Dispatches from Senior Bowl practice

Niles Paul

Niles Paul, Nebraska: Paul looked like a natural receiver, catching passes with his arms extended away from his body. He showed great hand strength on a fingertip catch where he caught the back end of the ball on a sideline route before he stepped out of bounds. His receiver coach on the North Squad praised him for using his hands to get off the line of scrimmage against press coverage.
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CECIL LAMMEY AND MATT WALDMAN - The Fifth Down
Ricky Stanzi kept on rolling today with his high throws. Stanzi even overthrew a stationary target early in practice when the quarterbacks were warming up. During 7-on-7′s, Stanzi looked uncomfortable and made on awful throw about 5 yards behind the target, which resulted in a beautiful interception by Kendrick Burney of UNC. Stanzi also threw a near interception to Rashad Carmichael of Virginia Tech on an out route. Carmichael made an excellent break on the ball. It would have been an interception were it not for Niles Paul ripping the ball out.
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Josh Sanchez - NFL Mocks

 
Pierre Allen

Along the defensive line, Pierre Allen continued to struggle. The one-trick pony was once again unable to disengage from offensive linemen while making no real impact. Ryan Kerrigan of Purdue also failed to impress. He has yet to make any big plays to make him noticeable.
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Of the offensive lineman, Gabe Carimi was the most impressive. He won every single one of his battles and was going up against Jeremy Beal and Pierre Allen.
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Josh Sanchez - NFL Mocks

Just in general, all the offensive linemen really struggled with the defenders going inside them. The B gap was exploited all drill against the tackles. Jordan and Jeremy Beal (Oklahoma) both had a couple of reps where they did a quick fake outside and got through the gap almost untouched. Beal embarrassed Nate Solder (Colorado) in that regard and looked quicker than I expected. The only DL that couldn’t win battles consistently was Pierre Allen (Nebraksa) who was easily stonewalled because he gets too upright and doesn’t have leg drive. Both James Brewer (Indiana) and Solder pushed him well beyond the QB and controlled him.
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Jeff Risdon - Real GM Football
 
knapplc said:
Roy Helu

Roy Helu Jr., Nebraska: Helu lacks the acceleration to consistently get to the edge of the defense. The Bengals tried to run a few plays to the outside with Helu, and they were not successful. He does have strong leg drive, and can be successful running between the tackles as a power runner. Helu is swift when he gains momentum, but lacks burst and doesn’t get to top speed in a hurry. Another notable issue with Helu’s running is the tendency to lift his pads after contact in the hole, which eliminates his leverage advantage to gain yardage after contact. Both running back coaches watching Helu between the tackles noted a play when he hesitated to take on the linebacker in the hole, which they consider a fundamental red flag for any runner.
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CECIL LAMMEY AND MATT WALDMAN - The Fifth Down
They're not saying great things about Roy out there. However, the bold is flat out not true. Anyone watching Roy blow past the lines vs. Washington, Kansas State and especially Missouri knows he hits top-end speed in a hurry. Pulling away from DBs with decent speed from Washington and Missouri puts paid to that analysis.
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That's the thing about combines. Some scout sees one play and makes an assessment. Sometimes a wrong assessment. Anyone who's seen Roy play knows the guy has some wheels. He probably compares well with a lot of current NFL RBs.

 
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Not much that I could find about Alex Henery, other than the fact that he was interviewed by the 49ers, who seem pretty interested.

 
I do remember a lot of Husker fans saying Helu doesn't get to the edge fast enough though and wondering why we ran him laterally so much.

 
knapplc said:
Pierre Allen

Along the defensive line, Pierre Allen continued to struggle. The one-trick pony was once again unable to disengage from offensive linemen while making no real impact. Ryan Kerrigan of Purdue also failed to impress. He has yet to make any big plays to make him noticeable.
Click to expand...
Of the offensive lineman, Gabe Carimi was the most impressive. He won every single one of his battles and was going up against Jeremy Beal and Pierre Allen.
Click to expand...
Josh Sanchez - NFL Mocks

Just in general, all the offensive linemen really struggled with the defenders going inside them. The B gap was exploited all drill against the tackles. Jordan and Jeremy Beal (Oklahoma) both had a couple of reps where they did a quick fake outside and got through the gap almost untouched. Beal embarrassed Nate Solder (Colorado) in that regard and looked quicker than I expected. The only DL that couldn’t win battles consistently was Pierre Allen (Nebraksa) who was easily stonewalled because he gets too upright and doesn’t have leg drive. Both James Brewer (Indiana) and Solder pushed him well beyond the QB and controlled him.
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Jeff Risdon - Real GM Football
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I wasn't expecting Pierre Allen to have standout practices, or even average practices for that matter. The things that Allen did badly during the season are being tremendously exploited during these practices (getting off blocks, poor hands play, etc).

I've always respected Allen for playing through the injuries he did in 2009, but he has never really produced the way he should have during his senior year.

 
SKennedyScout: Paul beats richard sherman deep and locker makes the pass [via Twitter]
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SKennedyScout: Stanzi throws a nice 25 yard dig route to niles paul [via
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SKennedyScout: Nebraska's Alex Henry is the punter, but he's also getting reps during PK, and he's got a monster leg. Long FG and KO specialist and P
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SKennedyScout: Henry hit it 54 yards with room to spare [via Twitter]
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SKennedyScout: Roy Helu showing nice patience setting up his blockers as Gabe Carimi led him for a nice gain [via Twitter]
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http://profootball.scout.com/2/1042776.html

Finally some news on Alex, and good news at that.

 
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knapplc said:
-Nebraska wideout Niles Paul is a very physical guy on the outside. Unfortunately for him, he has extremely small hands — they measure 8 5/8″. Compare that to the hands of WVU’s Noel Devine (8 1/2″) who is half a foot shorter and sixty-five pounds lighter and you can see where the small hands are a concern. However, Paul — 6-foot-7/8-inch and 225-pounds — is thicker than all eight running backs participating in this year’s game.
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Josh Sanchez - NFL Mocks
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At 1st glance I thought it said he was 6'7" too...Is the 7/8 of an inch electronically timed?

How are they measuring his hands?

I've used mine to approximate dimensions of stuff at furniture stores (from tip of my thumb to end of my pinkie is 10")..I can palm a basketball, but I can't swing it around my head like Wilt Chamberlain used to..

Are his hands really that small or are they measuring some other way?

With our "Skill" players having so much trouble catching or keeping the ball, maybe we need to take glove size into more consideration in recruits.

 
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Sometimes it's a great thing to have objective evaluators that don't know the resume or body of work that college players have put up, and sometimes it's the last thing they need. What we see and remember out of all these players is shaded a certain way, and what the evaluators see will almost always be a differing or refreshing take on things.

 
zoogies said:
Long FG specialist? Sounds like guy has no clue on Alex.
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Yep. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? If that was your job, wouldn't you know more about one of the best field goal kickers in the country? Heck, we're all amateurs here and most of us could talk about how good Ressel from Missouri is, or how good Dan Bailey from OK State is, or back in the day we could have talked knowledgeably about Martin Gramatica from KState.

 
WR Niles Paul, Nebraska: At the weigh-in, Paul showed that he has a great lower body to generate power and explosion as a ball carrier after the catch. But Paul had trouble getting low to effectively release from the jam. His footwork also consistently lacked the sharpness to set up breaks. Paul works to his strengths, but he still has to develop into a more versatile athlete at the position to produce in the N.F.L. as a receiver.
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http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/senior-bowl-day-3-risers-fallers-and-steady-as-they-go/

 
Here you go guys, lifted off my Eagles official website, Philadelphiaeagles.com. Hopefully this will allay some of the fears about Hagg doing poorly:

"Another guy with unconventional size to impress in the secondary has been Nebraska's Eric Hagg, 6-1 1/2, 206. Hagg has played mostly safety here in Mobile, though he has experience as a corner and, briefly, as a linebacker. Hagg likely won't blow up the combine results, but he's been consistently around the ball during scrimmages and several scouts have mentioned him as a pleasant surprise this week."

Posted by Bo Wulf, who does write ups for the website and I assume is some kind of correspondent. In any case, he's actually there watching the guys so it's good to hear positive news.

 
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