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"He's been really reliable for them for four years. He's not a center you are looking for, but he's a center you might be willing to work with." -- National scout for AFC team

Shockingly slow 40-time

Wasn't on my radar due to a pretty low RAS.

NCF wrote: ↑

25 Apr 2020 16:02

That 2nd play was impressive. Reach blocked a DT lined up in a 3-Technique.

Was in one of my mocks. I like the pick. Ton of experience could be good in a pinch.

Nice to have a real C for depth purposes. Solid use of a 6th.

I don't like this pick. A center needs to be quicker than this

TheSkeptic wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 09:09

I don't like this pick. A center needs to be quicker than this

I agree but he was the only centre left at this point in the draft that was at least 6'4" and was a senior with a full body of playing experience under his belt and playing at a high college level. With Linsley likely gone next year he was worth a dart throw.

Chilli wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 12:49

TheSkeptic wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 09:09

I don't like this pick. A center needs to be quicker than this

I agree but he was the only centre left at this point in the draft that was at least 6'4" and was a senior with a full body of playing experience under his belt and playing at a high college level. With Linsley likely gone next year he was worth a dart throw.

Do you say "quicker than this" based on game tape? Because he didn't do agility drills. This year is a black hole of workout information. The 40-yard dash is slow by our standards, but is also a bit of a mystery. There is no electronically timed recording listed. NFL Draft Scout has the Hand Held time and the electronic time for the 10-yard and the 20-yard splits, but not for the full 40 time. NFL.com combine profile has the 5.50 40-time still listed as "unofficial." The 5.46 handheld time has been reported, but Gutey said it was a 5.3

Though Gutey also said "I don't know when 5.3 became slow for an OLinemen." It became slow, Gutey, when Bakhtiari, Tretter, Linsley, Njimen, and Jenkins ran a 5.1 or below; when Bulaga, Wagner, Sitton, Turner, and Patrick ran a 4.26 or faster. And when Lane Taylor set our Packers-fan view of unathletic at 5.35... but whatever

Here are Packers Cs. The 40 times ar emuch faster, but you see we have no Pro Day or Combine agility tests or jumps for Hansen.

I just used my stopwatch on Hanson and he indeed ran about 5.30 to 5.35.

Still a notch slower than we would like to see in an OL but not a deal breaker. That time makes me feel a little better about him.

Chilli wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 18:08

I just used my stopwatch on Hanson and he indeed ran about 5.30 to 5.35.

Still a notch slower than we would like to see in an OL but not a deal breaker. That time makes me feel a little better about him.

Yeah, if you and Gutey agree that it's close to a 5.3 than a 5.5, I'll take it... and put him in the Lucas Patrick range. Tretter and Linsley were REALLY quick, both registering 3-cones of sub 7.50 and shuttles of sub-4.7 (Linsley at 4.53!), plus 40 times under 5.10.

But I'm not sure that should be the bar. Jenkins and Lucas both have 7.77 3-cones and shuttles in the 4.6s. Patrick's 40-time of 5.26 or Hansen's 5.3s isn't a ton worse than Sitton's 5.20 or Bulaga's 5.22.

These are still "athletic" OLinemen times. The fact that Tretter and Linsley and Sitton got us all in the mood for 7.5s and 4.5s doesn't make that the maximum allowable for an athletic player. 7.7s and 4.6s are still plenty good for iOL.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 18:24

Chilli wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 18:08

I just used my stopwatch on Hanson and he indeed ran about 5.30 to 5.35.

Still a notch slower than we would like to see in an OL but not a deal breaker. That time makes me feel a little better about him.

Yeah, if you and Gutey agree that it's close to a 5.3 than a 5.5, I'll take it... and put him in the Lucas Patrick range. Tretter and Linsley were REALLY quick, both registering 3-cones of sub 7.50 and shuttles of sub-4.7 (Linsley at 4.53!), plus 40 times under 5.10.

But I'm not sure that should be the bar. Jenkins and Lucas both have 7.77 3-cones and shuttles in the 4.6s. Patrick's 40-time of 5.26 or Hansen's 5.3s isn't a ton worse than Sitton's 5.20 or Bulaga's 5.22.

These are still "athletic" OLinemen times. The fact that Tretter and Linsley and Sitton got us all in the mood for 7.5s and 4.5s doesn't make that the maximum allowable for an athletic player. 7.7s and 4.6s are still plenty good for iOL.

Bear in mind these metrics were based on McCarthy's OL.

LaFleur's OL metric are a bit different. I looked at 49ers, Falcons and Titans OL measurements. There was one common theme. The OL needed to be at the very least 6'4" but more often than not were veering towards between 6'5" and 6'7", they all needed to run under 5.20s. They also weren't too heavy between 305lbs and 320lbs depending how well they carried their weight. 3-cone times were all over the place. I suppose if I had to put a number on it then no higher than 7.65s.

My suspicions were confirmed when we signed Turner, drafted Jenkins, signed Wagner and all the street FAs and UDFAs we brought in. Leglue for example is 6'7, Veldheer 6'8, Nijman 6'7"etc..

Runyan and Stepaniak just about fitted those parameters but at that point in the draft some of the metrics had to be relaxed a little bit especially in Hanson case but i'm sure LaFleur would've liked some of the taller OL taken earlier in the draft but there were other guys he liked more.

Under McCarthy OL were at most 6'4". Bulaga was the rare exception. They usually ran no slower than 5.35s. Part of the reason why MM wanted shorter OL was because Rodgers was a "shorter" QB. He also liked to escape the pocket often and to accommodate having shorter OL was necessary because they moved better than taller OL due to a lower centre of gravity.

Chilli wrote: ↑

26 Apr 2020 19:12

LaFleur's OL metric are a bit different. I looked at 49ers, Falcons and Titans OL measurements. There was one common theme. The OL needed to be at the very least 6'4" but more often than not were veering towards between 6'5" and 6'7", they all needed to run under 5.20s. They also weren't too heavy between 305lbs and 320lbs depending how well they carried their weight. 3-cone times were all over the place. I suppose if I had to put a number on it then no higher than 7.65s.

My suspicions were confirmed when we signed Turner, drafted Jenkins, signed Wagner and all the street FAs and UDFAs we brought in. Leglue for example is 6'7, Veldheer 6'8, Nijman 6'7"etc..

The 3-cones and short-shuttles have definitely gone up lately, as well.

For instance, at OT, Bulaga and Baktiari had 7.70 3-cones and 4.75 short shuttles. But Wagner and Alex Light have 3-cones of 7.91 and 8.00 and short shuttles of 4.91 and 4.81.

The iOL such as Sitton, Lang, Linsley, and Tretter had short shuttles closer to 4.5 (Tretter in the 4.6s, though) and 3-cones in the 7.5s. Meanwhile, Jenkins, Turner, and Patrick all have shuttles at 4.62 or worse and 3-cones of 7.77 or worse.

But it wouldn't make sense to say that a zone blocking team wants less athletic players. That's why I don't attribute that as much to Mike McCarthy as I do to Brian Gutenkunst. Here, Cole Madison may be informative. Drafted in Gutey's first year but for MM's system, Madison registers a short shuttle of 4.88 and a 3-cone of 7.86, both easily below the standards of TT's OL, at iOL or OT.


So I think Gutey has relaxed the OL athleticism standards a decent amount. And I think that the height is more a matter of position versatility, as well. A guy at 6'7" is an OT, but a guy at 6'4" with long-enough arms can play anywhere on the line that he settles in. That's, at least, why I prefer OL in the 6'4 - 6'5" range, and I guess I always assumed that was true for the team, but the 6'2" QB makes sense, as well.

Personally, I think the old model worked very well, and I'm hesitant to relax those standards. I prefer a more athletic player without sacrificing strength, of course. And while I appreciate looking back at MLF's old teams, since I'm attributing this more to a GM than a HC, I'm not sure it's quite as relevant; that's especially true since MLF was only in Tennessee for a year and the OL there weren't all that successful in his scheme; they weren't drafted for him and they didn't excel at the change.

This is why I love Runyan. He hits all the benchmarks, and VERY few OL in this years draft did (in large part because a lot of guys didn't do agility testing and there were no Pro Days). But still, it was VERY few. Hansen and Stefanik are both guys who LIKELY wouldn't have hit the agility thresholds, but we also will never have those numbers.

But Jenkins, our big success last year, only stretched the threshold in the 3-cone, having a more OT-like 7.77 than an iOL-like 7.5-7.6. That worked out very well. Turner, our free agent acquisition, missed the 3-cone standard significantly (7.91) and pushed the limit on the shuttle for an iOL, with a more tackle like number in the 4.7s... and his play has been mediocre.

I do not really enjoy that the overall athleticism of our OL has declined a bit as Gutey's people fill in behind TT's. That's why I'm rooting for Njimen to emerge as a surprisingly adept starter at RT and Runyan to replace Turner at RG, restoring a full starting OL full of top notch athletes who can block well.

Whether or not Hansen joins that group as the starting OL, we'll never really know, since we don't have those tests. But as TheSkeptic mentioned, we usually prefer quick Cs.