The various pro-days are already underway but the high profile events start tomorrow with prospects from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Auburn working out. Ryan Mallett and Cam Newton will both throw and run through drills, while Mallett is expected to run the forty yard dash – something he chose not to do at the combine.
I’ve listed all of the upcoming pro-days so you can track them below.
March 8th
Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma
March 9th
California, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Portland State, Rutgers, Texas A&M and Wisconsin
March 10th
Alabama, Buffalo, Clemson, Fort Valley State, Fresno State, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville, Miami (FLA), Mississippi State, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas Tech, Washington State and West Texas A&M
March 11th
Idaho, Ohio State, Oregon State, Purdue, Southern Miss, Tennessee and TCU
March 12th
Arizona
March 14th
Central Michigan and LSU
March 15th
Delaware, Florida, Kansas State, Montana State, Pittsburgh and SE Louisiana
March 16th
Florida State, Hampton, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan State, Mount Union, Penn State and Villanova
March 17th
Appalachian State, Lehigh, Marshall, Michigan, Missouri, Slippery Rock, Stanford, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia
March 18th
Arkansas State, Missouri State, New Mexico State, Richmond and Temple
March 21st
Abilene Christian and Iowa
March 22nd
Georgia, Iowa State, Ole Miss and Nevada
March 23rd
Arizona State, Boston College, Central Florida, Connecticut, East Carolina, North Carolina State, Syracuse and Chattanooga
March 24th
Boise State, San Diego State and South Florida
March 28th
Cincinnati, Citadel, Houston, Rice, Texas and Utah State
March 29th
UCLA and Utah
March 30th
Northern Iowa, South Carolina, USC and Washington
March 31st
Hawaii and North Carolina
April 1st
Eastern Washington
April 4th
SMU
April 7th
Notre Dame
Monday draft links
Michael Lombardi and Steve Wyche look at tomorrow’s pro-days at Auburn and Arkansas.
TFY’s Brent Sebloski has an updated mock draftwith Ryan Mallett going to the Seahawks at #25. Interestingly, he speculates about the possibility of Seattle using the pick as trade bait for Carson Palmer.
Chad Reuter updates his mock for CBS Sportsline with Jake Locker heading to Seattle.
Gil Brandt lists his top-100 prospects for NFL.com and breaks them into tier’s of ten.
Josh Liskiewitz has some less high-profile combine risers and fallers. I agree completely with Liskiewitz’s thoughts on Jabal Sheard and Gabe Carimi.
With John Clayton and others projecting Christian Ponder as a real possibility for the Seahawks at #25, what do you know about the nature of his arm surgeries? I believe that these were not the red-flag injuries, such as structural problems in the shoulder or elbow, but it would be intesting to know.
I would be surprised if Christian Ponder is a possibility at #25. He’s nowhere near worthy of a first round pick. His shoulder injuries are of great concern to me because he never had a strong arm to begin with. Think Chad Pennington and all the shoulder problems he’s had. You watch his performance against Boston College (just one example) and see how he struggles to even throw a WR screen with sufficient velocity and it’s a worry. He’s not that accurate and his football IQ is vastly over rated because he’s an intelligent and personable guy off the field. I have him in the R4-5 range as someone never likely to start in the NFL with a solid-backup level of ability as his peak. I suspect he will go earlier than that (although not round one) but I stand by my grade.
Drafting Ponder at #25 would be a huge mistake, but one that I feel is somewhat possible, unfortunately. There are some evaluators who have Ponder #3 on their QB boards, and its likely at least 2 QB’s will be gone by #25. What if Seattle is one of those teams who puts Ponder highly?
I’d give it a 5% chance of happening, but I won’t be shocked if it does.
I think we see a lot of this every year – just using 2009 as an example, Colt McCoy gets slated as a R1, Clausen is a top-ten, LeFevour is R2-3, Pike in R3… every single guy went lower than expected by the media. I’m guessing Ponder will fall into that category and the Kaepernick’s and Dalton’s will also perhaps go a little lower too.
Just read a transcript of what Clayton said and I’m pretty sure you can write it off as a just a beat writer pretending to be a scout and doing a poor job at it. Clayton’s rationale for favoring Ponder over Locker was:
“To me he looks more polished” . . . “he fits the West coast offense a little bit better [than Locker].” He doesn’t have the arm strength or athleticism of Locker “but I thought he threw the ball well and you know he’s accurate and he’s got a good frame on him.”
I’m assuming the offensive fit ideas are related to Ponder being more accurate with short routes. To me, this “west coast offense” theory is misinformed. Many Seahawks fans doubt the offense will change much under Bevell (b/c it’s really Carroll’s offense) and even if it does, Bevell has never ran a dink and dunk style west coast offense. The majority of starts by QBs under Bevell have been Brett Favre (at both Green Bay and Minnesota) and Tavaris Jackson . . . there’s no reason to equate “west coast offense” with “weak armed QB who’s accurate at shorter routes.”
Finally, you have the broad “you know he’s accurate” comment . . . Besides Rob here, Scouts Inc actually rates Ponder as less accurate than even Mr. inaccurate Locker because of his general lack of accuracy on both outside and deeper routes (i.e. routes that require arm strength) and CBS says that although accurate on short routes Ponder “Occasionally forces the receiver to adjust on deeper passes, as his lack of dominant arm strength can cause the ball to float.”
Clayton never said he had inside info that the Seahawks were interested he just gave an opinion, that virtually every scout disagrees with. I’m not worried about the Hawks going after Ponder in the 1st.
Excellent points, McDavis.
I sincerely hope that the Hawks would have zero thoughts about using a first round pick on Ponder.
His arm problems are major enough that this should warrant real red flags. I’ve had arm problems and I can tell you they never truly go away. Throwing is such an unnatural movement, that once you develop problems, you can never really fix it 100%. Sure, there’s Tommy John Surgery (which I’ve had), but it’s never as comfortable throwing as it was pre-injury.
Injuries aside, I think Ponder’s talent level warrants nothing more than a pick outside of the top 75. He’s an extremely limited QB whose intelligence is grossly overstated. He may be extremely smart with a book in hand, but his decision making has never been consistent or good. And let’s not forget, that Ponder played on a team loaded with talent. I realize Florida State’s record hasn’t been great, but they get top notch supporting athletes and his O-line is nothing to scoff at either.
I hate to sound so extreme here, but I just cannot portray how monumental of a mistake Ponder would be in the first round. A warm weather, injury riddled QB with poor arm strength going to a wet, windy, colder climate just doesn’t seem like a logical fit to me. Physical tools aren’t everything, but if we’ve learned anything in the past decade, it’s that teams with QBs who can consistently make plays, always win. It’s as simple as that. The Packers and Steelers didn’t win with game managing QBs and dominant O-lines. In fact, they won despite having bad O-lines because their QBs demanded respect of opposing defenses.
Did you hear an echo Rob???
Ponder participated in eleven meaningful games last year and managed +200 yards only three times – against a poor Wake Forest team, against a UNC team missing most of it’s top defensive talent through suspension and against a sunken Florida at the end of the season. His completion percentage dropped from around 68% to 61%. Even if you watch 2009 tape and believe he’s more talented than we saw in 2010, the injury’s should raise major concern and red flags because it hit his game so much in production – but technically he was healthy enough to perform. That alone – ignoring everything else – should keep him well clear of round one.
Aye, good post. On the other hand, I hope one of the NFC West teams take him so that they’ll be hindered development wise.
That aside, it’s a little concerning that is ALREADY having injury problems at the college level behind such a good O Line. I’m not talking about his arm, but his actual body durability. I had the same concern with Bradford last year but the reason he was able to negate the issues is because he has A) a strong running game B) an upgraded, but ok OL C) 90% were short passes that were designed to get the ball out of his hand quickly. The final thing with Bradford is that he bulked up about 20 lbs between his last injury in college to his pro day. He looked immensely stronger at his Pro Day compared to his borderline stick figure frame in college. Ponder on the other hand is already maxed out frame wise.
Alex
Rob, kinda disappointed on the new format with your draft-board. Doesn’t allow us to see other bloggers opinion. Thats part of the fun…just saying!
Are you referring to the mock draft? I needed a seperate page for the mock to live and it’d be difficult to keep rolling comments on it with so many changes. However, every update I start a discussion post so there’s always the opportunity there to have your say.
From now till draft day I expect everyone from Cam Newton to Anthony Rendon and Andrew Luck mocked to the Hawks by one source or another. Unfortunately these days a “way out there” pick tends to draw more attention than the mocks from the guys who follow the draft for longer than just month leading up to the big day. Fortunately PC is a smart guy and in the real world there is 0.000001% chance he wastes a first rounder on Ponder.
If we take anybody outside of the big 4 I think it has to be Kaepernick, and he’s a reach in the first.
Haha…fingers crossed for Rendon. He can just walk to Safeco.