Month: February 2016

Dan Wiederer at the Chicago Tribune touts former UCLA linebacker Myles Jack as a potential firt round pick for the Bears:

“Teams with 4-3 defenses told him he could play linebacker. Middle, strong side, weak side. Wherever.

“Others creatively envision him in a secondary role, an instinctive safety who could become an in-the-box enforcer.

“Kam Chancellor‘s name came up as a comparison.”

Ordinarily being compared to Chancellor would be a huge compliment. But its also sort of a backhanded slap when you are being drafted as a linebacker.

Indeed, the comparison tells you everything about the bind the Bears are in when it comes to drafting an inside linebacker. This draft is full of players like Jack, a quick guy who is likely to be good in coverage but whose performance as a physical inside presence will be questioned. His alter ego, Reggie Ragland is exactly the opposite:

“‘He’s a thumper,’ ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. said. ‘And he’s a guy who really, in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s would have been a top-10 pick guaranteed. But coverage ability is going to be something (to watch).'”

Probably if the Bears had to choose, they’d take the thumper. But taking a limited athlete of any type in the first round isn’t exactly what you have in mind going in. The truth is that there really are no top of the line, all around linebackers in this draft class. And that’s bad news for team like the Bears in desperate need of help at the position.

Adam Schefter at ESPN has reported that Alshon Jeffery has been franchised:

Hardly a surprise, but Bears are placing franchise tag on WR Alshon Jeffery, per team source.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 26, 2016

I find this report easy to believe in that franchising Jeffery should be a slam dunk if the Bears can’t come to a long-term deal before Tuesday’s deadline to place the tag. Nevertheless, neither the Chicago Tribune nor the Chicago Sun-Times has picked up this report leaving doubt about its veracity.

I’d say that Schefter is right in that the Bears have probably already decided to tag Jeffery. The signs certainly are that they want him back and he wants to be back.  Though the Bears could tag Jeffery early – they really don’t have anyone else to use it on – there’s no apparent advantage to placing it on him too far before the deadline.

Dan Wiederer at the Chicago Tribune addresses the Bears situation with wide receiver Alshon Jeffery. Jeffery, due to become a free agent, missed a number of games with soft tissue injuries last season and his production was reduced:

“‘I think being in Year 2 with a player helps a lot in just understanding his body and his body mechanics,’ [general manager Ryan] Pace said. ‘I know (Alshon) and his agent are doing some things, too, to improve on that. So when he gets back, we’ll have a plan in place. It’s important.'”

“Jeffery began his offseason training by enrolling at Unbreakable Performance, a Los Angeles facility run by Brian Urlacher and Jay Glazer, a close friend of Fox’s.”

“‘Things I’ve heard have been real positive from both sides,’ Fox said, ‘from both Alshon and the people there at Jay’s gym.'”

A few important points:

• There can now be little doubt that the Bears will franchise Jeffery. There’s always been this niggling doubt that Jeffery really wants to be back with the Bears or that the Bears might not be happy with him. The fact that Fox has been staying in touch with him and tracking his training progress along with Pace’s assertion that he senses that Jeffery wants to be back indicate to me that there’s no real dissatisfaction with the relationship between player and team. There can now be little doubt that they will do what they have to to keep him.
• Given the concern expressed by both Pace and Jeffery’s agent, Eugene Parker, you’d have to guess that both will be working to get Jeffery in for offseason training.  The standard procedure when it comes to the franchise tag is to get the deal done at the last minute when there’s more urgency to get things done with a deadline approaching. But based upon the above comments you’d have to guess that perhaps there will be a little more urgency to get things done soon so that Jeffery won’t miss workouts.
• Give the last item, you also have to wonder if the contract won’t be structured to give Jeffery motivation to stay in shape and to do that proper things to prevent his soft tissue problems in the future. I’m thinking that there’s more than the usual likelihood that we’ll see an incentive laden contract. Not necessarily a performance based one but perhaps one with some terms that provide a bonus if, for instance, Jeffery hits certain weight goals or other such similar milestones. A cleverly designed contract could be very satisfactory for both sides.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

“Why is Jeremy Langford assumed to start at running back? Overall, I thought Ka’Deem Carey ran tougher, caught passes better and blocked at least as well. — @BillMiller1991

“Nothing is locked in at this point but the first thing you should keep in mind is that Langford was drafted by the current power structure at Halas Hall, which includes general manager Ryan Pace and coach John Fox. Langford has better speed and is probably viewed as a better receiver out of the backfield even though he had a couple bad drops last season. Langford was higher on the depth chart last season.”

I think Biggs has the right of it, here. Langford is more athletic and it’s obvious that the coaching staff considers him to be the better receiver and they probably see Langford as being the back that is most like Matt Forte. Carey, on the other hand, was pretty close to having no job at all until he started to become more effective on special teams. Or at least until the coaching staff felt more comfortable playing him on special teams.

Having said that, I think everyone would agree that it’s unlikely that we will be able to expect Langford to be Forte. In this respect, Langford and Carey could make a wonderful one-two punch with Langford being a slightly more elusive and more versatile third down-type back and with Carey being more of a power back.

Should the case it will require that these two back be used differently in 2016. Last season, the coaches were more likely to leave a back in for an entire series before switching up. The Bears might be more comfortable using Carey and Langford alternately down-to-down in specific situations next year, thus taking advantage of their strengths.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune describes some things to watch at the Combine this week:

“Ole Miss defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche possesses top-five talent, but he fell out of a fourth-story at an Atlanta hotel in December and was subsequently suspended for the Sugar Bowl after police discovered ‘seven marijuana cigarettes’ in his room. Eastern Kentucky’s Noah Spence, who could be a defensive end or an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme, was kicked out of Ohio State for multiple drug issues and banned from the Big Ten. He had 111/2 sacks last season and performed well in Senior Bowl practices. Teams are doing some digging on these players.”

Both of these guys are massive talents. In fact, if anything, I think Spence is being underrated. But these drug issues are going to be huge red flags for teams this year.

I’m not too thrilled about putting too much stock into encounters with marijuana. I think most people realize that this is something that has become more and more pervasive and it isn’t like they’re shooting heroin (I hope). But thanks to the Cowboys experience with Randy Gregory, who has been suspended for the first four games of the regular season in 2016 after testing positive for drugs four times last year including once at the Combine, teams are going to be more sensitive about it than usual. Frankly, I don’t think a lot of teams care what these guys do in their off time as long as the perform on the field. But you aren’t going to do much performing is you are suspended.  Gregory is a cautionary tale.

As Biggs says, what they say will be important. But it’s what these prospects do that will count the most. It’s going to be more critical than ever for all of these players, especially Nkemdiche and Spence, to show up clean to the Combine and show that they can control whatever caused their past problems.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune talks quarterback prospects. Of the top four, there has been less enthusiasm than previously about Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch:

“‘Listening to guys at the Senior Bowl talk about [North Dakota State’s Carson] Wentz, I finally had to ask them if the kid from Memphis had fallen off the earth,’ a national scout for one team said. ‘Everyone was touting him and all of a sudden here is Wentz. What happened?'”

The Senior Bowl happened. Once scouts got a good, live look at his size and his arm and once he performed well in the practices and the game, his stock took a massive upward turn. Wentz impressed everyone, including myself.  Lynch, on the other hand, wasn’t helped when he had a poor bowl game.

The comments highlight two things to keep in mind:

1. It was a huge mistake for Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook to skip the Senior Bowl. I don’t know who he thinks he is but right now he’s a second rounder at best. The Senior Bowl was a prime opportunity to show scouts what he could do and Wentz is the best possible example of how its done.
2. Having said that, both Lynch and Cook (and California’s Jared Goff) will have their opportunity to impress scouts at the Combine and it looks like all of them will throw. Its unfortunate that it won’t be in the kind of competitive environment that the Senior Bowl provides and they may never get the momentum back from Wentz now. But they’ll all probably get a bump from it.

Tom Pelissero at USA Today reports that the NFL is considering changes to the NFL Scouting Combine make the event more relevant to scouts and coaches.

“No, a quarterback’s throwing session on the field won’t be swapped for one in a virtual reality environment anytime soon. But the days of players training for months to score high in tests such as the 40-yard dash, vertical leap and bench press – sometimes derided as the ‘Underwear Olympics’ – could be numbered.”

Changes to the Combine is a topic that has gained steam in recent years. For instance, Matt Birk, the NFL’s director of player development, addressed the topic about this time last year:

“‘That’s a project we’ll be working on this offseason,’ Birk said, according to espn.com. ‘Once we look at the data that was gathered in-game this year, it may be important to know how fast a wide receiver or defensive back can go 60 yards. Maybe for an offensive lineman it’s only 20 yards. We can actually see that in-game: How far are these guys running? What are the real or improved measures of importance and value as it relates to evaluating players and whether or not they should be drafted in the first round or the sixth round?'”

So, you can’t just look at the 20 yard split for an offensive lineman and see how fast he ran that distance?

If all the athletes did was run the 40 yard dash and do the long jump, I might think that there was a point to this. But, as Pelissero points out, that’s not all they do. Quarterbacks throw, receivers run routes, linemen do drills in the same way they would at a pro day.  And there’s value to that.  If you want to disregard the distance that an offensive lineman jumps, disregard it.

Something tells me that this is going to be one of those situations where the NFL and National Football Scouting Inc., which runs the Combine, put their heads together and, after lots of talk that goes nowhere, decides that no changes are in order. And I’m not entirely sure they won’t be right.