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.

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.

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.

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.

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Kyle Long

Now that the NFL Draft is over, it is time for everyone to grade drafts, which is stupid, and yet we all feel like we must do it. It's the reason we overreact to one week of baseball games or a single football game. That's what we do; we jump to conclusions, because despite us having very limited evidence of anything, WE JUST KNOW. What everyone knows right now is the Bears had a poor draft. All that really means is that the internet and ESPN experts did not expect them to go as high.

Here's the thing about every pick in the draft. They are all RIDICULOUSLY good at football. When you read my report on Jonathan Bostic, it is incredibly negative, but then I saw a skill that very few people have, and I could envision why the Bears front office would be excited about him.

Now it's time to break down a big nasty. There's nothing more fun than the play of the offensive line. That is why everyone should read Ben Muth on Football Outsiders. I always wanted to be an offensive lineman. Unfortunately, I am 5'9" and have bulked up to 160 pounds at age 28, so my dream was shattered before it ever began. Kyle Long does not have this issue as he is 6'6" and over 300 pounds. Those are the good numbers. The bad numbers are 4 and 25. 4 is the number of starts he had in college, and 25 is how old he will be turning during his rookie season. Still, let's not get caught up in all that and look at the tape of his game against USC.

After watching the first minute of tape, I realized that it is really hard to analyze guard play. It's a lot of them just holding their ground and me saying, "Well, that looked solid." He does look athletic when he pulls, and he showed a good motor of always trying to find guys to block until the play was over.

What makes it even more difficult is that Oregon runs outside a ton, and runs a lot of zone read plays, so judging a guard when there isn't a whole lot of pounding the ball up the middle makes it even tougher.

His hand work looked like it could use some work as a lot of time he would just try to shoulder bump people in his pass protection.

This was the best play I saw when breaking things down.

He does a great job of sealing off the defensive tackle with help from his center, and then peeling off and getting enough of the safety to help his running back get in the end zone.

Him being 6'6" at guard definitely hurt him at times. Defensive tackles were able to get under him, which made it impossible for him to move them out of the way. I am a fan of a college program that has every great prospect start at guard before moving them to the outside, and it works pretty well for them, but it does make me think that his long-term future is probably at tackle.

So what do the Bears have? Potential. I think he has the skillset to step in and be a near average guard to start off. With his size and athleticism, I think the Bears are hoping that he is able to progress and move outside. This was a pick based a lot on potential. Pick #20 seemed a little early for that, but if everything pans out how the Bears envision, they will look like geniuses. All we can do is wait and see.

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Bears Pick Jonathan Bostic

As I stated during my live blog of Day 2 of the draft, I really wanted the Bears to draft inside linebacker Arthur Brown. He was ultra athletic and all the guy did was make plays. In their never-ending pursuit to try to make me root for another team, the Bears did draft a middle linebacker. Unfortunately, it was Jonathan Bostic out of Florida. I can admit that I knew next to nothing about him, so I checked out his game tape against Ohio State to find out more.

There is one thing that stood out for me when watching this game tape, and that is that I will probably never laugh harder watching film of a prospect. Here's him getting stood up by a fullback.


Here's him getting blocked by a center.


This one is my favorite, as is him just shuffling his feet and hands and then jumping on the pile a second after the runner was already down. I hope he got credit for a tackle on this one.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad, as this was a really nice play where he blew things up without getting any credit for it. 

To be even more fair, the tape is from his Junior year. Guys get better, so I took a look at his game against Vanderbilt to check for improvements.

The good news is that you can at least see the athleticism in the guy  in this Vanderbilt game.

I was honestly about to just stop watching, but then I saw something that perked me up.

I LOVE the bend he has on that pass rush move. That is a thing of beauty. The Bears are going to be switching up their defense somewhat. With that, he could fit in at outside linebacker better than he does on the inside. The Bears drafted a middle linebacker out of Arizona named Lance Briggs, and everyone thought they were insane, because they already had Urlacher in the middle. Well, that pick turned out okay for them.

He also looked solid in coverage, but diagnosing plays and making things happen from inside just did not look like his cup of tea. If they drafted him to be a middle linebacker, I'm not happy with this pick. But if they put him on the outside and show a willingness to blitz him, I can definitely see him surprising people and having an impact early on. 

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: James Vandenberg

This will be my final quarterback piece, and I admit it's a little unconventional. This is the only time I will scout a high school quarterback, but James Vandenberg, aka Jonathan Moxon is a special case. Let's face it: In Texas, football is king, and no place is that more true than in West Canaan where the Coyotes were led by legendary coach, Bud Kilmer. I say were, because Coach Kilmer was replaced in the second half of the final game of the season by former Coyotes quarterback, Lance Harbor. Since Kilmer had no assistants, they had no issues giving the coaching gig to a high school kid who seems to love racing cars more than football.

Something that I really like about his game is how he gets black guys touchdowns. That was not a staple in the offense before he took over.

There are definitely issues with his offensive line, as his left tackle often passes out from concussions in the middle of plays, but he still works through everything.

One issue I see for him in the future is that he tends to get tunnel vision when targeting his favorite receiver, Tweeter (pretty sure that's a social media nickname).

My other big concern with him is character. This is not what I want to see from my quarterback.

If he can't hit a beer can off his pop's head, then I'm not sure about his ability to lead receivers at the next level.

There were also people questioning whether he had the right mindset when he took over after Lance Harbor's injury. Although his play on the field was impressive, he may have gotten a little carried away with his play off the field where he stepped out on his lady friend for an intimate moment with Darcy Sears. Still, after that initial rendezvous, he seemed to keep his head on straight.

On top of this, he tried to play a game hungover. Not sure if this was an homage to legendary ESU quarterback, Joe Cain, but I've seen Joe Cain, and Mr. Moxon, you are no Joe Cain. Cain is Able.

Still, there's a lot to dream on with that arm. I can't believe he's taking his talents to Brown University, but he could definitely break some of Ryan Fitzpatrick's Ivy League records. This guy is the real deal. Keep him away from booze and the wild women, and he could be a first round pick in a few years.

Wait...what? I was talking about James Van Der Beek and not James Vandenberg? Who the hell is James Vandenberg? Iowa Quarterback? Shit man, he was terrible. Just terrible. Here was his highlight from last year:

A 40 yard pass in a scrimmage where he still couldn't throw a touchdown pass. Shockingly, nobody has cut up a game tape to show his throws. So, yeah, don't draft James Vandenberg.

And since I don't want to end this on a bad note, let's remember one thing...

Mox is a fox.

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: EJ Manuel

Next up on the list is EJ Manuel. I always kind of liked him in the limited times that I really focused on him, but like all of these guys, I figured I would study the tape and see if I could get a little more depth to my knowledge about his talents. He's been rising up draft boards, but is it warranted or is it just desperation? I took a look at his game against Clemson to see what I could find out.

Sets his feet and delivers nice throw to start off the game.

He's got very good mobility. He's not a burner, but he's got speed and is elusive so he can make people pay with his feet.

This pass is incredibly simple but made me happy.

It is a simple swing pass, but he leads his running back so he is moving forward as he catches the pass. It's not like it leads to a long gain, but it probably gets him two extra yards.

He's always looking to lead his receiver which is fantastic. He doesn't always execute it, but even on simple routes, he tries to lead his receiver to make things happen after the catch.

I definitely noticed some tunnel vision from Manuel, which is worrisome. He can really stare down his receiver and never works across the field, so he needs to have multiple options set up on a single side of the field with where his awareness is at right now.

He has good deep ball accuracy.

Overall, I liked Manuel, but I didn't love him. His vision worries me, but most everything else I like. I wouldn't have a problem with drafting him late in the first round. Right now, he's behind Matt Barkley, but I would have him ahead of Geno Smith.

Scouting the 2013 NFL Draft: Ryan Nassib

Ryan Nassib out of Syracuse is a guy who I glanced at his games but could never really watch, because I don't watch Big East football. Obviously, with Syracuse as his school, there are going to be the Donovan McNabb comparisons. I haven't actually heard those comparisons anywhere, but they did both attend Syracuse, and it seemed like a more fitting comparison than Jim Brown or Carmelo Anthony. I decided to watch his tape against Louisville to see what I could find out. 

His deep ball was not pretty. Badly underthrew it on his first pass of the game but receive made a good adjustment. His down the field accuracy was just not there at all.

Something small is he is actually willing to throw the ball away when nothing is there. That is not very common in a lot of prospects.

He does a good job of keeping his eyes down the field and going through his progressions but he does look a little mechanical in doing it.

He was more athletic than I expected. Not a great athlete but he can move a little bit.

His accuracy just is not there. Even on short passes, he does not properly lead players, as seen here.

If he leads his receiver on that ball, he's got a touchdown, but he threw it a little behind him, and it nearly got picked off.

Even on this touchdown pass, he does not throw a good ball to make it easy for his receiver.

There's really not much to say. He threw some nice balls but not consistently, and this was supposedly one of his shining moments. He got a good win, but he was not overly impressive in doing so. I really don't see him as much more than a 6th or 7th round pick since he seems to have a strong arm, but there is just too much wrong with him for me to really consider him.

To end on a positive note, he's not as bad as Blaine Gabbert, because nobody will ever be as bad as Blaine Gabbert.