Combine Winners and Losers Saturday

Saturday was the first combine day with any real action and there was some interesting happenings. First for whatever reason Orson Charles decided not to run on the fast track at Indy. Which can’t help. Considering he got to the combine bigger than people though the was at 251 pounds, he might have wanted to lose weight to run or something. That’s just purely speculation. He did look terrific in drills though.

Dwayne Allen ran slow, but also looked good in drills. The rest of the TE class is meh. James Hanna from Oklahoma ran a blazing 40 yard dash, but he can’t catch the football. Well at least now yesterday at the combine.

Mike Adams stock continues to yo-yo. Ran slow, looked better in the drills, but also had 19 bench press reps which is bad, terrible really for a first round OL.

Let’s start with a couple of notes from draftinsider.net

Alshon Jeffery had a terrific weigh-in, but apparently didn’t wow in interviews:

– Speaking of receivers, a handful of scouts told us tonight they were less than impressed the interviews they had with South Carolina receiver Alshon Jeffery.

Sources have told us several red flags have been raised on offensive lineman Rishaw Johnson.  His past off the field transgressions have been well documented but we’ve been alerted to a situation during the Shrine Game where Johnson’s roommate demanded to be moved to a different room after several situations occurred involving the Cal-Pa offensive lineman.

Now onto who impressed:

Winners:

From Mocking the draft:

Tackle/guard prospect Cordy Glenn instantly stole the headlines with an unofficial 4.96 49 yard dash time. For an offensive lineman to run under five seconds is fairly rare. For an offensive lineman who officially weighed in at 345lbs earlier in the week that’s unheard of. That kind of athleticism will raise his stock because it opens up the possibility that he could play for a zone-blocking scheme rather than just a power scheme. However, his footwork in some drills was a bit slow from my point of view. If he wants to be a left tackle in the NFL, he has to work on that.

Another top performer in my view was Baylor center, Philip Blake. He had an unofficial 10 yard split of 1.76, which is good for interior lineman. He looked a lot more polished than I thought he would. He kept his hands and head up and shuffled his feet well throughout.

I liked a lot of what I saw from Nate Potter. The Boise State tackle projects as a mid-round tackle (probably on the right side) and helped himself today with good numbers and solid technique on most of the drills. He looked fluent and smooth when changing direction quickly.

Losers:

Rishaw Johnson had a horrible day in the drills. He failed to shuffle his feet and was constantly jumping or skipping instead of shuffling. He looked out of his depth and in the NFL, if you are skipping in stead of shuffling, you are going to get pushed back and beaten easily.

Kelechi Osemele struggled a bit on the pulling drills. One particular pull to his left stood out in my memory where he got his feet tangled up getting off the snap. Josh Oglesby ran a near pathetic 40. He was officially timed at 5.80. Admittedly I don’t remember seeing how he did in the rest of the drills to see if he made up for it, but that was a poor start for him.

From National Football Post:

Winners:

It was a strong performance from Illinois OL Jeff Allen as well today. Allen ran in the mid 5.1 range and also showcased good athleticism when asked to pull and get out on the move. And at 6-4, 307-pounds he exhibited good length for the guard position (33.5) and showcased natural strength on the bench (26 reps).

It was an impressive group of tight ends working out Saturday, but none may have been as impressive as Oklahoma’s James Hanna. The 6-4, 252-pound target ran in the high 4.4 range, posted a 36-inch vertical and a 10-foot-2-inch broad jump. He did looked a bit unnatural at times catching the football, but overall it was an impressive display of athleticism from Hanna.

Finally, Temple’s “do-it-all” threat Evan Rodriguez had a very solid workout. He ran in the 4.5 range, posted an explosive 36-inch vertical and adjusted to the football well throughout positional drills. He’s a guy who can be used in a number of ways on an offense and can be a mismatch guy from either the FB/TE or H-back spots in the NFL.

At this best you hope Rodriguez is Chris Cooley.

Loser:

It wasn’t a great performance from Clemson tight end Dwayne Allen who posted a 40-time of nearly 4.9. Plus, he wasn’t real explosive in either of the jumps and look pretty average as an athlete during positional drills. Now, he is a coordinated pass catcher who can adjust to the football. However, Allen simply isn’t a real dynamic type athlete in any area of the game.

Another disappointing performance came from UCLA TE Cory Harkey. It wasn’t surprising that the massive 6-4, 260-pound threat ran in the 5.1 range. However, for a guy who is going to make his living as a blocker, his 13 reps on the bench was not an ideal number to hit.

Here is a word on NFL.com

I thought Clemson’s Dwayne Allen, Oklahoma’s James Hanna and Missouri’s Michael Egnew really cemented themselves as being more than capable to play in the NFL. Their numbers in the drills were phenomenal, and both of them did a good job catching passes.

And then, of course, there was Georgia’s Orson Charles. Man, can this kid play. But I’ll tell you what, forget his physical gifts. This kid showed me something else.

This game is too hard not to have guys like Charles on your team. Because when you play in this league, and it hurts, and you’ve got problems at home, and you’re feeling down, you need somebody who is going to pick you up. Charles was doing that all day in his group. He was the one revving those guys up, motivating them to go hard.

Dwayne Allen looked better in the drills than he did in the 40 yard dash. He timed slow, but Allen is a bigger guy who blocks well and has excellent body control which is his strength. He’s still a fringe first round prospect, early second ro

"@tinley24 Developmental guy could be Tom Compton from South Dakota. Good athletic ability, could develop into a starter someday.— NFL Mocks Crew (@NFLMocks) February 26, 2012"