Thursday, May 30, 2013

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Marquess Wilson

This is the final installment of looking at the Bears draft picks, as I do not have the resources to look up every undrafted free agent. I hope those guys understand. If there is somebody that your team drafted that you would like to see a breakdown of, shoot me an email uncensoredwriting@gmail.com, hit me up on Twitter @HottJoe or post it to the Uncensored Writing Facebook group. But now onto the Bears seventh round draft pick, Marquess Wilson, from Washington State, kind of. I'll be looking at his games against Colorado and Oregon in one super video.

The first thing that jumped out at me with Wilson is that he does an excellent job of using his body and also snatching the ball out of the air away from his body. This first play is an excellent example of this.

He knows there is a defender behind him, and even though that defender is too far away to even attempt a play on the ball, it is good technique to shield that defender away and catch the ball away from the body.

This athleticism is fun to see from a good sized receiver.

He gives a dip in his shoulder to avoid one tackler, and then he just hits the jets and outruns everybody to the end zone.

My biggest concern with Wilson's game is his ability to make catches when there is contact. I love his technique as he does try to snatch the ball away from his body, but it just looks like his hands aren't strong enough when he has to deal with contact. There was a string of plays early on against Oregon that help illustrate his issues.

None of those drops are egregious on their own, but it does create a bad pattern. It was a bunch of almost catches where you give a little credit to the defense and a little fault to the receiver, but those are plays that need to be made at the next level, because he is going to be experiencing a lot of contact at the next level.

The good news is that he is very good at tracking the ball and putting himself in a position to make the catch.

Overall, this is a good fit for the Bears. The drops are concerning, but he can stretch the field, which should help the passing game. If the Bears throw him on the field with Alshon Jeffrey and Brandon Marshall, they can definitely create some matchup problems. I definitely expect him to stick with the team and progressively get more playing time as the season goes on.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Cornelius Washington

Continuing my series to review each of the Bears 2013 draft picks, I will look at sixth round pick, Cornelius Washington, a defensive end out of Georgia. I will admit that I know nothing about Washington as every time I watched Georgia, I was focusing on Jarvis Jones and Alec Ogletree. Luckily, the magic of the internet has video highlighting him, so it's time to check out what the Bears got by reviewing his game against traditional SEC power, Missouri.

The first play of the game will go on Washington's highlight reel. It will not go on Missouri's right tackle's highlight reel.

Yeah, Washington just gives a little shake, the offensive tackle never punches him, so Washington just clubs him out of the way with his outside arm and has a free run to the wide receiver playing quarterback. A lot of this was poor technique, but it was still a real nice play from Washington. Let's look at a still shot.
Oh yeah. That's an offensive lineman's worst night nightmare, and a defensive lineman's wet dream.

He is definitely a good athlete with nice explosion off the ball. He can cause issues with his burst if the lineman is slow out of his stance without having to do much with his hands.

Since Missouri does a lot of read option, Washington has to stay and maintain the edge position to keep things inside the tackles. It doesn't look too impressive, but it is useful in the overall defensive scheme.

His explosiveness definitely caused Missouri problems in this game. This isn't a huge play, but he really causes havoc by not letting the tackle keep him on the outside and tackling the quarterback for a short loss.

Offensive linemen with poor technique are going to get destroyed by Washington, because he can make them pay. I expect him to destroy the Bears fifth round pick, Jordan Mills, is likely going to get destroyed in drills during summer camp.

One thing he consistently shows is that he knows how to use power with his hands. He makes violent contact if the offensive lineman does not get a good initial shove on him, and he can really cause problems. Missouri's offensive line didn't look very good, but Washington looks like a very real prospect. I keep trying to find the glaring weakness in his game, but I'm just not seeing it. I don't think he's an All-Pro, but at worst, he can come in early and rush the passer on third downs and develop into more as time goes on.

I didn't know anything about him going in, but going out, I think this is my favorite pick from the Bears draft class in 2013.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Jordan Mills

Moving on in the series of checking out of each of the Chicago Bears picks, it is time for fifth round pick, Jordan Mills, an offensive tackle out of Louisiana Tech. This was definitely a pick for Mike Tice who feels he can turn coal into diamonds, because Mills is going to be a little raw playing at a smaller school, but he also has a lot of athletic potential. I'm pretty sure Tice still loves J'Marcus Webb, but the results haven't exactly matched the love. Hopefully this turns out better. I was not expecting to find tape on Mills, but sure enough, he has film against Texas A+M (I have to use a +, since the and symbol does not cooperate on blogger), which is a great chance to see how he performs against top competition.

He is a massive man who handled the right tackle responsibilities for Louisiana Tech. He knows how to use his size and power in the run game, as he completely clears out the Texas A+M defensive end.

When he can get his hands on the defender and just use his strength, he is going to be in good shape, but this guy is definitely raw as you will see on the play below. His guy does not get the sack here, but that's only because his teammate beat him to it. When you focus on this play, just look at Mills's right foot.

That is the tiniest kick step in the history of organized football. No offensive tackle can possibly have a defensive end lined up outside of them, use that as their first step and expect to have any chance at stopping the rusher. I've watched this play a dozen times, and it shocks me every time.

That is the most egregious example, but it is definitely not the only example of that tiny first step. Basically, he's wasting the fact that he knows the snap count by not putting himself in a good position. In college, he was so big that it did not cost him as badly as it will in the professional ranks.

The physical tools are there, but his footwork needs to improve by leaps and bounds for him to even become a passable pass blocker. That makes him a project, and considering it is a fifth round pick, it is not too concerning that the Bears went this route.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Khaseem Greene

Well, it's been a while, but I am still going to try to get through all the Bears draft picks with decent YouTube tape on them. For previous installments, you can learn more about Kyle Long here, and more about Jonathan Bostic here. Since the Bears had no third round pick, it is time to jump to the fourth round and look at Rutgers linebacker, Khaseem Greene. Greene was somebody I liked from the limited information I had about him, so I was excited about the pick and his chances to come in early and make an impact. The guy is a great athlete, and he was somebody who made a lot of plays in college, two things that get me very excited. I took a look at his game against Arkansas to get a better idea about his skills.

One thing that he seems to do well is reading the quarterback's eyes to recognize where he should be dropping in his zone. This is a good example of him using the quarterback's eyes to figure out where he should be going in his zone. 

It's a situation where he may have some peripheral sight of the wide receiver, but the big key is reading Tyler Wilson's eyes and cutting off that route. He closed down the passing lane and made Wilson throw the ball away.

Even though he was good in zone coverage, it is not a wise idea to line him up on the team's best receiver in man-to-man coverage
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He may be athletic, but, yeah, that's not the team's best decision. Also, the safety did a really poor job on that play. Coverage wise, he's solid but not totally smooth in turning his hips and running down the field. I still think he has the speed to handle responsibilities in most coverage schemes, just don't line him up on receivers with no help.

For the running game, he has some work to do. He does a good job of reading plays, but he can get swallowed up by blockers since he is not a huge linebacker. I would like to see him be stronger on contact. Also, he doesn't always do a good job of finishing his tackles. This is probably the most egregious example of that:

That's a tackle that you need to make, and it cost his team about eight yards.

In this game against Arkansas, he really struggled to read plays and attack the hole. He always seemed a little hesitant on making moves. On this play, he just badly misreads the play. He vacates the hole that the running back was looking for on the counter, and it leads to a huge gain by the offense.

Another issue he had in this game against Arkansas was diagnosing plays and attacking. He badly misreads this play, vacates the hole that the runner was looking for on the counter, and it leads to a big gain.



He moves to his right, but he isn't going to make a play on that side either way. Either he is just going to add to the pile, or the running back will try to break it outside on there. Instead, the running back cuts back to where Greene should have been and turns it into a first down. Greene is relatively new to linebacker, so it may be something that he can improve on, but right now, he is really just relying on pure athleticism to make plays.

One good thing that I saw a lot of was that he really tried to strip the ball from people when making tackles, which means he should fit in well with the rest of the Bears defense.

Overall, he is going to be a good coverage linebacker that has a good chance of at least getting third down snaps this year. His background as a safety really helps him there. Unfortunately, his lack of experience at linebacker could hurt him as he is just a split second slow at diagnosing plays. If he can improve that aspect of his game, he has the athleticism to be a solid outside linebacker.