Packers Huddle

BF004 wrote: ↑

03 Mar 2023 09:33

I can't tell if he looks 16 or 45.

Gutey resemblance. Awesome!

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

03 Mar 2023 21:18

For what the lineman and LBs did yesterday the DBs today really disappointed. Gonzalez solidified his top 10 and best DB status. Brian Branch is completely out of my first round.

I wouldn't say the DBs disappointed; tons of intriguing CBs. But the safeties sure did. Unbelievable how little speed they showed. It's basically Sydney Brown or bust for me. Gonna need to look for bargain free agents at the position, too.

Daniel Scott is worth a second look based on testing today, but I'd literally never heard of him and he was at the Senior Bowl

Sydney Brown is awful at tackling. I'll take a 4.5 speed over a dude that was laughable at putting guy to the ground.

It's a FA type of year

I’m still on the Antonio Johnson bandwagon.

4.52 is above average for a starting safety.

Think I recall seeing 4.55 at FS and 4.58 for SS once for current starters at the time.


Little underwhelming on his jumping, but he’s my #1 yet.

For me, if you’re in the 4.5s you need elite instincts and football IQ. You have to be that guy who’s assignment sure and reliable. Like an Arian Amos.

I just think that speed is super underrated for safeties. You CAN play safety well with mediocre speed. Almost all of the elite, like pro bowl/hall of fame style safeties can motor.

Kid did some eating

BF004 wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 09:05

I feel like the off ball LB group was literally faster than the safeties. Not like size adjusted or anything.

BF004 wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 09:07

Kid did some eating

A guy on a podcast theorized that he’d bulk the heck up and not work out for the combine. Then slim back down, not weigh at his pro day, and do the workout. And like, chefs kiss prediction

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 08:59

For me, if you’re in the 4.5s you need elite instincts and football IQ. You have to be that guy who’s assignment sure and reliable. Like an Arian Amos.

I just think that speed is super underrated for safeties. You CAN play safety well with mediocre speed. Almost all of the elite, like pro bowl/hall of fame style safeties can motor.

Agreed and those guys don't come around often. Also I think you can get by with that slower IQ guy (Amos) if his partner can fly. That is savage when we get his best but also that gets exposed when he's struggling.

Seattle legion of boom lived off this with Thomas speed and Kams lber style of play.

I'd take Johnson or branch from 25-40 range but if I'm GB I'm moving Douglas and his ball skills to safety maybe adding a FA with speed and draft one of these CBs if you like them early. (When I say early I'm still in the camp of we will have 2 picks in the 1st).

Clark Phillips is still my guy even if he's small. The dude is someone you want in your locker room and he will make plays at the next level. I don't think he goes in the 1st but day 2 he's your slot cb.

Cb class looks good in this draft take advantage of that

My plan would be to play Douglas at FS, Savage at nickel, sign a S to a one year deal, and try drafting someone in the 4th but I’m not touching this safety class.

Even Sydney Brown I expected to run better. He’s supposed to be a track star. One thing that’s starting to interest me is how slow Florida DBs are compared to how well they play at the college level. They tend to hit the combine and run undraftable times.

Backthepack4ever wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 10:05

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 08:59

For me, if you’re in the 4.5s you need elite instincts and football IQ. You have to be that guy who’s assignment sure and reliable. Like an Arian Amos.

I just think that speed is super underrated for safeties. You CAN play safety well with mediocre speed. Almost all of the elite, like pro bowl/hall of fame style safeties can motor.

Agreed and those guys don't come around often. Also I think you can get by with that slower IQ guy (Amos) if his partner can fly. That is savage when we get his best but also that gets exposed when he's struggling.

So Amos ran a 4.56 at the combine, with is acceptable mediocre speed for, like you said, a reliable assignment, Football IQ guy. He also ran a 4.39 at his pro day. Even assuming that was generous, it shows that the 4.56 wasn’t a super accurate assessment of his true top speed.

HaHa ran a 4.58. I noted in his college tape and his pro career that he always seemed to get to the catch point a half step too slow, so he made the tackles instead of breaking up the pass or intercepting it. His 4.58 showed on tape and limited him because he wasn’t QUITE instinctive enough to make up that extra ground.

Branch just ran an exact 4.58 from the same program having filed mostly a similar college role. I think Branch is smarter and more reliable as a tackler and assignment-sure than HaHa ever was.

Nick Collins ran a 4.36 and had a great feel for the game but needed to work on his ball skills. Savage ran a 4.36 and has ball skills but needs to improve his feel for the game and assignment assured-ness.

Just for some Packers context compared to these draft guys.

I am a measurables guy all the way, but a 4.5 time is very ambiguous.

Some who run it are actually incredibly fast, e.g. Jordy Nelson. Some who run it are slow like Josh Jackson. Some people who run it are in the middle, they are not burners like Nelson was but they are not *slow* like Jackson. Davante Adams and James Jones were 4.5 guys, and while they weren't true burners like Nelson, they were very explosive, and fast enough that they did make plays downfield from time to time. Both also had fairly good size.

Or you have guys like Lazard, who was not fast (yet I would argue he was not "slow") but is 6'4/220, so the lack of speed against some guys is offset by having better size and being able to bully finesse-based athletes (I know most of my examples here other than Jackson are WRs, but I feel like the same largely holds true at DB).

Ultimately, I think if a guy runs 4.5, you just have to make a judgment call. If they look fast like Nelson or explosive like Adams, I wouldn't worry about their 4.5. If they look slow on tape, they are probably slow. If they look the same speed as other guys in college, you need to realize that they are going to look slower in the NFL, BUT there can be offseting factors like good IQ, good size, good quickness, good explosion.

Food for thought: Ed Reed is arguably the GOAT at FS, and he ran a 4.57.

Ed Reed is the exception/outlier.

You’re right that in the 4.5s you make a judgement call and Reed was ALWAYS making plays on the ball—INTs and PDs.

That, to me, is how you marry time to tape—are they fast enough to get to the ball before the receiver. Some guys need foot speed to do that, others can do it with anticipation. Getting both is ideal.

That’s why I like Sydney Brown: Ball production. I’ll have to dig into some of these safeties to check into that aspect more, but you had top-rated guys like Robinson and Brown on the 4.6s. That’s just a rough time for a DB. Every other position seems to be getting faster. There’s a role for smarts and instincts guys, but you have to be really really confident to buck the measured times and invest decent draft capital in that.

Obviously, these guys in the 4.5s didn’t make themselves undraftable or guarantee NFL failure. But they did say “hey, don’t invest a lot of capital in me. I’m not rare or special.”

In truth, while I have long argued passionately against Tape Eaters who say "40 times aren't important!" I am now wondering if GPS tracking of on-field speed has made it obsolete.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 11:03

Ed Reed is the exception/outlier.

You’re right that in the 4.5s you make a judgement call and Reed was ALWAYS making plays on the ball—INTs and PDs.

At Safety? Maybe in the sense of being a HOF talent, which makes him an exception/outlier in almost all respects.

But if there's one skill position where you can be a top-tier player (HOF-caliber or not quite) with 4.5-range speed, it's Safety.

Off the top of my head... Antrell Rolle, Malcolm Jenkins, Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, Kyle Hamilton this past year (almost a 4.6 guy, but PFF gave him a nice grade as a rookie). CJ Garder-Johnson ran 4.48, very good player, but is that 0.02 really what separates him from the JAGs?

Some guys need foot speed to do that, others can do it with anticipation. Getting both is ideal.

Everyone wants the total package, but guys with great foot speed alone do not really grow on trees at Safety, much less guys with the good speed AND plus intelligence (those guys are Top-10 or -15 locks).

The truly fast guys at DB usually do not play Safety in college, they typically play Corner (e.g. Collins himself played CB for a small college drafted him to change positions, which is why we were able to get him in Round 2), while Safety tends to be reserved for the guys that are less athletically gifted, hence why while other positions' athleticism has looked awesome, nobody at S is blowing people away.

We should not let Ideal or the elusive promise of it be the enemy of (now-)Good. I would give my left nut to have a Nick Collins in our backfield again, but I am also tired of the sub-par safety play and will gladly plug a Jordan Poyer into the lineup and be done with it.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

04 Mar 2023 10:44

Nick Collins ran a 4.36 and had a great feel for the game but needed to work on his ball skills. Savage ran a 4.36 and has ball skills but needs to improve his feel for the game and assignment assured-ness.

Just for some Packers context compared to these draft guys.

Collins definitely had an issue with catching would-be picks for a period, and hanging onto those balls made a big difference, but I don't think that's the whole story or even the biggest part with him.

What really made Collins come into his own was Woodson's tutelage. Woodson showed him how to study smart. Not hard work, Collins was putting in the time, but he was not getting out of film study what he should have until Woodson showed him how it was done.

The speed, by itself, was not what made him special. It did when it was paired with superior intelligence/instincts, but before that, he was not special, and actually bordering on being the same disappointment that Savage is today.

Speaking of Savage, I don't think lack of feel for the game or of being assingment-sure are simply issues holding him back as a player. At this stage in his career, it probably is who he is. The longer these players have been in the league, the rarer it is that these issues get fixed.

I think he is more likely to salvage his career moving to a nickel role permanently than the lightbulb coming on for him as a true S.

So Amos ran a 4.56 at the combine, with is acceptable mediocre speed for, like you said, a reliable assignment, Football IQ guy. He also ran a 4.39 at his pro day. Even assuming that was generous, it shows that the 4.56 wasn’t a super accurate assessment of his true top speed.

HaHa ran a 4.58. I noted in his college tape and his pro career that he always seemed to get to the catch point a half step too slow, so he made the tackles instead of breaking up the pass or intercepting it. His 4.58 showed on tape and limited him because he wasn’t QUITE instinctive enough to make up that extra ground.

Branch just ran an exact 4.58 from the same program having filed mostly a similar college role. I think Branch is smarter and more reliable as a tackler and assignment-sure than HaHa ever was.

Nick Collins ran a 4.36 and had a great feel for the game but needed to work on his ball skills. Savage ran a 4.36 and has ball skills but needs to improve his feel for the game and assignment assured-ness.

I don't think athleticism really explains why Haha was a bust for us. He had two pretty good seasons for us, then fell off.

The difference that I saw between the first half of his stint here and the second was not athletic, it was attitude/mental. Purely. Simply put, the guy just lost interest in being physical at all. He looked like a guy playing to not get hurt.

Yet in his first two years, when he *brought* it, he looked like a pretty solid starting safety at the very least (his peers named him a Top 100 player after Year 2).

So we are left with this...

Amos: 4.5, smart, physical/willing..... solid/good player
Collins (2009-2011): 4.3, smart, physical/willing..... elite player (total package)
Haha (Years 1-2): 4.5, smart-ish, physical/willing..... solid player
Haha (Year 3 on): 4.5, smart-ish, plays scared..... pretty bad player
Savage: 4.3, stupid, plays scared..... also pretty bad player.

The common denominator I am seeing for good S play is the smarts, and willingness to be physical. Speed if a prerequisite to being great/elite, but the lack thereof is not a barrier to being good, and it's actually useless if you lack smarts and physicality.

Obviously faster is better, but I think our expectations are too high on safety for speed here. Anything under 4.6 is solid, not limiting.

Feel like if you have that high end speed, more often that not you’ll get right of first refusal at CB.

Some disappointing 40s on the receivers end too today.