The Dolphins need a tailback. You've got Lamar Miller and I like him as much as anyone. But the tailback position is prone to injury, and with Miller's history he may be more prone to injury than a lot of tailbacks. Double whammy. You need depth. I'm as big or bigger a fan of Jonas Gray compared with anyone else, and almost certainly been a fan of him longer than most people around these parts, but he's one man. And an unproven man recovering from an ACL injury that seemed (to me) to take longer to heal than ideal. Daniel Thomas can function in blitz pickup and every now and then catch a ball and make a decent move with it in the open field. But he's a fumbler and has vaginitis of the feet. He's big back that doesn't play like a big back and doesn't have the instincts of a tailback. You've got Marcus Thigpen who did not take a single snap in preseason or the regular season as a true tailback. He took every snap as a slot wide receiver and that's pretty much what I consider him, in addition to his return duties. This is a guy I've had a hard-on for since 2009. Coming off that season when we wrote Draft Winds for Dave Hyde, Simon, Richard and I posed the question to ourselves, who is a guy to watch for next year. Back in the beginning of 2010, I said Dennis Johnson. Here's why: [video=youtube;RjdFq3nhBq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjdFq3nhBq0[/video] One of the plays you'll see in that video is still seared into my memory. It's like playing as Christian Okoye on Tecmo Super Bowl. Ridiculous. But that's not the only time he did that. Here's a nice bonus, from 2011: [video=youtube;aSFEwTtLFjw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSFEwTtLFjw[/video] Now we fast-forward to 2012. Take this gama against Ole Miss. You can watch the whole video if you like. It's a pretty good game. But the REALLY good stuff happens toward the end. Down 27-20, Ole Miss finds themselves punting on their own 16 yard line. The punter punts it out of bounds at the Arkansas 45 yard line. To this point, Dennis Johnson has had 24 carries and 3 catches. He's had a full day. I'm sure he had to be tired. On 1st & 10 he picks up a blitzer on a pass play that gets them about 9 yards. And then he did this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhHZ72gGyno&feature=player_detailpage#t=322s Breaks off an impressive 21 yard run, another impressive 20 yard run that harkens back to the run he had against Florida all those years ago, and caps it off with a 5 yard touchdown run. At the most crucial part of the game after he'd already been on the field all day picking up blitzes, running routes and touching the football 27 times...he put the team on his back and almost single-handedly tied the ball game 27-27. Did they win? No. Arkansas couldn't stop Ole Miss' offense from kicking the game winning field goal even though they only had about 90 seconds left on the clock. Like I said, you can watch that whole game if you want. He had a good game. Or you can skip to the part that makes him special. He was snubbed by the Combine and the Senior Bowl and the Shrine Game. So there are skeletons in his closet. Never been arrested. Showed a slight fumbling issue prior to 2012, IMO. But then, if you really pay attention, that's a program-wide issue. Knile Davis coughs it up way more and Joe Adams coughed it up a ton. Someone's not teaching these guys how to hang onto the football. He just performed at his Pro Day. At 5'7" and 196 lbs, he ran a 4.48, did 21 bench reps, 32.5 inch vertical, 9'10" broad jump, 4.53 shuttle, 7.13 cone. He was 16 lbs lighter than the weight he was at the end of the season. But I don't care about any of that. You've got to look at him on the field. His 4.48 speed is his true speed. He hurts defenses with it. Look at how short his strides are, how he cuts, how he catches the ball with soft hands. I've always compared him to like a Darren Sproles but with a lot more power. One thing I look at is Goal-to-Go work, and work inside the 10 yard line. It tells me some things that I don't necessarily want to get into but I find it important. In his final year, Jonas Gray took 12 carries in situations inside the 10 yard line and turned them into 9 touchdowns. He had touchdown runs from that area of 2 yards, 5 yards, 6 yards, 4 yards, 2 yards, 5 yards, 1 yard, 1 yard and 1 yard. Dennis Johnson took 14 carries in these situations and produced 8 touchdowns. He had touchdown runs of 9 yards, 2 yards, 2 yards, 3 yards, 5 yards, 5 yards, 8 yards and 1 yard. Though the percentage isn't quite Gray's ridonkulous 75%, his touchdowns were generally a little harder-fought. And he scored 7 of those touchdowns on his 9 Goal-to-Go carries. Trust me when I say those results are ridiculous. It's not the end-all, be-all. But it's important to me. Some more video watching of Dennis. From 2012: [video=youtube;VecKrAA-pbo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VecKrAA-pbo[/video] From 2011: [video=youtube;JGUuKQBzERw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGUuKQBzERw[/video]
Why is he ranked as barely draft worthy by nearly every draft analyst? His video highlights indicate he should be a top 10 RB. He times well on the track. He is strong enough obviously. What are the concerns? He looks like another Maurice Jones-Drew.
Like the videos, really nice player. Has a good choppy running style that's perfect for finding the small holes and for making quick cuts. Like Mr C I wonder why he's not rated as draftable, but hey, on the basis of those videos I'd be more than happy to throw a 7th rounder on him!
If he made it to the late 5th round compensatory pick the Dolphins were just awarded, I'd run up to the podium with that card.
Dennis Johnson has one of the best work ethics, is one of the best teammates, and has more heart than anybody on the Razorbacks over the last four years this side of DJ Williams (TE, GB). As far as I know, he does not have any character red flags and has been an ideal teammate. So why is he getting pushed down? I honestly don't know, but it could have something to do with the Lacerated Spleen in suffered his sophomore year. It was one of those scary type injuries where talk around here was whether or not he would ever play again. He ultimately made a full recovery, of course, and had a monster Junior season when Knile Davis went down (whom I wouldn't touch, by the way). One thing that isn't mentioned enough about DJ is that he holds the SEC record for return yardage in a career. He is downright dangerous on kickoffs, not Marcus Thigpin dangerous, but I would love to see the two of them back fielding kicks. The bottom line is that Chris is absolutely right about Dennis, the kid can play and if you can come away with him, you have fortified the position and have such a great young core with Miller, Jonas, and DJ.
He reminds me of Robert Turbin. His short choppy steps look weird to me. Which I totally forgot about when I saw the play where he uses his shoulder and stiff arms to break 4 tackles.
I like short striders. They're quick. I've been informed he was invited by a lower tier All Star game to participate (not Senior Bowl, not Shrine) and he declined on advice of agent. I don't see that as a big deal. Bigger deal is he got snubbed by the Senior Bowl, the Combine and the Shrine Game. I just can't figure that out.
How do you think teams view comp picks? I'd assume they have a good idea ahead of time if they're going to receive them or not but do you think they look at those and figure they can take a chance on a "risky" player or are they just like any other pick to them?
I think there's a natural comparison to Maurice Drew when he was coming out, although Maurice was a better athlete. Drew was also 5066 but he was 207 lbs, and yet ran a 4.39 (unofficial) at the Combine. Johnson is 5066 but he weighed 196 lbs at his pro day. That's not as big a deal as people think because that weight was actually 16 lbs lighter than his season ending listed weight. But the bottom line was he lost the weight in order to try and get faster and quicker for his pro day, and the result was (depending on who you talk to) between a 4.40 and 4.48 in the 40 yard dash. So just a little bit slower than Maurice Drew, a little bit lighter. Not that I think that is all that important. I don't think it ruins the comparison at all. His combination of speed and power at such a small stature matters a lot more when it comes to comparing him with Maurice Drew. I'd been comparing him to a version of Darren Sproles that has more power but I guess a Darren Sproles that has more power probably IS a Maurice Drew.
You seen anything from Zac Stacy, CK? He's also a shorter guy (not small), but was productive in the SEC and seemed to have solid workout #'s at the combine. I watched a couple of his games (just his plays) last night and thought he looked pretty good.
Zac Stacy has consistently been among my favorite later round tailbacks. I'm not high on him the way I am Dennis Johnson obviously, but I'm high on him nonetheless. I think the difference for me between them is in A) Their physical impressiveness, and B) Their attitudes and tendencies about contact. Johnson to me is more physically impressive, evidenced by the 4.40 to 4.45 Tony Pauline reported at his pro day. And while Stacy is bigger, his attitude about contact is different. He's less of a square your shoulders and get low kind of guy. He'd rather turn his shoulders to try and make the guy lose his grip.
Based on what I saw I could agree with that to an extent, but Stacy certainly isn't shy about contact based on what I saw. I was kind of expecting him to be since he was rated lower.
