What's the deal with Gentry's combine performance?
His results were awful across the board. Some of the most athletic OL matched or exceeded him despite carrying 40-50lbs more.
What's the deal there? Gentry came in as an athletic guy and clearly the S&C program is working for everyone else. Was there a work ethic issue there that didn't get much attention? Would explain a lot about his underwhelming final season . . .
Check the thread on Gentry's 40 time; there's plenty of discussion there.
Obligatory he should have stayed for his last season of eligibility post. Especially after his performance in the Ohio State game!
Earnest Shazor 2.0?
He was just a good, not great player who made a decision to leave too early. There might have been some writing on the wall that he was going to lose a ton of playing time to Mckeon or Eubanks, and he decided to swing for the fences while he still had a chance. I'm not sure that he would have posted much better numbers with an extra year, but I guess you never know.
i have to believe he could have improved those combine numbers with more time. those likely were not much of a focus while playing this Fall. guys like bush, gary and chase knew they were gone, so they likely spent more time on combine drills the past several months.
In all their spare time? It's very unlikely those guys were working on those things during the season. Maybe when Bush and Gary sat out the bowl game, they started, but Gentry had about as much time as anyone to get ready for the Combine.
This is an odd rationalization.
This is pure conjecture, but perhaps Gentry wasn't the hardest worker in the strength and conditioning program. We take it for granted that all players are committed to giving their best to get bigger, faster and stronger.
He might have just relied on his height and general athletic ability. Or, it could have just been a very very bad couple of days at the combine. Hard to believe someone who is busting his rear end in the strength and conditioning program for 3 years could / would test out so badly given his athletic talent that he came in with.
"spare time" are your words. my point is that bush, gary and chase knew they were gone and had an eye on the eventual prize and trained with that in mind. gentry's decision seemed like last minute. hard to cram for the combine in a couple months. but i wouldn't know.
His numbers probably would’ve improved a little bit and he could’ve worked on parts of his game to become a more complete player
sometines guys make the wrong decision to leave early and this is one of them. Hope it works out for him but he’s not helping himself at the combine
Dont forget Muhammed as well....I think he is going to be a dude
Hope he gets drafted and has a great career. Combine numbers aren't always a good indicator of a player's success.
Yes, but when you come in 16th out of 19 in the 40, dead last in the shuttle and bench press, and second to last in the three cone...those are some pretty solid indicators of your future success in the NFL.
He doesn't have elite hands, can't block, and now is verifiably unathletic compared to his peers. This is a Donovan Warren or Ernest Shazor level bad call to go pro.
Best of luck and all of that, but his pro football career is basically fucked before it ever began.
I mean, it sounds like it was even before he made this decision. Unless he just started eating White Castle and smoking cigs and had an Ozark marathon in the last two months that would account for his poor performance it sounds like he just does not have the measurables. All that could have come out of next season was to possibly add an injury to the mix. It could have been worth it to come back simply to play and be a big component on the team, but I am not sure it would have done anything in terms enhancing his NFL potential.
There is no way that a healthy young man couldn't have improved his bench press result a great deal over a year.
He might never have been fast, but he could have definitely been stronger, a better blocker, and a more precise route runner.
All that could have come out of next season was to possibly add an injury to the mix.
Or, you know...get faster, stronger, work on your hands, blocking, etc.
"Those are pretty solid indicators of your future success in NFL."
Your position is that he should come back for another year of seasoning to get ready for his doomed NFL career (as indicated by your analysis of his combine performance and its implications).
Weird take.
Are you really so dense as to believe that Gentry has a hard limit of 12 reps of 225, which could absolutely not be improved on with a year of Michigan quality S&C work?
THAT is the weird take.
Burgers stated that his bad performance at the combine indicate that he won't be successful in the NFL. Now he says that if he would have come back that would have foretold a more successful NFL career.
Those two things, as stated, don't square. You can have one or the other, but not both.
If they had a combine for your comprehension skills you wouldn't even make it as a UDFA.
I mean...is it really that hard to comprehend that if he came back he might be able to improve as an NFL level player?
Your post did not add up. Perhaps you meant something else, but this has to do not with my "comprehension" but in your ability to properly and accurately articulate your point.
No, I'm saying his NFL career is doomed because he came out before he was ready.
He doesn't have great tape, but an amazing combine could offset that -- kinda like Gary. But if you can't supplement iffy tape with great measureables then yeah, you're pretty much fucked right out of the gate.
Had he stayed he could have at least tried to improve on either his tape, or his combine skills, or even both.
I don't think it's over by any means, but he'll have to either show improvements at the M pro day (which is possible) or he'll have to work his way through the UDFA and try to land on a team. It always seemed a little weird him leaving early when there wasn't a ton of buzz around him.
I do have to wonder if something else was up with him at the combine. The bench is whatever to me; he's not going to be a blocker for you beyond a minor hindrance. But he had decent speed coming out of HS (4.7) and you'd figure he certainly didn't look slow during the year.
I wish the guy luck but sometimes you're just in that middle ground where you're good enough but not great. He might still be able to carve out a niche because of his size, but it'll be tough.
Bench - With his build (more slight) and presumably very long arms, he's at a disadvantage in that drill no matter what. He could still be strong and not necessarily show out well on the bench.
I think the bench is more puzzling than his 40. Even if you take is 4.7 as true (which it isn't unless it was laser timed at the opening or something - correct me if I'm wrong), he ran that as a 6'7 and 215lbs HS kid. Now he's 6'8 and 265lbs. That 50 pound gain slowed him down, which isn't super surprising. It happened to Evans too.
The bench though, he put on a bunch of upper body mass and only repped 225 twelve times? Unless he has some shoulder/chest/elbow injury, that is a huge red flag. There was a 6'5 and 215 pound WR in last years draft and he put up 20 reps:
http://thehuddle.com/2018/03/03/2018-nfl-combine-results-wide-receivers/
In fact, his twelve reps would have been towards the bottom of all WRs tested last year.
Shazor was an All American though wasn't he? It was before I paid attention much to the NFL combine but did he put up bad numbers? I remember thinking it was weird that he went undrafted.
Sucks that he has bad numbers. I wish him well.
I’m not trying to be condescending but did you watch him any last year?
Yeah, he was actually a really good player until the Ohio State game.
Gentry benefited hugely from playing in a TE friendly scheme.
As did McKeon and Eubanks, presumably.
I'm not even sure how TE-friendly Michigan's system is. Gentry was #5 in the Big Ten in receptions (among tight ends), so it appears Iowa, Wisconsin, and Purdue have even friendlier offenses.
He sure as hell did, but so what? If he'd have stayed at QB, he would've been on the bench the last two years - as anonymous as any other 4th string portable seat heater. Instead, he worked his ass off changing to a brand new - and very different - position because the team needed him to. He did it well enough that he had valuable impact as a starter for two years. He did it well enough that he was invited to the NFL Draft Combine as an NFL draft worthy football player.
Why can't you be happy for the guy? Why can't you simply wish him well and move on? He put in a lot of effort here, made some great plays, and earned his degree.
<<I'm singling you out, JPC, perhaps unfairly, for some unreasonably harsh takes in this thread. I don't apologize for it - you've been very critical of many players over the last few months - but I do recognize that you aren't totally crapping on the guy, here.>>
Thanks for the response. I probably have been too harsh. It's a biproduct of posting quick in between other things at the office.
I hope he does great in the NFL, but he made a really head scratching decision, and it's worth discussing. I don't think he's a bad guy. Or a terrible football player even. He definitely wasn't nearly as good as some people on here liked to pretend he was though.
"...but he made a really head scratching decision..."
I'm not going to argue that statement one bit...
I’m really not surprised atall. Gentry is someone who has an elite trait that for whatever reason absolutely refuses to use, his height. He’s a pretty good athlete at 6’8 and a match up nightmare, but doesn’t have great hands and has no jump ball skills apparently. He’s not a great blocker, and not a fluid route runner, two things that can make up for lack of speed at the TE position. Gentry got very poor advice, or thinks he is better than he is.
Gentry got very poor advice, or thinks he is better than he is.
There were a bunch of quotes when he announced about how he was going to surprise everyone with his athleticism, which he did but not in the way he had hoped. I think he pretty clearly thought he was better than he is.
Agree wtih what you say here. Although, I can totally see the patriots taking him in a very late round and molding him into the next Gronkowski.
He's "just a guy" who got some absolutely awful business advice. There were people on here who argued that a college TE who wasn't great at catching, running routes, or blocking should go to the draft early despite it being a TE heavy draft. It turns out his measurables amount to "tall" and not much else.
I hope Zach left because he absolutely hated it here, because otherwise... he made a really bad choice.
You should write Gentry a letter asking for these very same questions.
He could try that, but Gentry would probably get back to him at a far below average amount of time.
I am amazed at the damage players like Gentry do to their earning potential by attending the combine when they're clearly not prepared to compete in the events they are being measured for. You simply HAVE to know how fast you're going to be, how much weight you can lift and what your projected shuttle times will be before getting there, not at the time of measurement.
If know you're going to suck like Gentry did then fake an injury and withdraw and then train like hell for your pro day. He absolutely killed his draft stock by telling his future prospective employers that:
1. I'm slow
2. I'm not very strong
3. I'm not very agile
I dont know if it's ignorance of the process or the arrogance of youth but dammit going to the combine and not being able to show better was a mistake of biblical proportions.
This is what I mean. A slow 40 is a slow 40. But to be near the bottom of your position group in every event reflects a lack of good advice and judgment AND likely also lack of preparation. Its a sign something was messed up. My question was: did people know of an issue while Gentry was still here?
Some guys have to go to the combine and put up numbers like this because it's their only chance.
Gentry came out early by choice.
Really perplexing.
Yeah, the agent has to know this if nothing else. Or the training facility he was at. Somebody had to tackle him before he got to Indy. ... Wouldn't have been too hard, apparently, based on his 40 time.
*rimshot*
Get on a roster Gentry and make it work!
I do sort of wonder if we'll hear about some injury in the next day or two. The bench you can't hide but he sure seemed faster and, I don't know, "better" than all of his performances here. Again, maybe he just wanted to leave and got some bad advice, and maybe he does better at the pro day, but this was weirdly disappointing.
Though I'll admit - I went back and looked at a couple of mock drafts for him when he declared and the general feeling was "tall guy, decent athlete, not very strong, is a flier guy based on mismatches". So maybe he was properly pegged and figured he might as well take his shot because things like "getting faster and demonstrably stronger as a 6'8" TE" wasn't in the cards.
I 100% agree. I can't fathom why you wouldn't know your numbers in all of the combine events before declaring early. You have to know that this is going to be a huge determining factor in your future employment.
Here's hoping he improves his numbers by pro day, and that he has a long NFL career.
The rave about him running a 4.5 flat 40 was fame news
Nobody in history has ever run a healthy 4.5 forty and healthy 4.9 forty in the same year.
He was never very good but fans overrrated him and were convinced that the coaches just weren’t using a giant “match up nightmare,” when in fact he was just tall and hardly a nightmare. At least the combine doesn’t have a hands test.
I know that your take will not be popular, but you make a good point.
This blog spent the entire season criticizing Pep and Harbaugh for not throwing to our match-up nightmare TE. If Genrty was as good as the message board posters thought, they would be correct.
Gentry's combine numbers demonstrate, however, that he is not that fast, can't jump that high and isn't that strong. Combine this with poor hands (not just in OSU) and below-average blocking and, year, I am sure as hell rooting for Gentry to prove his measurables wrong, but he looks to be "just a guy" who is very tall.
Gentry WAS a matchup nightmare
Poor combine numbers don't mean he wasn't good for us. He was roughly 12th in FBS in yardage for TEs
Our entire offense was ran poorly, Gentry was just one part of it.