains like I mentioned about the small school feller - while Cleveland was a place running out of patience at the time he turned a trap play into a football follie.

For whatever all that's worth, I think most of Forbes' issues are coachable.

Flugel

@texasag1969 said:

I'm always a little leery of highlights, especially against far lesser competition than the NFL. But I do like how he is always looking around when he knocks one down and immediately searches for another to hit.

While true Aggies, is there any other way to find a Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State), Larry Allen (Sonoma State), Leon Lett (Emporia State) , or Ali Marpet (Hobart) dominating competition enough for intrigue? Isn't it also conceivable guys on DI powerhouse teams can get overrated like Trent Richardson, Dee Milliner, Chance Warmack, Vernon Gholston, Big Daddy Wilkinson, etc...

So what else should we look at regarding Forbes? Size, strength, and the metrics assessing quickness, agility, explosion etc. He ranked with elite in many of these except for wing span (which places him more at the position I think he can help us most at).

I like where we landed him in a round that says let's develop the lad. That said, he might not require as much patience as we may think. A lot of his things that need tweaking are very doable IMO.

TexasAg1969

@flugel said:

While true Aggies, is there any other way to find a Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State), Larry Allen (Sonoma State), Leon Lett (Emporia State) , or Ali Marpet (Hobart) dominating competition enough for intrigue?

I have to agree with you there. I have a kid I've seen in middle school that has just made 2nd team HS RB as a 10th grader coming into this season on a team that lost the state finals in Jerryworld just the year before last in next to the highest level of HS Football. This kid is an absolutely amazing athlete who won district both in 7th & 8th grade playing QB and occasionally CB when they needed to steal the ball. My son says at practice a couple of weeks ago while a Tulsa coach was scouting a senior WR, he came to my son saying he was getting stopped by a very fast LB almost every play. My son's advice was to start his first move on the guy when he closed to about 10 yard. The kid is so quick and agile he is capable of Barry Sanders like multiple moves with that kind of distance. He went in, did as instructed and suddenly was running 30, 40 and 50 yard TDs. The Tulsa scout was absolutely flabbergasted by what he did after he heard my son tell him how to beat the LB and then watched him execute. Needless to say he's on that radar and before it's all over, if he stays healthy, he will be D1 bound. He's the fastest kid on the team and is only a few seconds under world record 400 m times just leaving 9th grade. Also set power lifting records for his weigh class. I don't want to put his name here, but I'm calling the A&M recruiters about him. He is something special and has one handed pass catching ability to top it all off. Once he commits to a college I'll give you his name to file away to keep up with at that level.

gumby73

Call me Crazy..lots have.. but i watch the video above & somebody just clicked in my head.(watch forbes QB get crushed at 6:25 ? boom!,not on him) Reminded me of Forbes coming out of a bigger school. A.)Mystery X part 2, played C/G/LT till his Senior year at Nebraska. B.) He was 6'3" 305 at combine, benching 29 reps & played like a crazed Brian Bozworth on the OL. C.) Mystery X2 was drafted by the St Louis Rams in in 2005 in 3rd rd. pick 81..D.) Could you believe this guy scored a 32 on a wonderlic test? On the field (only) I see a lot of *Richie Incognito* coming out of Nebraska traits in Drew Forbes. Richie was asked to pull from everywhere his whole career (watch Richie's tape) <<< I ? we stole Drew Forbes in 6th round to play LT..(swing Robinson back to RT)

TexasAg1969

Just a followup on this kid who is just starting 10th grade. My son told me he just attended a UTSA football camp this weekend and ran a timed 40 in 4.43. That there is NFL speed.