FiveRings;5050913 said:
Please, somebody educate me on him. As of right now, I'm not very high on him, but that's pretty much because I don't know much about him.
So supposin' we do take an offensive lineman in the first, I'm in favor of Jones out of Bama. He could slip to the second, allowing us to pick Vaccaro, and I'd rather take a guy, whos shown versatility,toughness and the ability to match up against SEC competition.
So that's my feelings on offensive line drafting, someone please give one for Cooper because I'm eager to know why you're all so high on him.
I've been studying the draft since the 1st college game of 2012 and spent a staggering amount of time watching college players with my primary emphasis on the OLine and DLine.
It's difficult to boil all of that down to a few sentences on a message board and really capture the essence of why I have Jonathan Cooper rated as the top Interior OLineman for the Cowboys and one of the best players in this draft.
The modern NFL is a pass-happy league. The best OLinemen for pass-protection usually have quick feet. Big, powerful but slow footed OLinemen are less of an asset in the modern NFL than they were in the past.
The Cowboys OLine coach (Callahan) and new assistant OLine coach are both known to prefer the Zone Blocking Scheme. The Cowboys started trying to use some Zone Running plays before Callahan was hired. Jerry made a statement back in 2011 that they had to "push" Houck to implement some different techniques (the translation was that Garrett wanted to run more Zone type plays but Houck was more comfortable in his man-blocking based scheme). The Cowboys did run some Zone stuff in the nineties; however, it was different than a true ZBS that Callahan runs.
The ideal OLinemen for the Zone Blocking Scheme are very quick. They must have a certain about of anchor strength and obviously more is better; however, coaches/teams can sacrifice some size/strength in favor of quickness.
When you combine the facts that quick OLinemen are highly valuable in both the modern pass-happy NFL and in the Zone Blocking Scheme that the Cowboys are trying to implement, then you can conclude that quickness is at the top of the Cowboys list when drafting OLinemen.
There are some OLinemen that have excellent quickness; however, if they don't have the anchor strength required, then they are useless. The Cowboys drafted David Arkin in the 4th round of the 2011 draft in large part because he played with very good quickness. Unfortunately, he just has not been able to gain the anchor strength required to play in the NFL.
OK, having said all of the above, now we're at the point of looking for OLinemen in the 2013 draft. We're looking for OLinemen that have the best combination of quickness and anchor strength. There will be some players like Arkin that have the required quickness but lack anchor strength. There will be other players that are similar to Leonard Davis in his final year with the Cowboys. He had plenty of anchor strength but no longer had the quickness required in pass-protection and definitely would not have had the quickness required in the ZBS.
Two examples of Guards on each end of the power/quickness spectrum are Chance Warmack and Justin Pugh. Draft analysts describe Warmack as super strong/powerful and they describe Pugh has having the quickest feet of any Interior player in this draft. There may be some exaggeration on both, but for now we'll assume that the assessments are accurate. The problem is that Warmack has questionable foot speed while Pugh has questionable power/anchor strength.
If only we could find the perfect blend of power and quickness. Presto, we have Jonathan Cooper. When comparing foot speed Cooper is a Racehorse and Warmack is a plow-horse. When comparing power Cooper is still a Horse compared to Pugh being a Greyhound.
Summary: Cooper has the power of a really good NFL Guard and the feet of a Left Tackle. He is perfect in Callahan's Zone Blocking Scheme. If that's not enough, many analysts believe that he can also player Center.
