FuzzyLumpkins
The Boognish
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The Panthers 2013 schedule had a lot of bad and mediocre offenses. It does put a bit of a pale on that season's reputation I had for it coming in. I chose the 2014 vs Tampa Bay as well as 2013 vs Seahawks, vs NYG, vs Pats, at Saints, and vs Saints.
He is 6'4" 34" arms, good combine athlete 118" bj 35" vert. He didn't run particularly well 4.80 40 4.60 shuttle. Scouts I found commented on weight gain he had throughout the process. He gained over 10 pounds that spring and looked physically bigger(re: fatter). He weighed in at 281. Questions about his work ethic and motor arose. Had a foot injury and missed some time. Despite pretty good production in the SEC he fell to the 6th round after it was all said and done.
He's still around that 280 level. The Panthers list him as 275. Despite the long arms he is cut relatively low. Fairly wide hips, big bubble. He is relatively thin through the shoulders. Generally speaking if his arms are wide and he is trying to push up with his shoulders he is in trouble but he can get in trouble.
Now like i said its all relative but his torso is longer making it so he is not 'all legs' as they say. The narrow shoulders effect his ability to get off blocks but the 'short' legs let him keep low to the ground.
You can see the effect here. He is able to get into his stance with his legs still under him and still keep his shoulders down and low to the ground. You can also see from this shot the target the LT has to hit. That man is 6'4" tall and he is a little box with his arm tucked in down in a 3 point stance.
As a base Carolina runs two deep S, 4 man line with their LB all behind and between the DE the majority of the time. They also flip their line so while Hardy was the RDE Lotuleilei was next to him playing the 1T over the A gap but no one in the B gap next to him. you can see the DL config in the still above. Behind him at lb at first was Beason but he got hurt and was replaced by Blackburn who was a much inferior player. That created some problems.
It's a simple scheme designed to reap the benefits of a dominant 4 man line and 7 men in coverage. They did not run very many stunts or twists content to allow the rush to win individual matchups. When they did do them Hardy and his teammates looked like they didn't really know what they were doing. Watching our guys learn Marinelli's system I've learned what a bad stunt-twist looks like. Guys not crashing down hard, wide uncertain loops that veer off into nowhere. They did run a fair number of zone blitzes. Hardy gets to his drop but seems to have no real awareness in reacting to routes. He does show up in pursuit with a vengeance though.
The Panthers also experienced a rash of injuries to amongst others Star, Charles Johnson the other starting end and Kawann Short. Hardy started at RDE but by the end of the year due to injuries he was playing most of his nickel snaps inside at 3T. He was not nearly as effective there.
He has very good speed but he is not elite. I'm remembering Ware getting his hips past a flailing Walter Jones not even in his set in his early years. Hardy will have snaps like that particularly if the OT is slow out of his stance -Beatty and the Giants- but he doesn't have that Ware/Derrick Thomas OMG swiftness. Just a step below guys like that but he is 25 lbs heavier.
Against good tackles like Okung and Charles Brown, he was getting up on the outside shoulder and inside the hands short arming the tackle. He didn't dominate Brown and I will get into that with the later but the matchup against Okung was a good one he dominated. If you are looking for one game to demonstrate what Hardy is capable of look at the 2013 Seattle game. Its a fun game that is close the whole way and hard fought. They try all kinds of things to slow him down and he still won matchups. Fans of trench warfare will rejoice.
You want to plant off your inside foot when your ready to make contact. Similar to how a basketball player would step into and then explode up for a dunk, Hardy explodes into the chops of the OT. When he's dominating its down after down where that hit is either rocking the OT back on their heels or spinning them. He will get them on one foot and stumble them, ragdoll guys. He compares favorably with the best of the best in this regard. He hits incredibly hard with a windup.
He has a tremendous feel for his technique. He will stay engaged to balance himself and ride the OT. Particularly if he is dealing with two blockers. He will throw the first blocker into the second blocker and cut back inside. He does a very good job in transferring momentum to push off and redirect. He doesn't have to round off his route and it increases his momentum and thus more power into the QB as he steps through once again. I've heard people say that he has great balance. I don't necessarily agree. It's good but he spends more time on the ground then I would like. If he gets hit and disengaged he will stumble particularly on a bad field. He's relentless but when its bang bang or the elite that is all it needs.
Throughout his rush he has active hands. He anticipates the tackles punch and will strike the hands away. He is very quick and more often than not he is able to keep his hands inside. We've all seen this before: two long armed guys at arms length from each other but he does a good job of not getting bogged down and keeping his feet moving and his rush alive. He still has the advantage in this position typically as he can still use his legs to shed the block. He will have problems when he gets his arms outside. He will occasionally be late off the ball and a driving OT can hook him. Struggles to generate power coming over the top. Woicik might be able to help there more than a little.
He also has an inside counter. His feel for the technique is again impressive. He forces a lot of tackles to lunge and flail. Pancakes them. I like the rip counter but he also will sometimes try to spin back inside and that move is not very effective. He doesn't cover a lot of ground and all too often ends up getting shoved in the back for his troubles. He doesn't use this move a lot and at least in 2013 appeared to be working on it. He used it several times in the second half of the Giants game which was a blowout but in the close games he stuck with what worked for the most part it seemed.
Teams defend him multiple ways. Some fools try to isolate him on the LT. This is not a good strategy. One guy cannot block him consistently on the edge.
The second is to send a back or TE to help. This can be effective particularly if he doesn't dominate off the snap. If the OT can maintain balance and get hands on him he can be steered. He does a good job maintaining his rush and coming back to the QB but a RB can muck things up. If he does dominate off the snap he tries to ride the OT offbalance and cut inside the RB and TE. He likes to toss blockers into each other. He angered Sproles miming body slamming him and then putting him back down after the whistle which made me chuckle. He also does a good job keeping his head down and arms in font of him to ward off the cut block at his legs. His feel shows up again here as he throws them down and uses that shift to jump over the cut.
Because of the way that they played Star next to him a lot of teams would have the LG sit on any inside moves and let C deal with Star. This also had a measure of success. The battle between Okung, McQuistan and Hardy is fun to watch because Unger could handle Star. Tampa Bay got some mileage out of it as well. With a 3T next to him that is very difficult.
Some teams center their game plan around stopping him. The Pats and Saints x2 tried this and the Saints succeeded once. Sean Peyton used to play us this way. Delayed sprints right behind his rush, counters designed to get him to chase inside, short passes right behind his rush to the backs chipping/releasing, and of course a steady stream of screens. It's designed to put expose the Will such that it makes the DE worry what is beside and behind him. Pats tried it to some tactical success but Payton sold out on the strategy.
Blackburn kept getting flanked and trapped inside by Graham or a WR tight to the formation. Pull Grubbs or someone to kick out whatever's left and it's open field for Sproles. While what happened was not Hardy's 'fault' I thought he handled it somewhat poorly. He started becoming hesitant in his rush and generally ineffective because of it. More concerning, he appeared to lose focus and would stand up on his rush and just lose his game. He wasn't mad and pointing fingers or anything like that. He just seemed confused. Brown steered him pretty easily on far too many snaps.
He seems to have no issues playing the edge on the left side. I though his best success was when Short was playing 3 tech next to him on either side. Short feasted on the isolations and kept the LG away when he tried to come back inside. The projection next to Crawford is obvious and exciting.
While he was able to dominate isolated guards playing DT, I do not think he was nearly as effective overall. it takes a TE or RB that most teams do not have to bother him with their run or pass blocking. Gronkowski, Graham, Hynowski et al were nothing do. He dominated all of them.
Also on the right edge he's isolated more often than not anyway. As long as he can keep his hands inside he has no issues anchoring the point of attack nor shedding. He reminds me a lot of Spencer in how he is able to hold off the defender with his long arms and dictate the flow but whereas Spencer was primarily dealing with TE, Hardy is doing it with OT. Okung, Penn, Armstead, Pugh, nor Beatty could sustain a block. Brown did have some success on misdirection and by getting him to stand up early but that was about it.
Inside is a different animal. He has two OL right on top of him and he cannot get away. He can be late to react to a double team. He will get hooked by combo blocks and get washed out. He will fight down the line and try keep them off his legs but he doesn't have the girth to really sit down on well executed double teams. He is not that strong.
His technique and awareness is not as good inside either. He doesn't anticipate OL formations. He will hesitate a fair bit before determining where to attack. Technique is awkward when he gets engaged inside and he has to walk his hands down the line. Crawford struggled with that too. Teams also make a point to call him out in the formation. You can see Brady, Brees, McKown, and Wilson do it and that means two OL converging. It's like using a Ferrari to move furniture and I'm not a fan.
He is very happy to pick his teammate off the ground and congratulate them after big plays. They reciprocate and there was no apparent awkwardness that I could see between any of them. He does not hesitate to fall into the protector role. He knows he is intimidating and plays to it. He does like drawing attention to himself and will exhort the crowd as well as his teammates after big plays and during critical situations. He did not appear to have any formal leadership duties. He was engaged and intent but he was not the one making the calls.
I looked for dirty play and found none. Closest was a block in the back on a return but the impression I got was Rivera doesn't practice turnovers as much as Marinelli. He will play through the whistle but without the extracurriculars. Hes not trying to break fingers or step on people but he's not going to let up because you aren't paying attention when he crashes down.
TLDR: He hits incredibly hard with a windup. Good teammate.
He is 6'4" 34" arms, good combine athlete 118" bj 35" vert. He didn't run particularly well 4.80 40 4.60 shuttle. Scouts I found commented on weight gain he had throughout the process. He gained over 10 pounds that spring and looked physically bigger(re: fatter). He weighed in at 281. Questions about his work ethic and motor arose. Had a foot injury and missed some time. Despite pretty good production in the SEC he fell to the 6th round after it was all said and done.
He's still around that 280 level. The Panthers list him as 275. Despite the long arms he is cut relatively low. Fairly wide hips, big bubble. He is relatively thin through the shoulders. Generally speaking if his arms are wide and he is trying to push up with his shoulders he is in trouble but he can get in trouble.
Now like i said its all relative but his torso is longer making it so he is not 'all legs' as they say. The narrow shoulders effect his ability to get off blocks but the 'short' legs let him keep low to the ground.
You can see the effect here. He is able to get into his stance with his legs still under him and still keep his shoulders down and low to the ground. You can also see from this shot the target the LT has to hit. That man is 6'4" tall and he is a little box with his arm tucked in down in a 3 point stance.
As a base Carolina runs two deep S, 4 man line with their LB all behind and between the DE the majority of the time. They also flip their line so while Hardy was the RDE Lotuleilei was next to him playing the 1T over the A gap but no one in the B gap next to him. you can see the DL config in the still above. Behind him at lb at first was Beason but he got hurt and was replaced by Blackburn who was a much inferior player. That created some problems.
It's a simple scheme designed to reap the benefits of a dominant 4 man line and 7 men in coverage. They did not run very many stunts or twists content to allow the rush to win individual matchups. When they did do them Hardy and his teammates looked like they didn't really know what they were doing. Watching our guys learn Marinelli's system I've learned what a bad stunt-twist looks like. Guys not crashing down hard, wide uncertain loops that veer off into nowhere. They did run a fair number of zone blitzes. Hardy gets to his drop but seems to have no real awareness in reacting to routes. He does show up in pursuit with a vengeance though.
The Panthers also experienced a rash of injuries to amongst others Star, Charles Johnson the other starting end and Kawann Short. Hardy started at RDE but by the end of the year due to injuries he was playing most of his nickel snaps inside at 3T. He was not nearly as effective there.
He has very good speed but he is not elite. I'm remembering Ware getting his hips past a flailing Walter Jones not even in his set in his early years. Hardy will have snaps like that particularly if the OT is slow out of his stance -Beatty and the Giants- but he doesn't have that Ware/Derrick Thomas OMG swiftness. Just a step below guys like that but he is 25 lbs heavier.
Against good tackles like Okung and Charles Brown, he was getting up on the outside shoulder and inside the hands short arming the tackle. He didn't dominate Brown and I will get into that with the later but the matchup against Okung was a good one he dominated. If you are looking for one game to demonstrate what Hardy is capable of look at the 2013 Seattle game. Its a fun game that is close the whole way and hard fought. They try all kinds of things to slow him down and he still won matchups. Fans of trench warfare will rejoice.
You want to plant off your inside foot when your ready to make contact. Similar to how a basketball player would step into and then explode up for a dunk, Hardy explodes into the chops of the OT. When he's dominating its down after down where that hit is either rocking the OT back on their heels or spinning them. He will get them on one foot and stumble them, ragdoll guys. He compares favorably with the best of the best in this regard. He hits incredibly hard with a windup.
He has a tremendous feel for his technique. He will stay engaged to balance himself and ride the OT. Particularly if he is dealing with two blockers. He will throw the first blocker into the second blocker and cut back inside. He does a very good job in transferring momentum to push off and redirect. He doesn't have to round off his route and it increases his momentum and thus more power into the QB as he steps through once again. I've heard people say that he has great balance. I don't necessarily agree. It's good but he spends more time on the ground then I would like. If he gets hit and disengaged he will stumble particularly on a bad field. He's relentless but when its bang bang or the elite that is all it needs.
Throughout his rush he has active hands. He anticipates the tackles punch and will strike the hands away. He is very quick and more often than not he is able to keep his hands inside. We've all seen this before: two long armed guys at arms length from each other but he does a good job of not getting bogged down and keeping his feet moving and his rush alive. He still has the advantage in this position typically as he can still use his legs to shed the block. He will have problems when he gets his arms outside. He will occasionally be late off the ball and a driving OT can hook him. Struggles to generate power coming over the top. Woicik might be able to help there more than a little.
He also has an inside counter. His feel for the technique is again impressive. He forces a lot of tackles to lunge and flail. Pancakes them. I like the rip counter but he also will sometimes try to spin back inside and that move is not very effective. He doesn't cover a lot of ground and all too often ends up getting shoved in the back for his troubles. He doesn't use this move a lot and at least in 2013 appeared to be working on it. He used it several times in the second half of the Giants game which was a blowout but in the close games he stuck with what worked for the most part it seemed.
Teams defend him multiple ways. Some fools try to isolate him on the LT. This is not a good strategy. One guy cannot block him consistently on the edge.
The second is to send a back or TE to help. This can be effective particularly if he doesn't dominate off the snap. If the OT can maintain balance and get hands on him he can be steered. He does a good job maintaining his rush and coming back to the QB but a RB can muck things up. If he does dominate off the snap he tries to ride the OT offbalance and cut inside the RB and TE. He likes to toss blockers into each other. He angered Sproles miming body slamming him and then putting him back down after the whistle which made me chuckle. He also does a good job keeping his head down and arms in font of him to ward off the cut block at his legs. His feel shows up again here as he throws them down and uses that shift to jump over the cut.
Because of the way that they played Star next to him a lot of teams would have the LG sit on any inside moves and let C deal with Star. This also had a measure of success. The battle between Okung, McQuistan and Hardy is fun to watch because Unger could handle Star. Tampa Bay got some mileage out of it as well. With a 3T next to him that is very difficult.
Some teams center their game plan around stopping him. The Pats and Saints x2 tried this and the Saints succeeded once. Sean Peyton used to play us this way. Delayed sprints right behind his rush, counters designed to get him to chase inside, short passes right behind his rush to the backs chipping/releasing, and of course a steady stream of screens. It's designed to put expose the Will such that it makes the DE worry what is beside and behind him. Pats tried it to some tactical success but Payton sold out on the strategy.
Blackburn kept getting flanked and trapped inside by Graham or a WR tight to the formation. Pull Grubbs or someone to kick out whatever's left and it's open field for Sproles. While what happened was not Hardy's 'fault' I thought he handled it somewhat poorly. He started becoming hesitant in his rush and generally ineffective because of it. More concerning, he appeared to lose focus and would stand up on his rush and just lose his game. He wasn't mad and pointing fingers or anything like that. He just seemed confused. Brown steered him pretty easily on far too many snaps.
He seems to have no issues playing the edge on the left side. I though his best success was when Short was playing 3 tech next to him on either side. Short feasted on the isolations and kept the LG away when he tried to come back inside. The projection next to Crawford is obvious and exciting.
While he was able to dominate isolated guards playing DT, I do not think he was nearly as effective overall. it takes a TE or RB that most teams do not have to bother him with their run or pass blocking. Gronkowski, Graham, Hynowski et al were nothing do. He dominated all of them.
Also on the right edge he's isolated more often than not anyway. As long as he can keep his hands inside he has no issues anchoring the point of attack nor shedding. He reminds me a lot of Spencer in how he is able to hold off the defender with his long arms and dictate the flow but whereas Spencer was primarily dealing with TE, Hardy is doing it with OT. Okung, Penn, Armstead, Pugh, nor Beatty could sustain a block. Brown did have some success on misdirection and by getting him to stand up early but that was about it.
Inside is a different animal. He has two OL right on top of him and he cannot get away. He can be late to react to a double team. He will get hooked by combo blocks and get washed out. He will fight down the line and try keep them off his legs but he doesn't have the girth to really sit down on well executed double teams. He is not that strong.
His technique and awareness is not as good inside either. He doesn't anticipate OL formations. He will hesitate a fair bit before determining where to attack. Technique is awkward when he gets engaged inside and he has to walk his hands down the line. Crawford struggled with that too. Teams also make a point to call him out in the formation. You can see Brady, Brees, McKown, and Wilson do it and that means two OL converging. It's like using a Ferrari to move furniture and I'm not a fan.
He is very happy to pick his teammate off the ground and congratulate them after big plays. They reciprocate and there was no apparent awkwardness that I could see between any of them. He does not hesitate to fall into the protector role. He knows he is intimidating and plays to it. He does like drawing attention to himself and will exhort the crowd as well as his teammates after big plays and during critical situations. He did not appear to have any formal leadership duties. He was engaged and intent but he was not the one making the calls.
I looked for dirty play and found none. Closest was a block in the back on a return but the impression I got was Rivera doesn't practice turnovers as much as Marinelli. He will play through the whistle but without the extracurriculars. Hes not trying to break fingers or step on people but he's not going to let up because you aren't paying attention when he crashes down.
TLDR: He hits incredibly hard with a windup. Good teammate.
