Cbz40
The Grand Poobah
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Time for teams to pay
Posted: 5 hours ago
NFL executives are not supposed to talk to agents of players on other teams until the official start of free agency on March 2.
But if there has anything we have learned from the conversations which are absolutely, positively not happening here in Indianapolis, it is that the contract numbers in free agency this year will be completely insane.
We're talking about guys like Kris Dielman and Eric Steinbach making Steve Hutchinson money. We're talking about second-level guys like Tony Pashos being paid the money that Dielman and Steinbach would have gotten a year ago. We're talking about Nate Clements being given his own Caribbean island. When the Patriots franchised Asante Samuel, they also handed Clements a license to print money. Supply and demand is a beautiful thing.
The common explanation for these huge salaries is that the rising cap gives teams more money to play with, but it is a little more complicated than that. After all, the cap rises every year, right? What's special about this year's free agency class is that 2007 was the "uncapped year" at the end of the last CBA. The rules related to that year limited the amount of cap value that a contract could push past 2006. As a result, it was almost impossible for a team to put itself into salary cap trouble — and that's the reason why so many teams have boatloads of cash this year.
Ask which teams are in on a certain player, and the list will always include at least one of these three teams: San Francisco, Arizona, or Washington. San Francisco and Arizona because they have a ton of cap room and lots of positions that could be upgraded. Washington because the Commanders never learn.
Other thoughts from the final day of media access at the combine ...
The name to watch among quarterbacks: Kevin Kolb
Last year, Football Outsiders writer David Lewin discovered that two collegiate statistics are strong indicators for a successful NFL quarterback: completion percentage and total games started. And when you look at these stats for the quarterbacks at the NFL combine, one name jumps out at you: Kevin Kolb of Houston. Kolb completed 62 percent of passes in 50 starts. (By comparison, Brady Quinn completed 58 percent of passes in 46 starts.)
Those same stats, however, are also good indicators of a system quarterback who won't succeed in the NFL. Figuring out whether Kolb is one or the other is what the scouts are for. Kolb knew that he went into the draft process with the need to prove that he isn't a system quarterback — and so far, he's succeeding. A couple of scouts and an NFL quarterback coach told me Kolb is the best quarterback in the draft other than the big two of JaMarcus Russell and Quinn. There's a general feeling that no quarterback helped himself more at the Senior Bowl.
Despite Kolb's improvement in the eyes of many scouts, however, he's still expected to go no higher than the third round.
Could JaMarcus Russell drop out of the top slot?
Russell isn't participating in any drills here, and he looked a little pudgy when it came time for official measurements. Calvin Johnson and Joe Thomas, on the other hand, have completely blown people away.
The combine performance of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas solidified the tackle's spot in the draft's top 5. (Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Everybody felt that Johnson was the best athlete in this draft, but the 4.35 he posted in the 40 confirmed it. Many people were impressed both by his demeanor when interviewed by the press and by the very fact that he's participating in the combine workouts. Everyone says the same thing: "Larry Fitzgerald with a better leap."
Joe Thomas has also blown everyone away with both his athletic ability and his personality. He ran a 4.92 in the 40-yard dash — although that strikes me as the kind of combine performance that means absolutely nothing in the long run. Any play that requires an offensive lineman to run 40 yards in any direction is ill-advised.
Nobody is yet saying that the Raiders might bypass Russell to take Johnson or Thomas. But there's definitely talk that teams might try to trade up to take Johnson or Thomas.
A bad draft for tight ends now looks worse
Only two tight ends in this year's class were considered to be real impact players: Zach Miller of Arizona State and Greg Olsen of Miami. According to our buddies at Scout.com, the next tight end is lower-third round talent.
Zach Miller is one of two impact tight ends in this draft class. (Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Well, that just got worse. I asked Adam Caplan of Scout.com about which players hurt themselves this weekend, and nearly every name he gave me was a tight end. Zach Miller looked so slow and ran such bad routes that he's fallen below Olsen and all the way out of the first round — maybe even the second round. Anthony Pudewell of Nevada had a poor 40 and couldn't catch the ball. Clark Harris of Rutgers impressed nobody.
Only two tight ends seem to have really helped themselves here: Olsen, whose blistering 4.45 40 will probably make him a top 20 pick, and Michael Allan, the tight end from Division III Whitworth College who nobody can stop talking about.
Learn to long snap
Yes, our shared alma mater gives me reason to write about him, but out of the small school guys, only Allan is getting more attention than linebacker Zak DeOssie. One coach's first response when asked about DeOssie: "That guy is a beast." This is not normally a phrase you hear about guys from Brown University.
Size isn't the thing that sets DeOssie apart, however, and neither is the Ivy background. The thing that makes DeOssie a real prospect is special teams. The same coach told me about a player who was all-state in high school and started at a big college program from the first day of his freshman year. He gets to his first NFL camp, and the special teams coach asks him about his experience on special teams, and the response is: "I've never played special teams."
If you are taken on the second day of the NFL draft, you better be ready to play special teams. DeOssie, like his father, can long snap. He played on kick coverage all four years at Brown. He even punted in high school. Looking at two linebackers in the fifth round, that special teams experience becomes a big deal. There's a reason why so many guys who are known for special teams are smaller-school guys, including Larry Izzo (Rice), Sean Morey (Brown),and Isaiah Kacyvenski (Harvard) — or, in past years, Jerry Azumah (New Hampshire) and Larry Whigham (Louisiana-Monroe).
Other players who helped themselves here
Wide receiver Steve Smith of USC. Smith ran the 40, unofficially, in 4.37 and 4.35. He did well in the shuttle. I seem to hear nothing but hesitant comments about Dwayne Jarrett, and at this point, I expect Smith to be the first of the two USC receivers to be chosen.
Defensive lineman Amobi Okoye. He has absurd physical talent, he's astonishingly intelligent, and he's only 19 years old because he was two grades ahead when he moved here from Nigeria a few years ago. He gives the NFL something that only the NBA had before: someone you can project to be far better in the future because he hasn't fully grown into his body yet. Okoye was a late-first round guy before, but I think he may be top 10 now. (And no, he's not related to Christian Okoye.)
Offensive lineman Andy Alleman of Akron. Strong and mobile, and looked good in workouts. Could help a team with a zone-blocking scheme.
Cornerback Chris Houston of Arkansas-Fayetteville. At this point, every player goes through weeks of personal training to get ready for the combine, but word is that no player improved himself more during that training than Houston did.
Posted: 5 hours ago
NFL executives are not supposed to talk to agents of players on other teams until the official start of free agency on March 2.
But if there has anything we have learned from the conversations which are absolutely, positively not happening here in Indianapolis, it is that the contract numbers in free agency this year will be completely insane.
We're talking about guys like Kris Dielman and Eric Steinbach making Steve Hutchinson money. We're talking about second-level guys like Tony Pashos being paid the money that Dielman and Steinbach would have gotten a year ago. We're talking about Nate Clements being given his own Caribbean island. When the Patriots franchised Asante Samuel, they also handed Clements a license to print money. Supply and demand is a beautiful thing.
The common explanation for these huge salaries is that the rising cap gives teams more money to play with, but it is a little more complicated than that. After all, the cap rises every year, right? What's special about this year's free agency class is that 2007 was the "uncapped year" at the end of the last CBA. The rules related to that year limited the amount of cap value that a contract could push past 2006. As a result, it was almost impossible for a team to put itself into salary cap trouble — and that's the reason why so many teams have boatloads of cash this year.
Ask which teams are in on a certain player, and the list will always include at least one of these three teams: San Francisco, Arizona, or Washington. San Francisco and Arizona because they have a ton of cap room and lots of positions that could be upgraded. Washington because the Commanders never learn.
Other thoughts from the final day of media access at the combine ...
The name to watch among quarterbacks: Kevin Kolb
Last year, Football Outsiders writer David Lewin discovered that two collegiate statistics are strong indicators for a successful NFL quarterback: completion percentage and total games started. And when you look at these stats for the quarterbacks at the NFL combine, one name jumps out at you: Kevin Kolb of Houston. Kolb completed 62 percent of passes in 50 starts. (By comparison, Brady Quinn completed 58 percent of passes in 46 starts.)
Those same stats, however, are also good indicators of a system quarterback who won't succeed in the NFL. Figuring out whether Kolb is one or the other is what the scouts are for. Kolb knew that he went into the draft process with the need to prove that he isn't a system quarterback — and so far, he's succeeding. A couple of scouts and an NFL quarterback coach told me Kolb is the best quarterback in the draft other than the big two of JaMarcus Russell and Quinn. There's a general feeling that no quarterback helped himself more at the Senior Bowl.
Despite Kolb's improvement in the eyes of many scouts, however, he's still expected to go no higher than the third round.
Could JaMarcus Russell drop out of the top slot?
Russell isn't participating in any drills here, and he looked a little pudgy when it came time for official measurements. Calvin Johnson and Joe Thomas, on the other hand, have completely blown people away.
The combine performance of Wisconsin's Joe Thomas solidified the tackle's spot in the draft's top 5. (Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Everybody felt that Johnson was the best athlete in this draft, but the 4.35 he posted in the 40 confirmed it. Many people were impressed both by his demeanor when interviewed by the press and by the very fact that he's participating in the combine workouts. Everyone says the same thing: "Larry Fitzgerald with a better leap."
Joe Thomas has also blown everyone away with both his athletic ability and his personality. He ran a 4.92 in the 40-yard dash — although that strikes me as the kind of combine performance that means absolutely nothing in the long run. Any play that requires an offensive lineman to run 40 yards in any direction is ill-advised.
Nobody is yet saying that the Raiders might bypass Russell to take Johnson or Thomas. But there's definitely talk that teams might try to trade up to take Johnson or Thomas.
A bad draft for tight ends now looks worse
Only two tight ends in this year's class were considered to be real impact players: Zach Miller of Arizona State and Greg Olsen of Miami. According to our buddies at Scout.com, the next tight end is lower-third round talent.
Zach Miller is one of two impact tight ends in this draft class. (Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Well, that just got worse. I asked Adam Caplan of Scout.com about which players hurt themselves this weekend, and nearly every name he gave me was a tight end. Zach Miller looked so slow and ran such bad routes that he's fallen below Olsen and all the way out of the first round — maybe even the second round. Anthony Pudewell of Nevada had a poor 40 and couldn't catch the ball. Clark Harris of Rutgers impressed nobody.
Only two tight ends seem to have really helped themselves here: Olsen, whose blistering 4.45 40 will probably make him a top 20 pick, and Michael Allan, the tight end from Division III Whitworth College who nobody can stop talking about.
Learn to long snap
Yes, our shared alma mater gives me reason to write about him, but out of the small school guys, only Allan is getting more attention than linebacker Zak DeOssie. One coach's first response when asked about DeOssie: "That guy is a beast." This is not normally a phrase you hear about guys from Brown University.
Size isn't the thing that sets DeOssie apart, however, and neither is the Ivy background. The thing that makes DeOssie a real prospect is special teams. The same coach told me about a player who was all-state in high school and started at a big college program from the first day of his freshman year. He gets to his first NFL camp, and the special teams coach asks him about his experience on special teams, and the response is: "I've never played special teams."
If you are taken on the second day of the NFL draft, you better be ready to play special teams. DeOssie, like his father, can long snap. He played on kick coverage all four years at Brown. He even punted in high school. Looking at two linebackers in the fifth round, that special teams experience becomes a big deal. There's a reason why so many guys who are known for special teams are smaller-school guys, including Larry Izzo (Rice), Sean Morey (Brown),and Isaiah Kacyvenski (Harvard) — or, in past years, Jerry Azumah (New Hampshire) and Larry Whigham (Louisiana-Monroe).
Other players who helped themselves here
Wide receiver Steve Smith of USC. Smith ran the 40, unofficially, in 4.37 and 4.35. He did well in the shuttle. I seem to hear nothing but hesitant comments about Dwayne Jarrett, and at this point, I expect Smith to be the first of the two USC receivers to be chosen.
Defensive lineman Amobi Okoye. He has absurd physical talent, he's astonishingly intelligent, and he's only 19 years old because he was two grades ahead when he moved here from Nigeria a few years ago. He gives the NFL something that only the NBA had before: someone you can project to be far better in the future because he hasn't fully grown into his body yet. Okoye was a late-first round guy before, but I think he may be top 10 now. (And no, he's not related to Christian Okoye.)
Offensive lineman Andy Alleman of Akron. Strong and mobile, and looked good in workouts. Could help a team with a zone-blocking scheme.
Cornerback Chris Houston of Arkansas-Fayetteville. At this point, every player goes through weeks of personal training to get ready for the combine, but word is that no player improved himself more during that training than Houston did.