Ryan Lownes

@ryanlownes

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Sam Montgomery – DE – LSU

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Geno Smith – QB – West Virginia

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Johnathan Hankins – DT – OSU

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Bjoern Werner – DE – FSU

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Star Lotulelei – DT – Utah

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Luke Joeckel – OT – TAMU

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Jarvis Jones – OLB – Georgia

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Dion Jordan – DE – Oregon

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Barkevious Mingo – DE/OLB – LSU

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E.J. Manuel – QB – FSU

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Taylor Lewan – OT – Michigan

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Keenan Allen – WR – California

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Johnthan Banks – CB – Miss St

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Damontre Moore – OLB – TAMU

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Keep Reading…

It’s up, over at Rotoworld.

Playing for undermanned Miami of Ohio, Zac Dysert‘s career has gone without much fanfare or notice. A four year year starter and three year captain for the Redhawks, Dysert will end his career by breaking virtually all of the school passing records set by former Miami quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

From what I’ve seen of Dysert so far, I feel comfortable saying that he’s got the best blend in this class of physical talent, throwing talent, and refined quarterback skills (the functional application of those talents). He’s very far along mechanically. His offense isn’t particularly sophisticated, but it does ask him to do a bunch of different things, and he’s getting a lot of work running West Coast Offense principles. He works under center and in the shotgun. There’s a good mix of drop back and rollout passes.

For a four year starter, Keep Reading…

Physical freaks are exciting. When you read about them, you begin to imagine how good they’d look in your team’s uniform with just a bit of NFL coaching and refinement. On an annual basis, CBS reporter Bruce Feldman puts out his “Freaks List”. Some of these players are actually on the field forces, and some are simply putting up legendary numbers at their school’s weight room. Regardless, it’s something that generates discussion, fuels the imagination, and it at least piques the interest of even the most staunch “all I care about is the tape” evaluators. Most of these guys won’t live up to the dreams we all have for them, but for every prospect that doesn’t quite live up to expectations, another one rises to prominence.

Enter Ezekiel Ansah. The 6’6 270 pound Senior DE from BYU who goes by “Ziggy” seems to be making a tremendous push up draft boards as Keep Reading…

There are some guys who just don’t deserve to fall on draft day. It seems like anyone who has ever watched some film on a guy, knows he’s a bona fide stud, yet he still finds a way to take a tumble. Now, I’m going to take the injury factor out of consideration here. There’s just too much information we could never possibly know about this, and it’s often a valid reason for a player falling. Another potential reason for a fall is character issues, but that’s a controversial issue even amongst arm chair GMs, and not one worthy of getting in to in this article.

However, there are two other cases that seem to occur too frequently, and it results in some really good players sliding down boards. One of these reasons is the “small” misnomer. It’s true that some guys just don’t have the size to play like Keep Reading…

It’s up over at Rotoworld NFL Draft

The System There’s nothing that I can write about the Air Raid offense that Chris Brown of SmartFootball.com hasn’t already covered in a more thorough and insightful fashion than I could ever hope to.  I’ll link to his work on the WVU offense at the end of the article, but I found this passage to be particularly illuminating regarding quarterbacks and offensive systems:

“An unfair but unsurprising label for Smith, given Holgorsen’s history, is that he’s a ‘system quarterback.’ … The most common concern about system quarterbacks is that college productivity doesn’t translate to pro success, but for Smith, the plays he’s running, albeit in a spread offense, are essentially NFL ones. The running game is based on the inside and outside zone, the passing plays are found in every NFL team’s playbook in one form or another, and, this season Keep Reading…