Thursday, April 22, 2010

Draft Day & such....

All hail the new, improved, slightly truncated NFL draft. The eve is finally upon us & this is the deepest Tech class we can remember with four players assured of going & another (Cord Howard) on the fence. Some thoughts & links heading into tonight:
So we'll be watching tonight & wishing our guys the best. Here's hoping Cord Howard gets drafted this weekend. Have to pull for the offensive line guys who make it all happen.

2 comments:

  1. Took a look at Matt Walden's stuff on Dwyer. Really interesting stuff, and I agree with almost all of his points, but I'm still not sure I see the lack of speed he's talking about in those plays. Dwyer had an average combine speed, but part of me thinks he's faster "relatively" in a football game.

    The highlights Walden used where from 2009. Last year Dwyer didn't get as many pitches because they were going to Anthony Allen. Allen's a great player, but he was often caught from behind inside the five, while more often Dwyer took it to the end zone. So Dwyer is at least faster than Allen, who could end up playing in the NFL also.

    Please, anyone tell me if I'm watching this through rose tinted glasses, but...

    In the first highlight, the Duke player has a chance to get ahead of Dwyer because Dwyer appears to be slowing down to make proper use of block in front of him, and then oh yeah, has to run through a player.

    In the second play Dwyer puts the ball in the wrong hand forcing him to use his left arm to stiff arm. If he has the ball on the outside he can use the right to stiff arm which would help him get to the outside. Walden's right, few people can cut across the grain like that in the NFL, and Tech blocks great coming across the field, but he still has enough speed to burst past two defenders after running across the field.

    On the third highlight, sure he has a five yard head start, but he appears to be running away from those FSU players. It doesn't look like they are closing on him and just run out of field. Maybe the Corner Back / Safety is closing, but he was ten yards down field at the snap

    On the fourth highlight, I can see his point about the pitch getting Dwyer to the edge, but then he seems to just run by everyone.

    etc. etc. etc.

    I'm not saying Dwyer is burner, but I don't see anything on film that says he's so slow that a team should worry about it when they consder drafting him. There do seem to be plenty of legitimate questions about how he'll run out of an I-Formation (patients, vision, etc.) and I can understand those reasons pushing him into the second or even third round, but he seems fast enough to me.

    Anyone who sees something on that film that demonstrates a lack of speed, please feel free to step up and point it out.

    -frank

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  2. and I saw Tashard Choice run at Tech. He clearly had a hard time breaking long plays in college (was still a great player for tech) and he's still an effective nfl running back.

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