Dilfer Comments on Malzone

Submitted by alum96 on

All the usual caveats apply - it is one guy's opinion, yada yada Baltimore defense won him a Super Bowl, yada yada what does he know, yada yada loud mouth, yada yada it's from an evil newspaper so don't click on the link then complain.

That said, I was unaware how into baseball young Malzone is and Dilfer seems to think he has not been able to put as much time into football due to the baseball; and the throwing motion of baseball is a bit of an issue for throwing a football.

Again, see all caveats:

  • “He’s a hypercompetitive kid, a great learner, tough kid mentally and a guy that really has some unique leadership qualities,” said Trent Dilfer, the ESPN pro football analyst and Elite 11 leader. “He’s such a good baseball player that he’s played a lot of baseball, so he’s behind a little bit in the quarterback training. ...
  • “When you put him in an environment like this where it’s really fast and great athletes around you and every little microsecond of timing matters, there’s been some inconsistencies. His good is extremely good. His bad has been bad at times, and he’ll be the first to tell you that.”
  • One challenge for Malzone, who will be a senior this fall, is to rid himself of some baseball throwing habits. “It’s just an adjustment,” Dilfer said. “They’re both rotational movements. Obviously, the football throwing motion is much more compact than the baseball throwing motion. ... In baseball you have more time, so those long moving parts create more speed, which is good. In football, you want less moving parts — limited movements is the term we use — and with limited movements, you’ll find more consistency.”

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20140710/SPORTS06/307100060

Walter E. Kurtz

July 10th, 2014 at 6:57 AM ^

Thanks for the update on Malzone. If I read your summary correctly it seems that timing is an issue. I think Malzone can overcome this as he works with and gets familiarity with receivers. I don't think it is cause for too much concern.

alum96

July 10th, 2014 at 7:14 AM ^

Wouldn't read too much into that.  I don't know if he plays baseball away from HS but in most sports if you are a "good XX player, you play a lot of XX" i.e. travel leagues. An average XX player would not be playing a lot of XX as he would normally just play for his HS team. 

In a sport I know, a good soccer player will play for his HS team in the fall and then go play for his club in the spring and winter (indoors).  And be training 10 months a year, if not more.  An average soccer player will just play 3 months for HS.

Baseball I believe is a HS spring sport and football a fall sport so he might be a kid who plays travel baseball in the fall when most guys of his caliber are focusing on nothing but football.  I guess we can ask Drew Henson.

XX = any sport

GoBlueInNYC

July 10th, 2014 at 7:18 AM ^

What's so "unique" about his leadership qualities? Does he make heavy use of inspiration balloon animals or something? Quote "Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr." the way others would quote the Bible?

LSAClassOf2000

July 10th, 2014 at 8:11 AM ^

I believe that Malzone plays various position in the infield for Brother Rice, and if you watch the video posted in yesterday's update again, his arm mechanics sort of have some "3B / SS" qualities to them, at least in my opinion. That being said, even if there's some adjustment required - and Malzone himself has said that there definitely is - the evidence seems to point to him having a strong, accurate arm all the same.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

July 10th, 2014 at 9:44 AM ^

Which makes me raise a very skeptical eyebrow at Dilfer's comments:

"Obviously, the football throwing motion is much more compact than the baseball throwing motion. ... In baseball you have more time, so those long moving parts create more speed, which is good."

Like hell it is.  An infielder doesn't have time to throw, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who's ever watched one baseball game, and they're taught to be very compact in their motion.  It's a quick snap and it's very sidearm, and it totally lacks those "long moving parts."  If his delivery starts low as a previous poster mentioned, that makes a lot of sense for an infielder because time spent bringing the glove up high and then bringing the ball up over the shoulder is time wasted.

Magnus

July 10th, 2014 at 11:25 AM ^

I grew up playing baseball, too, although I've never coached it. While I agree that the timing is different depending on the play, a QB has a shorter window to get rid of the ball from the time he makes the decision on where to go until when he has to let it go. In baseball, the choice of where to throw is typically made as soon as the ball is hit, so for the entirety of the play, an infielder is typically getting himself into position to throw the ball to first base (assuming nobody is on base). If the ball is hit hard to a third baseman, or even a shortstop, he has a relatively long time to wind up and throw.

In football, there are times when the first read is the bomb down the left sideline, so the QB can sort of take his time in dropping back, planting, winding up, and throwing. But in most cases, the QB is looking off a safety, checking down to his #2 or #3 option, scrambling out of the pocket, pump faking, etc.

I'm sure Dilfer knows enough about baseball/throwing motions to admit that a shortstop trying to turn a quick double play is not going to take a long windup, but I sure as hell don't want to read an entire paragraph of him listing all the situations when a windup is possible or when a snap throw is necessary. If we're reading between the lines, we can get the gist of what he's saying.

MGoStrength

July 10th, 2014 at 8:26 AM ^

Yeah, I didn't realize he had that hitch in his throw.  Those are hard to fix since I'm guessing he's been throwing that way since he was like 5.  Tim Tebow couldn't really get rid of his.  I'm not sure you can totally change something like that...it is what it is.

In reply to by MGoStrength

JTrain

July 10th, 2014 at 8:55 AM ^

A couple if tebow-like seasons sure wouldn't hurt our team a bit. I mean...a heisman and a couple natty's.

I'm no qb guru but articles and threads like these probably add fuel to fire for a kid like Alex. Guys like him and Jim Harbaugh made a living proving critics wrong. UM needs a bunch of kids like Malzone. Kids that will run through walls for their coach and teammates.

mgobaran

July 10th, 2014 at 8:40 AM ^

So Dilfer picked up a scouting report from last year and just complained about the same things that he has reportedly gotten better at since said scouting report from last year?

"Malzone played baseball and has a baseball throw (which is bad because everyone has to throw the same way; copycat league)." Real original thought there TRENT.

YaterSalad

July 10th, 2014 at 9:14 AM ^

Yeah, Dilfer is an epic asshat of an evaluator. It is like he doesn't even watch them throw - just read previous comments and watch a little film to create some biased and regurgitated opinions. He pretty much puts his name on this to collect paychecks. Without the Elite 11 he'd be forced to do Depends commercials.

Magnus

July 10th, 2014 at 9:40 AM ^

I think it's kind of funny that threads like these rip on Dilfer's assessments when people on this message board, recruiting scouts, etc. have been saying the same types of things. There's only so much you can say about a football prospect. Malzone probably isn't doing anything much different than when Josh Helmholdt, Clint Brewster, Space Coyote, etc. have watched him live or reviewed his film.

Does it make the Elite 11 somewhat redundant? Sure. By this point in the recruiting cycle, the elite quarterbacks in the 2015 class have been scouted and their film pored over for months, if not years.

What kind of information are any of you looking for from Dilfer? Is he supposed to give some inside scoop, such as "Malzone's favorite animal is the wombat" or "Alex's index toe is longer than his big toe"?

On top of all that, a lot of people like to bash Dilfer because he wasn't the greatest NFL quarterback, but he was a high draft pick, won a lot of games, and won a Super Bowl. It would be great to see Joe Montana, Steve Young, Johnny Unitas, John Elway, Peyton Manning, etc. running football camps, but the guys with Hall of Fame busts tend not to bother with this sort of thing.

boliver46

July 10th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^

Totally agree Magnus.  If it were a positive review from Dilfer, we'd all be lemmings jumping off into the Dilfer sea...since it's negative, Dilfer is obviously a douche.

 

What kind of information are any of you looking for from Dilfer?

What are Malzone's favorite movies? Favorite foods? Does he have a twitter??? /s (obv.)

mgobaran

July 10th, 2014 at 10:39 AM ^

I was just under the impression that Malzones throwing motion has improved. Yet Dilfer's comments made it seem like it is just as bad as ever. 

My only complaint is that Dilfer may be stuck on an early opinion of the kids motion, and has refused to see any improvement in it. Or maybe their hasn't been any improvement and I am thinking of the wrong kids improvement in his throwing motion? Idk.

Not at all a Trent Dilfer basher. I like him as pretty much on everything he does. But if I had one issue with him, it seems to me he doesn't have to read and react ability some guys have. Not sure if this is making sense, but IMO, he is more likely to stick to his first observation of someone, then change his opinion on the matter and admit he was wrong/proven wrong.

Magnus

July 10th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^

I think you're assuming something from what you've heard about Malzone that isn't necessarily true. You seem to be assuming that people who have said "He has shortened up his delivery" or "He has worked on his mechanics" mean that he has fixed the problem entirely. That's not necessarily the case. If I told you that Logan Tuley-Tillman looks to be in better shape than he was as a high school senior, that would be a good thing, right? But that doesn't mean his body is where it needs to be to start at the Big Ten level. He was 330 lbs. in high school, and then he was about 285 lbs. as a freshman. That's probably a step in the right direction, because he's presumably shed a lot of fat. But we still probably want our tackles to be 295-300 lbs. or more.

I don't know whether Dilfer "sticks to his guns" too much or not. Honestly, I don't think the Elite 11 thing is worth all that much, because it relies on camp stuff that can't possibly simulate a zone blitz on 3rd-and-11 with :14 left and your team down 6 points from your own 42-yard line. So I don't pay it a great deal of attention. But even if we assume that Dilfer knows less about football than college head coaches, only the gurus at Wake Forest, Pitt, a bunch of MAC schools, and our very own Wolverines pulled the trigger. So if Dilfer finds some significant flaws, maybe Brian Kelly, Mark Dantonio, Urban Meyer, James Franklin, Jerry Kill, etc. saw similar things.

GoBLUinTX

July 10th, 2014 at 10:07 AM ^

how these things will pan out, for all we know some MLB team owner will give him $17M and promise him that never again will he have to worry about being blindsided.

aratman

July 10th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^

I am pretty sure Dilfer would still be a douche if he liked the Michigan recruit.   He would just be an insightful douche.  He comes across as a know it all in the vein of Mel Kiper.  When he talks about quarterback play it comes across as though he was a hall fame all time great, he wasn't.  He was adequate,  he was a NFL QB so I am sure he has some knowledge but his swager rubs the wrong way.    

Magnus

July 10th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^

I would be interested to know some examples of things he's said to indicate that he thinks of himself as one of the all-time great quarterbacks. Almost every talking head on TV is going to come across as opinionated, because that's what their paid to do. And most of us would probably come across the same way, because when you air your opinions on TV for an hour a day, that's the way the cookie crumbles.