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Something to consider . . .
One scout told me that the safest pick in the draft is Notre Dame guard Quinton Nelson.
“He forklifts people,” the scout said.
So if the Jets sign Kirk Cousins, people wonder if the Jets would pick Nelson, instead of a QB at six.
While he’s a heck of a player, one thing that you have to consider is the philosophical background of the Jets’ offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates and offensive line coach Rick Dennison.
They are both disciples of Mike Shanahan, who was very much into the zone-blocking scheme.
“An offensive line, moving as one, strides with [the running back], engaging not the men in front of them, but the men occupying the areas to which they’re headed,” wrote Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post in 2010 after Shanahan took over the Redskins. “The flow of the play goes, say, to the right, and with one foot planted firmly and swiftly in the ground, the back turns it back to the left.”
In this scheme, you don’t need huge offensive line. Quickness and athletic ability are more important than size.
One of the better guards in Denver for Shanahan was Mark Schlereth, a 10th round pick in the 1989 draft (by Washington). He was undersized, but very effective in this system.
Center Tom Nalen, a seventh-round of the 1994 draft by Denver was a great player in the zone-system, going to five Pro Bowls. He was also undersized.
So you get the idea. When it comes to zone blocking, you don’t necessarily need to pick offensive linemen high in the draft, because you aren’t looking for massive, powerful road-graders, but more system-fits.
And that takes us to whether the Jets should pick Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, clearly the best back in the draft, with the sixth pick.
Once again, just like the offensive line spots, when it comes to running backs in a zone system, you don’t necessarily need to pick runners that high.
First off, you don’t need running backs with great speed. Quick feet and visions are more important.
One of the greatest zone running backs of all time was Denver’s 1995 fifth-round pick, a guy named Terrell Davis, who made the Hall-of-Fame last year. He ran between 4.6-4.7 in the forty, but was superb in this one-cut system. So was Arian Foster in Houston, an undrafted free agent out of Tennessee in 2009, who ended up making four Pro Bowls.
So this is something to consider with offensive linemen and running backs in the system Bates-Dennison are expected to run.
You don’t need to pick them in the first round.
So while Nelson and Barkley are two outstanding players, the Jets’ new offensive system might steer them away from these players.
In the current issue of Jets Confidential Magazine which came out this week, I wrote that Pittsburgh Steelers free agent OT/OG Chris Hubbard, could be a target of the Jets. The 6-4, 290-pound athletic lineman fits their new scheme.
March 2, 2018
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