Today was the workout and timing drills for the offensive linemen and the tight ends. On Thursday they did the bench press while Friday they did the forty yard dash, cone drills, long jumps, verticals, as well as various other things to give scouts a closer look at their short space speed and strength. The offensive linemen need to show their agility from the cone drills and their strength from the bench press while the tight ends need to show some of the deep speed in the forty, along with proving they can block and have the strength to hold pass rusher up. I’ll be going over who did well and who didn’t impress of all the offensive linemen and tight ends.
For the offensive linemen, the man rated as the #1 tackle in the draft definitely didn’t disappoint as Miami’s Ereck Flowers led everyone with 37 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press. Mitch Morse of Missouri was right behind him with 36 reps and right behind both of them was Sean Hickey from Syracuse. The leading guard was Mark Glowinski from West Virginia with 31 reps. The other two offensive lineman that cracked to 30 reps mark was Florida State’s Cameron Irving and Ali Marpet from the small school of Hobert. The strongest center was Andy Gallik from Boston College.
There were three offensive linemen that couldn’t reach 20 reps of 225. Wisconsin’s Rob Havenstein doing the lowest with 16 reps. Both Andrew Donnall of Iowa and Austin Shepard of Alabama only got 17 reps. The guard with the lowest amount of bench reps was Trenton Brown of Florida and the lowest amount for any center was Kansas State’s BJ Finney. Both Brown and Finney were able to get 20 bench reps of 225.
For the tight ends, Jesse James of Penn State did well for himself today. He benched 26 reps, which was 2nd of all tight ends, and he also ran a 4.83 forty and had a broad jump of over 10 feet. A 10 foot broad jump is similar to the likes of Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski when they did the drills. At 6’7 and 261 pounds, he may have gotten himself into the 2nd round of the draft.
The guy who probably helped himself the most was Mycole Pruitt of Southern Illinois. He ran the fastest forty of anyone with a 4.58, the highest vertical with 38 inches, a 9’10” broad jump, to go with the 3rd best 20 yard shuttle and 3rd best 60 yard shuttle. His downfall has been his inconsistent blocking and route running.
Minnesota’s Maxx Williams is rated by practically everyone as the #1 tight end and he could be the only tight end to go in the 1st round, but he didn’t impress at the combine. Even though he had a solid forty time of 4.78, he only put up 17 bench reps and in the NFL, you are either a fast tight end to create mismatches or you’re a stronger tight end to block. Williams seems to be a bit of a tweener in those regards and that may not help his case in the NFL.
Next up is the normal Saturday highlight day for the NFL combine, the day for the quarterbacks to throw, the wide receivers to show off their hands, and the running backs to try to chase Chris Johnson’s 4.24 forty record. Both of the top two quarterbacks, Winston and Mariota, are both scheduled to throw and as of now, no one is expects to skip their forty, barring injury. Even though the forty yard dash is the signature event of the combine, just keep in mind that the NFL isn’t filled with all track stars.
