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Scout’s Eye: More Notes From Senior Bowl Practices; Standouts From North Team
Thursday, January 22, 2015 5:05 PM CST
By Bryan Broaddus Football Analyst/Scout @BryanBroaddus
IRVING, Texas – We’re back from the Reese’s Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala., but I’ve only just begun to break down the prospects we watched there.
Here are some of my refined impressions from watching the North squad practice this week. I’ll have notes on the South squad on Friday.
Thursday, January 22, 2015 5:05 PM CST
By Bryan Broaddus Football Analyst/Scout @BryanBroaddus
IRVING, Texas – We’re back from the Reese’s Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala., but I’ve only just begun to break down the prospects we watched there.
Here are some of my refined impressions from watching the North squad practice this week. I’ll have notes on the South squad on Friday.
- As this draft process starts out, keep an eye on Stanford’s defensive end, Henry Anderson. He wasn’t a player that was initially on my radar before I made the trip to Mobile, but after studying his work from the practices, I have to admit he got my attention.
At 6-6, 287, he might be more of an end in a 3-4 defense than an edge rusher in a 4-3. But what I liked about the player was his ability to come off the ball and use his hands to control the blocker. There were several snaps in the one-on-one pass rush drills where he was able to fire those hands inside, grab the blocker and disengage to get up the field. Anderson also plays with some surprising power to the point where he is driving the blocker back into the quarterback.
He managed to play this way with Jamal Douglas and Robert Myers when they tried to sit down on him. Later in the drill, Anderson lined up on the outside shoulder of center Max Garcia and quickly beat him to his snapping hand to gain a pressure. There were no negative plays from him in the opportunities that I saw.
- My experience in going to these Senior Bowl practices tells me that there will be times when coaches would like to see a player move from his natural, college position to one that might better suit him in the NFL game.
- Last year, Michael Sam worked as an outside linebacker and it didn’t go well for him in that look. This year there are a couple of different players that fit this bill in Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall at corner and Harvard’s Zack Hodges at outside linebacker.
The player I want to focus on is Hodges, who played as a defensive end for the Crimson. At 6-2, 245, he might not have the ideal weight as, say Nate Orchard or Markus Golden, but in studying his game tape from Harvard he can bring the same amount of pressure off the edge. I was surprised by how well Hodges was able to move in space while dropping in coverage but also how well he reacted out of the drop.
The only fault that I observed in his coverage was there was a lack of feel in the way he covered, and what I mean is when the receiver took him up the field he just wasn’t near enough to feel when the receiver was breaking the route off. This is more about a lack of experience than it was bad technique. I could see a team using Hodges as a strong side linebacker in a base defense, then having him put his hand on the ground and rush out of the nickel.
