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Clemson DE shows off his speed
Doug Farrar / FootballOutsiders.com
Posted: 1 hour ago
Monday is the final day that Football Outsiders will have a presence at this year's Scouting Combine, and I wanted to wrap up our work with a final five observations.
Overall, this is the content equivalent of the Mr. Creosote scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where the fat man simply eats until he blows up. You can't possibly retain it all at the time, and that's good in a sense — it gives intrepid journos enough to work with through the NFL's "dead season," especially this year, as free agency looks to be a bit less of a blip on the radar.
http://img99.*************/img99/3139/gainespb6.jpg
Clemson's Gaines Adams was already slated as a first-round pick before the combine, but Doug Farrar says the defensive end — in a performance reminiscent of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas — elevated his reputation to a new level this last week. Also, quotable quotes from Indy.
It's been an amazing insight into the player analysis process, especially as it pertains to the seemingly hair-thin difference between a future star and a possible bust. At this level, your decision to run or not to run ... to bench or not to bench ... and how you do so, could cost you mightily. Beyond the Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl, this is where it really starts to count, and it's very easily felt.
Clemson's Gaines Adams was already slated as a first-round pick before the combine, but Doug Farrar says the defensive end — in a performance reminiscent of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas — elevated his reputation to a new level this last week. Also, quotable quotes from Indy.
1. Star of the day: Gaines Adams, DE, Clemson
On Monday, Adams ran a 4.64 40-yard dash — the fastest of any defensive lineman, and just ahead of Texas-Austin's Brian Robison. He finished second in his group to Oklahoma's C.J. Ah You in the vertical jump at 36 inches, and did a 4.36 in the 20-yard shuttle, which was third in his group. Basically he made himself a whole lot of money this week, confirming all the positives regarding his athleticism and explosiveness. And he didn't even have to do the bench press, which he'll take on at his Pro Day on March 13.
Adams was already the top-ranked DE on many lists, but like Wisconsin offensive tackle Joe Thomas and a handful of others, Adams took the high regard personnel experts had already for him to a new level. The 6-foot-4, 260-pound Adams also performed well in linebacker drills. An AP First-Team All-American, he led the Atlantic Coast Conference with 12.5 sacks, and was named his conference's Defensive Player of the Year. Adams thought about entering the draft in 2006, but head coach Tommy Bowden talked him into that senior year. Good advice, Coach!
2. From madhouse to echo chamber
Last Friday, you couldn't hear yourself think in here. A record number of credentials were given out this year for the Scouting Combine (well over 300 — there were more reporters than players, I believe), and each one of the recipients were in the media room on that day at the Indianapolis Convention Center, just a 20-yard Virgil Carter "long bomb" from the RCA Dome. In addition to all the ancillary folderol, coaches, execs and college players were coming through in waves to be interviewed. At times, it was impossible to keep up. Though the buzz lasted through the weekend, Friday is generally known as the day in which you'll be wobbling back to your hotel room, your head popping with quotes and your laptop asking for a permanent vacation.
I'm beginning this article on Monday morning in that very same media room. Though defensive drills begin with the linemen and linebackers, most writers head home today. At 10:34 a.m. ET on Monday, there are exactly three people in the entire room. I've seen a few more guys popping in and out, but you can tell that from a national media perspective, this thing is really winding down for another year, the NFL Network's soup-to-nuts coverage notwithstanding. Where it isn't winding down at all is at the RCA Dome, at least for the defenders who have this day to set their future stock prices pretty much in stone.
3. The real winner in the San Diego shakeup? Kris Dielman
After San Diego's 14-2 season and 24-21 divisional round bump from the playoffs courtesy of the New England Patriots, Chargers GM A.J. Smith won the power battle between himself and former head coach Marty Schottenheimer when Schottenheimer was fired by team president Dean Spanos on Feb. 12. While it's well-known that Smith and Schottenheimer never got along, Smith's new role as the team's obvious pointman is full of potential potholes. First, he replaced Schottenheimer with Norv Turner, a man known for quarterback development more than coaching leadership. Good luck following up that franchise-best win total, Norv!
Smith is on the hook for everything if it doesn't work out, and former Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, having seemingly interviewed for every head coaching vacancy down to the Egyptian Football League, was not retained by Chicago and now coaches San Diego's linebackers. Ouch.
Kris Dielman should cash in this off-season. (Harry How / Getty Images)
The one person who will come out of this Dysfunction Junction smelling like a rose is upcoming unrestricted free agent left guard Kris Dielman. Dielman was a major cog in the San Diego offensive line, which ranked first in Football Outsiders' Adusted Line Yards ranking, and ninth in Adjusted Sack Rate. Dielman was also a big help to rookie left tackle Marcus McNeill, who enjoyed an absolutely stellar initial NFL campaign.
Now, according to FOXSports.com's John Czarnecki, the Seattle Seahawks are preparing to pay Dielman somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.5 million per year. Sounds like a lot for a guard? Perhaps, until you consider that after getting poison-pilled out of Steve Hutchinson by the Vikings, the Seahawks plummeted from sixth to 30th in Adjusted Line Yards from 2005 to 2006, and from ninth to 28th in Adjusted Sack Rate. And this is still a line with Walter Jones.
Remember when the stock split on cornerbacks a couple years ago? As FO's Aaron Schatz wrote yesterday, it's now going to happen for guards like Dielman and Cincinnati's Eric Steinbach.
4. The questionable questions and quotable quotes
Before I go any further, it should be noted that yours truly has bungled more than one inquiry in the past. Trust me, I'm not throwing stones here. But the sheer number of times coaches and GMs had to answer questions this week about players under contract with other teams before free agency begins on March 2nd was humorous. "Um ... I'm not allowed to talk about players who are under contract," we heard over and over. And justifiably so.
There was also the reporter who asked Boise State quarterback Jared Zabransky whether "it was going to be weird not playing on a blue field (Boise State had a few road games — like the 2007 Fiesta Bowl — and they sometimes practice on grass), and the lineman who was asked why he never played in the defensive backfield.
His reply? "It's something called 'Weight!' "
Best player quotes? Second place may go to Utah SS Eric Weddle: "Right now, it's really 'hearsay and theresay'", he said, when asked how many NFL teams had talked to him.
But Auburn CB David Irons was the runaway winner of this year's Toastmasters Golden Gavel Award. Among the snippets:
On the relationship with brother and Auburn teammate Kenny: "It was very competitive, even looks-wise. I told him I look better than him, he told me he looks better than me. We always have someone say who looks better. He was the ugliest out of the bunch. Some days my mom says she wishes she never had him. No, I'm joking. Other than that, he's a great guy. We compete in everything we do: videogames, running, football, just shopping, clothes, everything."
And what about the overall athletic competition with Kenny? "He always thought he was faster for some reason. He must've raced someone that was slower than him. He came to the house when I was in junior college and he thought he could beat me in a race. He had never raced me before in his life, and all of a sudden, he thinks he's going to run this amazing 40 time. He thinks he's faster than me because he's been training. So competition has been fighting, wrestling, the main things kids do when they're little."
Was he ever a better running back than Kenny? "Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I was 10 times better. He was my fullback in high school, he'd block for me. I'd tell him to just go block, tell him to scare the opposing teams with his face. I just tell him, 'Don't wear a visor or nothing. Just go there, wear a clear visor or don't wear a visor at all. They look at the face, they move out of the way, we win the game.' The days he wore the visor and he didn't show his face, those are the games we lost.
"We had what was called the ugly sweep. Ugly sweep on the right, and ugly sweep to the left. That's when he doesn't get in visors and tries to look all pretty and he scares opponents away and I'm down the sideline for touchdowns. At the end of the game, I'm sitting in the fourth quarter and we just let him in the game so he can feel good about himself."
His thoughts on the formal interview process: "Amazing experience. My brother's been telling me about it. I really don't listen to this guy too much. He thinks he's a baby James Brown. You should've seen this caramel suit he had on yesterday at the restaurant. Looked like a big coffee jar."
Would he prefer to play with or against Kenny in the NFL? "I would love to play against him. I can't play with him again. If a team drafted me on the same team, I don't think I would go report to camp. I've been with him forever, all my life. I told him it's time to divorce, sign the papers over in divorce court. You can't play like that.
"I see that guy every day. I can't even go to scary movies because I see him every day. I told him he needed to get with Steven Spielberg and make one of the scariest movies out there. On Halloween, I can't go trick-or-treating without him bringing his own self to be his costume. Kids don't come to our house anymore like they used to at Halloween. He's a pumpkin and a little Johnny Appleseed and everything."
You now understand why Irons' press conference was perhaps the only one in Combine history followed by light applause from the media.
5. Open sesame — The media gets inside!
On Sunday, several reporters, writers and analysts were allowed into the RCA Dome. This was the first time that non-NFL writers had been permitted access to the actual combine drills — generally, we're out in the media room waiting for times and other info from official reports, filing stories and interviewing players. Though I was not one of the fortunate ones allowed into the dome, I spoke to Rob Rang of NFLdraftscout.com about the experience. He said that the reporters were cordoned off in a box on the other end of the field from where the drills were happening. Therefore, it was hard to tell who was doing what at a microscopic scouting level, though each reporter was asked to turn in his thoughts on an individual player.
In the grand scheme of things, this points to more open access to the combine experience for all involved. And not just in the name of better and more comprehensive coverage — I've seen the reports, and they're very impressive — but for fans as well. More and more, the league is talking about making the drills a public event. Jeffrey Foster, the president of the National Football Scouting Service (the company that coordinates the combine each year, and provides a scouting service to many NFL teams), said on Sunday that a presentation was recently made to the Competition Committee about making the drills open to the public. Foster, a former pro personnel assistant with the Chiefs, also confirmed that the agreement with the RCA Dome has been extended through 2008, which means that this event will be here next year.
One thing I know for sure — I'll be here as well. When it comes to off-season football information, the combine is the motherlode until the draft itself rolls around.
It was a wonderful time
Doug Farrar / FootballOutsiders.com
Posted: 1 hour ago
Monday is the final day that Football Outsiders will have a presence at this year's Scouting Combine, and I wanted to wrap up our work with a final five observations.
Overall, this is the content equivalent of the Mr. Creosote scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where the fat man simply eats until he blows up. You can't possibly retain it all at the time, and that's good in a sense — it gives intrepid journos enough to work with through the NFL's "dead season," especially this year, as free agency looks to be a bit less of a blip on the radar.
http://img99.*************/img99/3139/gainespb6.jpg
Clemson's Gaines Adams was already slated as a first-round pick before the combine, but Doug Farrar says the defensive end — in a performance reminiscent of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas — elevated his reputation to a new level this last week. Also, quotable quotes from Indy.
It's been an amazing insight into the player analysis process, especially as it pertains to the seemingly hair-thin difference between a future star and a possible bust. At this level, your decision to run or not to run ... to bench or not to bench ... and how you do so, could cost you mightily. Beyond the Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl, this is where it really starts to count, and it's very easily felt.
Clemson's Gaines Adams was already slated as a first-round pick before the combine, but Doug Farrar says the defensive end — in a performance reminiscent of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas — elevated his reputation to a new level this last week. Also, quotable quotes from Indy.
1. Star of the day: Gaines Adams, DE, Clemson
On Monday, Adams ran a 4.64 40-yard dash — the fastest of any defensive lineman, and just ahead of Texas-Austin's Brian Robison. He finished second in his group to Oklahoma's C.J. Ah You in the vertical jump at 36 inches, and did a 4.36 in the 20-yard shuttle, which was third in his group. Basically he made himself a whole lot of money this week, confirming all the positives regarding his athleticism and explosiveness. And he didn't even have to do the bench press, which he'll take on at his Pro Day on March 13.
Adams was already the top-ranked DE on many lists, but like Wisconsin offensive tackle Joe Thomas and a handful of others, Adams took the high regard personnel experts had already for him to a new level. The 6-foot-4, 260-pound Adams also performed well in linebacker drills. An AP First-Team All-American, he led the Atlantic Coast Conference with 12.5 sacks, and was named his conference's Defensive Player of the Year. Adams thought about entering the draft in 2006, but head coach Tommy Bowden talked him into that senior year. Good advice, Coach!
2. From madhouse to echo chamber
Last Friday, you couldn't hear yourself think in here. A record number of credentials were given out this year for the Scouting Combine (well over 300 — there were more reporters than players, I believe), and each one of the recipients were in the media room on that day at the Indianapolis Convention Center, just a 20-yard Virgil Carter "long bomb" from the RCA Dome. In addition to all the ancillary folderol, coaches, execs and college players were coming through in waves to be interviewed. At times, it was impossible to keep up. Though the buzz lasted through the weekend, Friday is generally known as the day in which you'll be wobbling back to your hotel room, your head popping with quotes and your laptop asking for a permanent vacation.
I'm beginning this article on Monday morning in that very same media room. Though defensive drills begin with the linemen and linebackers, most writers head home today. At 10:34 a.m. ET on Monday, there are exactly three people in the entire room. I've seen a few more guys popping in and out, but you can tell that from a national media perspective, this thing is really winding down for another year, the NFL Network's soup-to-nuts coverage notwithstanding. Where it isn't winding down at all is at the RCA Dome, at least for the defenders who have this day to set their future stock prices pretty much in stone.
3. The real winner in the San Diego shakeup? Kris Dielman
After San Diego's 14-2 season and 24-21 divisional round bump from the playoffs courtesy of the New England Patriots, Chargers GM A.J. Smith won the power battle between himself and former head coach Marty Schottenheimer when Schottenheimer was fired by team president Dean Spanos on Feb. 12. While it's well-known that Smith and Schottenheimer never got along, Smith's new role as the team's obvious pointman is full of potential potholes. First, he replaced Schottenheimer with Norv Turner, a man known for quarterback development more than coaching leadership. Good luck following up that franchise-best win total, Norv!
Smith is on the hook for everything if it doesn't work out, and former Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, having seemingly interviewed for every head coaching vacancy down to the Egyptian Football League, was not retained by Chicago and now coaches San Diego's linebackers. Ouch.
Kris Dielman should cash in this off-season. (Harry How / Getty Images)
The one person who will come out of this Dysfunction Junction smelling like a rose is upcoming unrestricted free agent left guard Kris Dielman. Dielman was a major cog in the San Diego offensive line, which ranked first in Football Outsiders' Adusted Line Yards ranking, and ninth in Adjusted Sack Rate. Dielman was also a big help to rookie left tackle Marcus McNeill, who enjoyed an absolutely stellar initial NFL campaign.
Now, according to FOXSports.com's John Czarnecki, the Seattle Seahawks are preparing to pay Dielman somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.5 million per year. Sounds like a lot for a guard? Perhaps, until you consider that after getting poison-pilled out of Steve Hutchinson by the Vikings, the Seahawks plummeted from sixth to 30th in Adjusted Line Yards from 2005 to 2006, and from ninth to 28th in Adjusted Sack Rate. And this is still a line with Walter Jones.
Remember when the stock split on cornerbacks a couple years ago? As FO's Aaron Schatz wrote yesterday, it's now going to happen for guards like Dielman and Cincinnati's Eric Steinbach.
4. The questionable questions and quotable quotes
Before I go any further, it should be noted that yours truly has bungled more than one inquiry in the past. Trust me, I'm not throwing stones here. But the sheer number of times coaches and GMs had to answer questions this week about players under contract with other teams before free agency begins on March 2nd was humorous. "Um ... I'm not allowed to talk about players who are under contract," we heard over and over. And justifiably so.
There was also the reporter who asked Boise State quarterback Jared Zabransky whether "it was going to be weird not playing on a blue field (Boise State had a few road games — like the 2007 Fiesta Bowl — and they sometimes practice on grass), and the lineman who was asked why he never played in the defensive backfield.
His reply? "It's something called 'Weight!' "
Best player quotes? Second place may go to Utah SS Eric Weddle: "Right now, it's really 'hearsay and theresay'", he said, when asked how many NFL teams had talked to him.
But Auburn CB David Irons was the runaway winner of this year's Toastmasters Golden Gavel Award. Among the snippets:
On the relationship with brother and Auburn teammate Kenny: "It was very competitive, even looks-wise. I told him I look better than him, he told me he looks better than me. We always have someone say who looks better. He was the ugliest out of the bunch. Some days my mom says she wishes she never had him. No, I'm joking. Other than that, he's a great guy. We compete in everything we do: videogames, running, football, just shopping, clothes, everything."
And what about the overall athletic competition with Kenny? "He always thought he was faster for some reason. He must've raced someone that was slower than him. He came to the house when I was in junior college and he thought he could beat me in a race. He had never raced me before in his life, and all of a sudden, he thinks he's going to run this amazing 40 time. He thinks he's faster than me because he's been training. So competition has been fighting, wrestling, the main things kids do when they're little."
Was he ever a better running back than Kenny? "Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I was 10 times better. He was my fullback in high school, he'd block for me. I'd tell him to just go block, tell him to scare the opposing teams with his face. I just tell him, 'Don't wear a visor or nothing. Just go there, wear a clear visor or don't wear a visor at all. They look at the face, they move out of the way, we win the game.' The days he wore the visor and he didn't show his face, those are the games we lost.
"We had what was called the ugly sweep. Ugly sweep on the right, and ugly sweep to the left. That's when he doesn't get in visors and tries to look all pretty and he scares opponents away and I'm down the sideline for touchdowns. At the end of the game, I'm sitting in the fourth quarter and we just let him in the game so he can feel good about himself."
His thoughts on the formal interview process: "Amazing experience. My brother's been telling me about it. I really don't listen to this guy too much. He thinks he's a baby James Brown. You should've seen this caramel suit he had on yesterday at the restaurant. Looked like a big coffee jar."
Would he prefer to play with or against Kenny in the NFL? "I would love to play against him. I can't play with him again. If a team drafted me on the same team, I don't think I would go report to camp. I've been with him forever, all my life. I told him it's time to divorce, sign the papers over in divorce court. You can't play like that.
"I see that guy every day. I can't even go to scary movies because I see him every day. I told him he needed to get with Steven Spielberg and make one of the scariest movies out there. On Halloween, I can't go trick-or-treating without him bringing his own self to be his costume. Kids don't come to our house anymore like they used to at Halloween. He's a pumpkin and a little Johnny Appleseed and everything."
You now understand why Irons' press conference was perhaps the only one in Combine history followed by light applause from the media.
5. Open sesame — The media gets inside!
On Sunday, several reporters, writers and analysts were allowed into the RCA Dome. This was the first time that non-NFL writers had been permitted access to the actual combine drills — generally, we're out in the media room waiting for times and other info from official reports, filing stories and interviewing players. Though I was not one of the fortunate ones allowed into the dome, I spoke to Rob Rang of NFLdraftscout.com about the experience. He said that the reporters were cordoned off in a box on the other end of the field from where the drills were happening. Therefore, it was hard to tell who was doing what at a microscopic scouting level, though each reporter was asked to turn in his thoughts on an individual player.
In the grand scheme of things, this points to more open access to the combine experience for all involved. And not just in the name of better and more comprehensive coverage — I've seen the reports, and they're very impressive — but for fans as well. More and more, the league is talking about making the drills a public event. Jeffrey Foster, the president of the National Football Scouting Service (the company that coordinates the combine each year, and provides a scouting service to many NFL teams), said on Sunday that a presentation was recently made to the Competition Committee about making the drills open to the public. Foster, a former pro personnel assistant with the Chiefs, also confirmed that the agreement with the RCA Dome has been extended through 2008, which means that this event will be here next year.
One thing I know for sure — I'll be here as well. When it comes to off-season football information, the combine is the motherlode until the draft itself rolls around.
It was a wonderful time