Scouting NFL Prospects
9/15/05
The “Gut Feeling” is often synonymous with a sense
of desperation resulting from a lack of preparation. The Gut Check
is a huge proponent of studying the numbers, but there’s
a point where one can place too much emphasis on the wrong information.
This can result in the undervaluing or overlooking a player’s
potential. Therefore, The Weekly Gut Check is devoted to examining
the frame of reference behind certain number-driven guidelines
that fantasy football owners use to make decisions.
Although The Weekly Gut Check doesn’t claim to be psychic,
he does believe that he can dispel certain numbers biases and
help you make the best choices for your team. We’ll keep
a running tally of The Weekly Gut Check’s insights. This
way you can gauge his views as something to seriously consider,
or at least seriously consider running the opposite way as fast
as you can!
It is wise to listen to feedback—especially when completely
different people are saying the exact same thing. The Gut Check
has been hearing for years that he should seriously think about
compiling scouting reports on NFL prospects. A great deal of this
feedback comes from people that heard Yours Truly’s point
of view on rookies or second-year players. Especially those players
few had a bead on in the general populace of fantasy footballers.
So The Gut Check finally decided to take the plunge. At several
points this season this column will provide scouting profiles
and checklists on NFL prospects—college juniors and seniors.
The checklist and profiles include:
- An overall weighted score for the position on a 100-point
scale
- Position specific criteria broken down into key components
- Game day stats
- Analysis and commentary of each key component based on film
study of the prospect’s performance in live action
- Analysis and commentary of overall strengths and weaknesses
based on film study
Each player will have two pages of information devoted to his performance.
The Gut Check will be covering prospects at QB, RB, WR, and TE.
In the future, this will also include analysis of each player’s
fantasy prospects.
This first profile is of Bowling Green junior QB
Omar Jacobs (PDF file). Jacobs
seemed to come out of nowhere as a sophomore to post incredible
numbers:
- 309 completions out of 462 attempts—a terrific 66.9%
completion rate
- 4002 passing yards
- 41 touchdowns
- Only 4 interceptions
- This included a 24 for 41, 218-yard, 2 Td, 0 Int opener in
Oklahoma.
The Gut Check scouted Jacobs’ opener at Wisconsin, a quality
Big-Ten team with a sound track record for producing quality NFL
prospects in recent years. Bowling Green runs the increasingly popular
spread offense, which Coach Urban Meyer originally brought to the
team prior to moving onto Utah and Florida. The positives of this
attack in terms of evaluating a quarterback is one gets to see the
quarterback make a lot of different throws to both backs and receivers.
The greatest negatives involve not seeing the quarterback take a
snap under center, drop back, or use the traditional forms of play
fakes.
The reports are in Adobe Reader, a very common program on most PCs
today, but free
to download if you don’t have it.
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