NFL Scouting Combine Recap Day 1: Offensive Linemen, Tight Ends, Special Teamers

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Jeff

Saturday marked the first day of on-field drills for the NFL Scouting Combine.  Players had been put through an array of medical exams, as well as interviews and a few off-field measurements such as height, weight, and bench press.

The NFL Scouting Combine consists of 11 groups each holding certain positions that take the field for drills over the course of four days. Group one has kickers, special teamers, and some offensive linemen. Group two is all offensive linemen, and group three is the tight ends. Groups four and five consist of quarterbacks and wide receivers, and the running backs are in group six. Groups seven and eight consist of defensive linemen and group nine has the linebackers. Groups 10 and 11 hold the defensive backs.

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Why the Kansas City Chiefs should trade for Nick Foles

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Jeff

I’ve been extremely intrigued with the idea of hiring Chip Kelly in Philadelphia ever since around Thanksgiving.  After first coming up with the idea, I’ve been enamored with future moves that they could make to bring the Chip Kelly offense to the NFL.

Nothing like seeing pieces fall into place.  With the addition of Dennis Dixon and the decision to keep Michael Vick, what does that mean for Nick Foles?  Foles was a 3rd round pick for the Eagles last year, and had a bumpy road in his first season, but he showed a ton of potential.  I’ve been a fan of his since I watched him during late night games when he was at Arizona.  I think he’s got a great future in the NFL, provided he gets on a team that will utilize him correctly.

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Senior Bowl in Review: Stock is falling

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Jeff

As always, there are always some players that show up to the Senior Bowl, have a bad week of practice and right or wrong, hurt their draft stock a great deal.  It’s never fair to solely judge someone on one week of practice and one game with people they’ve never played with before, but that’s just the way it is.  These three guys could have done a lot better than they did, and will have to have a good Combine to get their draft stock back up.

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Michigan Football 2013 National Signing Day Recap: Defense

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Jeff

Michigan’s 2013 recruiting class is full of players on the defensive side of the ball with potential that will be able to contribute down the road.  Just like last year, and the offensive side of the ball, their development will be absolutely crucial for the program.  It’s pretty awesome how much talent Hoke was able to assemble, with the help of his assistant coaches obviously, for this class on both sides of the ball.

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Michigan Football 2013 National Signing Day Recap: Offense

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Jeff

Easily the most uneventful National Signing Day I have ever seen.  Each of the 21 signees had turned in their Letters of Intent by 11:42 am on Wednesday, and they already have six early enrollees, giving them a total of 27 incoming freshmen.  Michigan had nothing to do but make sure their fax machine was working and send out offers for their 2014 class, which they did.  This class for 2013 is a well-balanced class personnel wise.  They got players at every single position, and it will absolutely be an impactful class down the road.  It is very highly ranked as well, and deservedly so. (Below: ESPN, Scout, Rivals Rankings respectively).

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Senior Bowl in Review: Stock is rising

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Jeff

There were a lot of guys who performed very well at the Senior Bowl, but for the sake of not boring everyone, I’m just going to pick the main three guys that stood out to me who really boosted/solidified their stock.

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Senior Bowl in Review: Denard Robinson

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Jeff

Studying for the GRE and finish up a few of these grad school applications have really been eating into my time, and I have hardly any time to post anything meaningful here, and so I elected to just put it off until I got the free time.  Hopefully now that it’s all taken care of I’ll have more time to devote here.

The Senior Bowl is always a huge week for the NFL.  Tons of scouts and coaches show up to get a chance to check out the top Senior College football players in the country.  Sometimes players make the strange decision to not go, usually they’re told it won’t help their stock, and sometimes it’s due to injury.  Personally, unless you’re injured I think you should go.  I mean hell, Denard Robinson showed up to play a position he had never played before when he wasn’t 100% healthy.  He wasn’t even cleared for contact his first two days there.

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The Detroit Lions off-season Plan: The NFL Draft

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jeff

Now we get to the meat and potatoes, my favorite part of the off-season process.  These players are just targets as of the moment because there is a lot of work left to be done.  There are pre-combine events like the Senior Bowl, the NFL Combine itself and players Pro Days and each of these events will have a big impact on the players draft stock.  After these are done, the players I’ve listed as targets could look very different, right or wrong, the Combine carries a lot of weight in a players draft stock.  I don’t know what it is but the draft process has always intrigued me and I’ll sit and watch every hour of the combine.  It’s just fantastic.  Here is the final part of the three part off-season plan.

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The Detroit Lions off-season plan: Free Agency

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jeff

The re-signing phase will play a crucial role in whether or not the Lions target any players in free agency.  In the second part of this series, we take a look at some of these potential players.

Free Agent Targets:  I’m optimistic that if the Lions can get everyone signed around what they’re making right now, that they could use the cap room from letting Cliff Avril and Corey Williams go to pick up a free agent or two.  Realistically, since this franchise is strapped for cash, they won’t make a major splash or impact in free agency.  This year’s free agency class is deep, there’s going to be a fair amount of turnover, and I have a feeling that the good teams will just simply get better.  It’s pretty absurd how deep some of the positions are, and it will be interesting to see which players end up testing free agency.

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The Detroit Lions off-season plan: Re-signings

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jeff

It’s been just over a year and yet again, I’m writing another piece on how to fix the Lions.  Unfortunately the Lions are more broken than we thought, and the only good news is that there are a lot of free agents that will be available.  The bad news?  The Lions were absolutely destroyed by the old CBA and they have a ton of money tied up in a few players; specifically Matt Stafford, Megatron and Ndamukong Suh.  They will keep working to restructure their deals and to sign them for the long-term, but it has handcuffed them so far.  They have almost half the team as free agents this year, so it will be an important and an extremely busy off-season.

This is the first part in a three part series previewing the Lions off-season needs.  Specifically who to re-sign, who could be a free agent target and who to watch at the combine as a potential Lions pick.

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