I've been listening to the podcasts at MoveTheSticks.com where former scout Daniel Jeremiah gives a lot of good inside info about NFL scouting. In the latest installment Jeremiah talked about linebackers and what goes into scouting them for the transition to the pro game. Having worked in Baltimore and Cleveland, Jeremiah is familiar with both the Mike Nolan/Rex Ryan 3-4 as well as the Bill Belichick/Romeo Crennel 3-4.
Couple interesting nuggets to pass along that related to the Patriots:
- When grading linebackers there are two types: Rushers are guys who can generate pressure without any schematic help. They can put their hand down and through a variety of moves beat their man one-on-one and get to the QB. Blitzers are guys who need help via scheme. Jeremiah said that while he was in Baltimore Adalius Thomas fell firmly in the Blitzer category in that Rex Ryan needed to come up with creative ways to allow AD to use his speed to get to the QB. He was not the kind of player who could line up head on and win a match-up.
- Two positions that 3-4 teams will grade certain tweeners with are DPR (designated pass rusher) and Nickelbacker (an undersized inside linebacker who could play 3rd down passing situations). Two things that immediately came to mind were that Gary Guyton should be a nickelbacker and was miscast in 2009 playing strong inside linebacker (aka the Mike). Surely players like Jerry Hughes and Brandon Graham would grade out as DPRs at least as rookies. Is 22nd overall too high for a DPR?
