“What advice can you give me about scouting football?”
Be it books and videos on strategy and technique, recommended writers and websites, or some super-secret nugget of wisdom that a few think I must possess, I’m often asked some form of the question “What advice can you give me about scouting football?”
Far and away, the best thing that you can do to develop a better eye for projecting college talent to the NFL game is to know the NFL game. If you’re not making an ongoing effort to do this, you need to do make it your first priority.
This ongoing series of posts will help. I’m fortunate that one of my jobs is to study professional football. While the end product that the public sees is for fantasy consumption, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. I’m reviewing old and learning new things every day (photo above) and it means there are a lot of things I note while studying the week’s games that I don’t use for Footballguys columns.
This page will serve as an ongoing series of posts I’m calling The NFL Lens: items from the professional game that help me apply a constructive template over what I’m witnessing in the college game.
Broader Themes
Reading Blocks (And People): David Johnson
Quarterbacking
Mechanics of a Pump Fake: Derek Carr’s TD throw to Amari Cooper
Vertical Accuracy: Feet and Mindset w/Jameis Winston and Alex Smith
The FBI of Plays Gone Awry: Philip Rivers and Carson Wentz
Anticipation and Touch (and Perspectives on QB Analysis): Drew Brees
Manipulation, Maneuvering The Pocket, and Throwing From a Good Base: Tom Brady
Running Backs
Ball Security: Damien Williams
Reading Blocks (And People): David Johnson
Wide Receivers
Fingertips Technique: Mike Evans and Jarvis Landry
Route Creativity: Travis Benjamin
Variation of Pace: Amari Cooper
Fade Route Boundary Depth: Michael Crabtree
Tight Ends
Suspending Disbelief, Details, and Tension-Release: Rob Gronkowski and Quentin Tarantino
Defensive Line
Economy of Movement: Michael Bennett
Explosive Movement: Aaron Donald
Linebackers
“One Arm Is Longer Than Two:” Justin Houston Rushing the Edge
Timing the Dynamite: Lawrence Timmons at the goal line
Pass Drops And Valuing Details: Albert McClellan
Defensive Backs
Perimeter Tackling: T.J. Ward Is The Outfielder, Tarik Cohen’s Knee Is The Ball