2013 NFL draft running thread

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

If Jones and Ogletree DON'T go, I'd be stunned.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

After watching Adrian Peterson this year, I would take Lattimore late in the first round for sure. They're similar runners.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

Definitely one of the teams I was thinking of... Cowboys, Bengals, Vikings...

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

You are off base. Mathieu may not have been a first-round lock before his troubles, but he was certainly considered an early round pick, as in top 3 rounds. A "borderline draft prospect" is one that may or may not be drafted at all, the way I understand the term.

Whether or not kickoffs are phased out has nothing to do with his potential value. In fact, if they're replaced with punts, his special-teams value only increases. He was obviously a dynamic punt returner last season, but he has never returned a kickoff. On coverage teams he made his mark as a gunner on the punt team -- see his knack for downing the ball inside the 5 and his strip-score on Kenjon Barner in the Oregon opener last year. I don't even specifically recall if he played on the kickoff coverage team. He likely did, but punt coverage (and returning) was his forte.

Barring another arrest or major off-field problem -- a sizable if -- he will be drafted. He may be a knucklehead, but the guy is a natural playmaker of rare ability. The fact that he didn't play especially well against Bama doesn't mean he won't get drafted. It turns out scouts look at all your games, not just ones against the Tide.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

This. Mathieu isn't fast enough to return kickoffs in the NFL. He's a punt returner and nickel cornerback, and if he has stayed in shape, he can do those things at the NFL level now. He'll slip to the fifth or sixth round.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

The thing about Honey Badger is drug issues aside, he's the kind of player who coaches love... As Pete said, he's a "natural playmaker" and just a beast on special teams. Somebody will take him.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

He makes too many mental errors to be that guy.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

I didn't base what I said about Mathieu on his playing poorly against Alabama, I based it on him being 5-9, 175 pounds and the NFL having less tolerance for knuckleheads than it used to.

Not saying Mathieu won't play in the NFL one day, but just that he's not likely to be drafted. Remember, LaGarrette Blount wasn't drafted, and he had much more obvious NFL tools than Mathieu did.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

You are certainly right that he doesn't have ideal NFL size. But Ronde Barber is listed at 5-10, 184, and Antoine Winfield is 5-9, 180. There is always a place in the NFL for playmakers.

Like Barber especially, Mathieu is an excellent blitzer and a ballhawk. Mathieu's "NFL tools" are that he makes an uncanny number of big plays. A team will draft him.

He won't be a first-rounder like an even bigger knucklehead like Janoris Jenkins was just last year because he doesn't project as a pure cover corner, which is a higher-value position than nickel safety/corner who blitzes and covers the slot man on third down. But once NFL scouts go back to Mathieu's game film, some team will fall in love with him as a late-round, high-risk high-reward pick. And I would not be surprised if some team fell in love with him up to the third round. Heck, Maurice Clarett was a third-round pick. It only takes one team.

Blount might be a fine physical specimen, and it's hard to compare players from such vastly different positions, but IMO Blount was never the kind of natural playmaker Mathieu is. Not even close.

Anyway I'm intrigued to see how well Honey Badger does at the combine, and if he can keep his nose clean (not literally -- cocaine is one of the few drugs he hasn't been linked to) until the Draft. The guy's a pretty fascinating story.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

I don't think Janoris Jenkins was an even bigger knucklehead than Tyrann Mathieu.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

It's close. But upon further review I give Jenkins the clear edge because he "leads" in arrests 4-1. Plus two of Jenkins' arrests were for fights, and one had a resisting-arrest charge on top of it; the other two were for marijuana possession. Meanwhile the Honey Badger has no off-field violence on his record. His main weakness is that he just can't get seem to get enough of the bud, synthetic or otherwise. That just strikes me as more harmless and less violent, as relative criminality goes.

Though I'm willing to concede that reasonable people may disagree. And that pretty much all reasonable people will agree that they're both knuckleheads.

 

Re: 2013 NFL draft/early entry running thread: Marcus Lattimore going pro

I think Janoris Jenkins is more of a thug but less of a knucklehead.