Early combine results
Early RB results from yesterday:
De'Veon Smith - 22 reps on BP
Dalvin Cook - 22 reps
Fournette - DNP (say's he'll lift at LSU Pro day)
Perine - 30 reps
McCaffrey - 10 reps (so much for skipping the bowl to prepare for combine)
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2017/3/2/14796202/2017-nfl-combine-results-…
Ben Braden - 25 reps / 5.04 40
I don't really see much stock in this. When I was a runing back in HS, I could barely bench 135 (work out with 315 now and can do 225 for 25, but it took me 20 years, haha). On legs though, I had to work out with the linemen becuase I could squat and leg press far more than most on the team. It's why, even though I only weighed 165, I was so hard to take down.
I would much more be interested in McCaffrey"s explosive leg press than what he can bench.
Who is a better running back? Smith or McCaffrey? If I am starting a football team and I need to fill the running back spot, should I take Smith or McCaffrey? One has 22 reps of 225 and one has 10.
It seems to me that you would have to be quite the slappy to argue that Smith is a better choice than McCaffrey. Just from watching both of them over the years it is pretty easy to see that Smith has bad awareness or field vision or whatever you want to call it. He runs into the back of guys when there is a monster hole to the immediate left or right of him. McCaffrey is elusive and quick to hit the holes.
Bottom line: Don't care who can bench press what how many times. I want good football players, not good lifters.
EDIT: Maybe not monster holes. But holes.
has better vision, is a much better slot reciever, and better outside edge runner.
Smith is a better grinder, get you a yard, straight ahead bull runner.
McCaffrey obviously has much more value and should be drafted higher, but Smith is a good short down back and should find a role somewhere.
A strong bench means nothing to a running back. Things like this are why I hate the combine. The combine is a tool, but should only be a small part of the process, but everyone puts so much stock into a collection of numbers instead of who are the best football players. A lot of times they corrolate, but there are many players who are good football players that didn't exactly measure right.
Peppers measures in 5'11" 213 lbs. Lewis 5'10" 188 lbs.
He better run fast and show good hip moves because he is a real tweener size wise. I have a feeling Peppers is going to drop out of the first round, he doesn't have a position.
His coverage skills are a B-, his tackling is an A-, his speed, anticipation, and reading of the field is an A+. He's also a weapon and extremely reliable as a punt and kick returner. Not to mention he can be used in offensive packages as a second H-back or in the slot.
No way he drop out of the first round, too much value there. Generally you need to have a position and be a "specialist" to succeed in the NFL, but Peppers is rare in that he is good enough to great at enough things that he will go top 15.
At worst, that sounds like a Belichek pick at the end of the 1st round.
Except a bunch of teams don't utilize that role and he's smaller than the teams that do. Deone buchannon is good and other teams may want someone like him, that is literally what everyone talks about. A lot of mocks don't have him in the first right now because being able to do a lot of things worse than people whose position that is isn't a good thing. There are better safeties in the draft, there are better lb's in the draft, there are better rb's in the draft, there are better cb's in the draft. If a team in the first round has a need at one of those positions they will pick one of the players who actually plays that position over him. That's his issue.
"Deone buchannon is good and other teams may want someone like him,"
Buchanon is 3" taller than Peppers and was regarded as one of the top cover safeties coming out of college. Peppers... is not.
But as a high school senior I could do 12 at 225...and I ran cross country (albeit at about 220 lbs).
Braden ran a 5.04 second 40. which is fairly fast for OL.
Being this year's version of Schofield
has carved out a nice career so far in NFL. Would be nice to see Braden do the same.
If you're a verizon subscriber (NFL exclusive mobile provider) then you can watch at NFL.com. Not sure there's an alternate option for anyone else since Verizon/NFL blackout everything mobile and it's not on the european "piratey" type sites for live games.
(Non-mobile CPU devices - laptop, desktop etc - can also watch at NFL.com for free)
Some of this has less to do with feats of strength and more about dedication in the weight room and trying to improve physically. Any guy who went through a major college football program for 3-5 years and is only benching 225 for 10 reps, I would guess he didn't put forth his best effort to strengthen his body.
It could also just be how they counted his reps. If you don't lock your elbow and you bounce the bar off your chest, they don't count the rep.
There was a o-lineman that only hit for 15 reps. Sorry, all lineman, barring injury, should hit at least 20. Too much x-box
A couple of points I'd like to make.
First off, is there any proof that the number of bench presses a football player, specifically a RB ,matters?
I don't thinks so.
Remember Vernon Gholston. He benched 225lb 37 times at the combine. Did that dictate how well of a DE he would be? I think we all know how that turned out.
And strength is relative. Look at the strength of a gymnast. Do you think any of these guys who are weight room fanatics and put up ridiculous numbers on the bench would be able to do what a gymnast does on the rings or parallel bars? Obviuosly not. Gymansts train to have specific type of strength yet are stronger than weight room fanatics in many ways.
Hasn't McCaffery proven himself on the football field? Has his upper body proven to be a detriment to his ability to play football?
If there is evidence of this, someone please show me.
Something I noticed with McCaffery is that he has VERY long arms. That makes it very, very tough to do a lot of bench presses since he has a long way to go up and down.
If he shows off excellent receiving skills with those long arms, he should still be drafted high.
Arm length is in the chart linked in the OP. His arms are 30", which are among the shortest on the lest.
I stand corrected.
This is one of many reasons why I am not an NFL scout.
after putting up 3-4 years of actual football playing ability on film, scouts suddenly stop believing their eyes and believing combine numbers instead. I get that they can be a supplement to the data you've already amassed, but talking yourself out of players who, you know, move the ball and score touchdowns because you're not impressed with their bench press is why drafting doesn't even deserve the title "inexact science." It's no science at all.
Conversely, this is how guys like JaMarcus Russell go no.1, or Darrius Heyward-Bey get taken as the No. 1 receiver, or you get the Mike Mamulas becoming 1st round picks. (some other examples of Mamula-ing your way up the board from a couple years back: LINK)
I guess if McCaffrey put up 37 reps at 225, he'd be a sure thing in the NFL... like Vernon "Tom" Gholston. That's how many Tom put up to go with his 4.58 40, which is almost exactly the same as Jerry Rice's 4.59. That dude must be a perennial All-Pro. (EDIT: Damn, Craptain Crunch beat me to this...)
Only did 18 reps. He turned out ok.
Drew Brees. No one thought he'd survive in the NFL as a QB.
Oh, and then there is Tom Brady and his combine effort and scouts trashing him at the time.
Those relying on BP reps truly have no clue.
People note that about Brady constantly.
Ooops!
Yes, but the QB position requires NOWHERE near as much total raw athleticism as every single other NFL position does (minus kicking game positions).
The Quarterback class is simply still unproven even after 4 years of college due to lack of adequate reps.
And once in the NFL, QBs require great coaches/mentors, and often NFL coaches are better at delegation than QB mentoring, despite QB-performance alone determing maybe better than 50% of your results. And it is currently a "win-now" mindset within coaching hiring/firing.
And still today, NFL GMs, owners, and even coaches primarily treat QBs like a sort of Talisman who "contains the magic" and it's either "you either have 'it' or you don't have 'it' ", which sports psychology has shown over and over again to be completely false. But the fixed mindset prevails in many places, not the least of which is, paradoxically, sports.
And let's not forget, Brady and Belichick are completely symbiotic.
Belichick builds and runs the entire team to his personel every season, starting with Brady of course. And Brady tailors his play to what Belichick asks. Brady doesn't do the whole "it's gotta be my style of football", the way many star skill-positioned players do. And Belichick doesn't have a "here's how football is 'supposed' to be played", the way many coaches religiously implement their ideologies, he changes based on what his personnel can and can't do, what his opponents personnel can and can't do, week to week, practice to practice, scouting report to scouting report, and play to play. That's why he's so good. No secret sauce, just pure effort, intelligence, and flexibility.
But, when you're inflexible, you think the "fastest 40-times" are they way to win, and "best bench reps", "tallest players", etc. All are valuable, but the entire 1,000-variable equation is always in flux, and absolutes and stadards only exist to people who don't know what they're doing.
Oh, and this is supposed to be about Peppers. lol
He'll be picked up by a Belichick-like guy who's willing to "find a position for him", utilizing his talents into their scheme.
Or he'll be jammed into a hybrid safety role.
He has the athletic gift AND the instinctual gift. The hang-up his, his size makes him a tweener, and, he hasn't really become "Great" at any one role so far, because he hasn't HAD to they way we utilized him here. He's a project either way, and that often does scare people from taking a project in the 1st round. But it still happens every year.
Excited to see how he lands!
I get that testing for these respective strength and quickness measures could potentially give insight into a player and helps to identify some guys that maybe had less exposure.
However, with a kid at a major school that had significant playing time, there should be enough tape and game play evidence to grade out what they can do at the NFL level.
Now if an unkown 6'5 receiver shows up from central Arkansas State and runs a 4.22 - 40, I get it, there was value there for the kid and teams grading him...but for the most part, its a futile event.
I see your point, but for the NFL, its more exposure. Its football in months where there is no football. It's more people tuning into the NFL Network. It helps keep the NFL more front-of-mind year round, and that equates to more revenue.
They know people are going to watch, and the talking heads are going to spend weeks over-analyzing every possible scenario on where hundreds of different players will go. Its all intricately designed to take money out of your pocket and put it in their's.
Teams play vastly different schedules- hard to compare
Trying to evaluate individuals in a team sport is hard
Numbers help immensely
Few slow/weak players in NFL who are successful
He's a baller, pure and simple. I have no idea if he'll have success in the NFL but he's has the skill set that any team would want.