#98 - Rodgers

[Ill-yasova]

that's all I have to offer.. wasn't able to follow him in college considering he was playing on the other side of the country. . Sorry it's not up to your standards. Just a little bit of insight

I don't think he was being sarcastic

Well my apologies if that's the case.

Agreed. 2/3 of the comments on here are pure sarcasm but I think he was being legit too. I always appreciate input from a first hand source.

[gbmb34]

Would've rather had Gilmore who went one pick later. Never heard of this guy or watched a second of highlights or anything though.

[WeekapaugGroove]

If plays in the 260s he's s little bigger than the current tes on the roster. I imagine they think he has the raw skills they can develop into a good blocker. If he pans out he could be a well rounded te. Was used as a an h-back some last yr I wonder if the pack will do a little of that too.

I don't know enough about any of the TEs at this range in the draft to have too much og an opinion but seems like a decent 'potential' type pick.

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[humanrefutation]

I don't think he was being sarcastic

Well my apologies if that's the case.

Agreed. 2/3 of the comments on here are pure sarcasm but I think he was being legit too. I always appreciate input from a first hand source.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I actually did appreciate that info.

[Buckrageous]

They interviewed the Cal OC Tony Franklin today on 1250 (Chuck and Wickett) to talk about Rodgers. He said he had the best hands of anyone hes ever coached and has "excellent ball skills." They didnt ask him to block much inline but they did the last game against Stanford and he did well. He said is he would have come back next year he could of been an All American and a 1st round pick. I know hes a former coach with a bias opinion but it got me excited about the pick and to see him play.

Also said he could been a QB if he learned the position, he can throw the ball 70 yrds for whatever thats worth.

[Ayt]

They interviewed the Cal OC Tony Franklin today on 1250 (Chuck and Wickett) to talk about Rodgers. He said he had the best hands of anyone hes ever coached and has "excellent ball skills." They didnt ask him to block much inline but they did the last game against Stanford and he did well. He said is he would have come back next year he could of been an All American and a 1st round pick. I know hes a former coach with a bias opinion but it got me excited about the pick and to see him play.

Also said he could been a QB if he learned the position, he can throw the ball 70 yrds for whatever thats worth.

The Packers Director of College Scouting, Brian Gutekunst, mentioned that they thought Dick-Rod was "one of the best ball skills guys in the draft. That he catches it really, really well."

[El Duderino]

They interviewed the Cal OC Tony Franklin today on 1250 (Chuck and Wickett) to talk about Rodgers. He said he had the best hands of anyone hes ever coached and has "excellent ball skills." They didnt ask him to block much inline but they did the last game against Stanford and he did well. He said is he would have come back next year he could of been an All American and a 1st round pick. I know hes a former coach with a bias opinion but it got me excited about the pick and to see him play.

Also said he could been a QB if he learned the position, he can throw the ball 70 yrds for whatever thats worth.

The Packers Director of College Scouting, Brian Gutekunst, mentioned that they thought Dick-Rod was "one of the best ball skills guys in the draft. That he catches it really, really well."

From pretty much everything i've read, Rodgers does have great hands, has pretty natural receiving skills, and is a hard working kid. He ran a 4.9 40 though, so that put him into the mid-round/4th-6th area.

That said, while his pedestrian speed very well could end up limiting the ceiling for Rodgers, a number of NFL tight ends are currently able and in the past have been able to be productive without great speed so long as they understand how to read a defense, run precise routes, and have really good hands.

I wasn't all that excited by him being picked at the time, but who knows. When you get to that area of the draft, most all of those players have a mix of intriguing qualities and noticeable flaws which kept them from being drafted in say the first two rounds. So i have no idea what to expect of him. I loved the DJ Williams pick at the time, but he ended up being largely worthless.

[Ayt]

The 40 time is pretty shocking to me. He certainly doesn't play that slow on tape. I've watched several different videos on him now and if I didn't know how he tested out I would have guessed he'd be in the typical 4.7 something range. He's not a burner, but he certainly isn't slow. Despite his pedestrian numbers at the combine, I could see him eventually being a TE we could split out wide at times as well as using him in the slot. Remember, Finley ran a 4.82 at the combine. Given how much Dick-Rod has had to work on his body in the last few years we also may be able to speed him up a bit with some proper training as well by finding his natural playing weight.

There are some decent highlights in this clip which is a vid people may not have seen. I like how quickly he gets off the snap (particularly at the 1:10 mark) and how natural he is at plucking the ball out of the air on a variety of the different receptions in the video. His quickness off the snap shows up in all the videos at draftbreakdown as well.

http://www.patriots.com/media-center/vi ... f7f54f3317

He has natural hands and is just a naturally big dude at 6-4, 260 or so and you can tell he's a solid overall athlete. He doesn't lumber out there. He's very fluid. He shows willingness in his blocking and his explosiveness at the snap could be important there as he develops. He's apparently very smart and coachable.

In a different draft maybe he drops to the 4th, but I'm not surprised at all that we took at the end of the 3rd with a supplemental pick. I doubt he would have dropped much if we hadn't taken him.

One major thing in terms of this year is that he is young having come out as a true Junior. That could definitely limit what he is able to do this year, though his big body may help in that regard.

[jimmybones]

Wow. Doing some "scouting" has me a lot more excited about this pick. The 40 time doesn't phase me that much for a few reasons. One, he'll have the best QB in the world at giving guys a chance to make a play when they are barely even open, or throwing guys open. He can use his huge body to his advantage on those situations.

Two, those hands and ball skills are much more important to me in a TE than straight line speed. He seems plenty athletic to be able to feel comfortable with sets where he's standing up. He doesn't have to necessarily be out wide, we have plenty of WR for that. But, in some of our shotgun sets we'd have Finley standing up even if he's the guy closest to the tackle like a TE normally would be.

Three, in our offense we have enough down field threats that having one at TE isn't really vital. We don't need him to be a vertical threat. If he can help move the sticks by working the middle of the field he can be a huge asset to the offense by drawing safety and LB attention to the middle of the field. In that sense, he can have an indirect effect on our vertical game. Any secondary attention to our TE's and away from our WR downfield and wide is a very good thing.

I have a faptastic vision of a shotgun set with trips to the left with Nelson wide, Cobb in the slot and Rodgers standing up just off the tackle. Adams, Abbrederis or Boykin wide right. PA to Lacy just to freeze the LB and safety enough to give Rodgers a step on them. Nelson does a deep fly or post, if he does a fly and the safety helps, the middle of the field is wide open. If the safety doesn't help, Nelson is one on one and the ball goes deep to him. Cobb does a shallow crossing route and forces the defense to not be too soft. If they lay off we can give him the ball with space and it's a first down or more every single time. This is where a guy with Rodgers skillset adds to the nightmare for the defense. He's doing an in or hitch and getting his body in front of the safety to give 12 somewhere to throw to. After abusing the LB a few times over the middle they'll be forced to decide to use that safety to help on Rodgers in the middle or to help on Nelson deep. Long story short, if Rodgers can use those hands and big body to find creases in the middle of the field and make catches he can help move the sticks and open things up. He doesn't need blazing speed.

[jimmybones]

Share the vision with me gents.

[raysbookclub]

There are some decent highlights in this clip which is a vid people may not have seen. I like how quickly he gets off the snap (particularly at the 1:10 mark) and how natural he is at plucking the ball out of the air on a variety of the different receptions in the video. His quickness off the snap shows up in all the videos at draftbreakdown as well.

http://www.patriots.com/media-center/vi ... f7f54f3317

Nice clip! Saw some blocking, saw his really good catching, running down the seam, running a square-in kind of route off play action, there's a catch down the sideline after he turned upfield off a short drag toward the sideline. The catching really is a big deal. Esp down the seam, our guys had a hard time catching the ball down the seam sometimes; I feel like I remember 2 plays last year that could have been TDs had they been caught.

[Ayt]

One nice thing I saw when watching the videos at draftbreakdown is that he's usually being guarded by a DB and he's not simply running routes that take advantage of his size. It may take some time, but he could be a legitimate match up problem with LBs.

Here is one play that I liked when he was split out against a LB. He gets off the snap very quickly and makes a great stutter move with some nice shimmy that leaves the LB flat in his tracks. Dick-Rod stumbles a bit but regains himself quickly, and still has the LB absolutely smoked despite the hickup because his initial move was so good. Unfortunately, his **** QB (in fairness he was a frosh) was locked into the guy over the middle the entire play. That is a TD with a decent QB.

http://www.draftbreakdown.com/gif-embed ... yZanyGuppy