Really? And yet the major complaint as per Odrick is...wait for it...he's not a good enough pass rusher. And you want to replace Odrick with a LOUSY pass rusher in Ansah?...sure. No offense, but your defense of Ansah knows know boundaries from what I've seen. As per his pass rush, your excuse #1 is that he's a novice and while other parts of his game developed naturally, pass rushing will take some time. Good luck with that one. Because the reality is that his natural pass rush ability sucks, and it's very questionable as to whether it will get much better. He's been playing football long enough that he should have developed pass rushing skills, and he has not- not all players do. You can't just assume that he will develop as a pass rusher, it doesn't work that way. Major excuse #2 is that BYU didn't utilize him as a rush end, which is bull****. I watched entire BYU games to get a feel for Ansah, and he rushed plenty. The problem was that he sucked at it. Great at sliding down the line tackling RBs, s***** at turning the corner, beating OTs and getting to the Quarterback. You have to understand that this wouldn't be such a huge deal if Ansah didn't look SO BAD doing it, plus his gems like asking what a 3 point stance is, etc. His game reeks of natural ability tainted by incompetence. Watching him pass rush was slightly infuriating to me, as he stopped regularly in the arms of OTs to take part in a dancing bear duet, with the OT clearly winning because it was a stalemate. In other words, Ansah tends to just stop and grapple, at a standstill, for no apparent reason, and he calls that a "pass rush". What he sacrifices is making a legitimate effort on a pass rush, and what he focuses on is jumping up to bat a pass down or peeling off laterally to make a tackle. The thing is, the opportunity cost of him regularly aborting his pass rush is huge. That's a pressure player who the entire defense is relying on to get some heat on the QB, and he just stops, performs his rendition of Dancing With The Bears. This is what drives me nuts about Ansah. Alen has it right imo, generally speaking he's a late 1st/early 2nd talent. But for the Dolphins I wouldn't touch him- we need pressure players at DE, and Odrick is a better pass rusher than Ansah, easily. I would draft Lemonier or Okafor ahead of him, and while maybe not John Simon, I'd think of it, because he's a relentless pass rusher, the antithesis of Ansah. Ansah is about to encounter a tremendous upgrade of OL talent- as was pointed out earlier look at the tape of Ansah at the Senior Bowl- you can ride the MVP award all you want, but he made plays against 2nd rate competition and got stuffed by the top OTs in practice and the game itself. BTW, one of your many excuses is that he sucked in practice because of the coaching- please stop. He probably got the award due to the 2nd sack on a busted play, garbage time. The point is, good luck to Ansah when he's in the NFL and not enjoying a marked athletic advantage, as his pass rushing skills are barely remedial. Time after time after time, imo, you're going to see him get absolutely stonewalled as a pass rusher- because he has almost no pass rushing skills. And seriously, if he hasn't learned in college what a 3 point stance is, what is he going to learn in the pros? If Ansah can become a great pass rusher in the NFL, good for him. I don't see it happening.
I believe because you watch the games and are very detailed about your analysis, you have the respect of the board, I'm taking it seriously, I don't necessariliy agree with where you have his stock, but I'd like to add a few things to the debate , first, he won that MVP in the senior bowl based on how he played the run alone, so for folks continuing to dismiss it is seems like an agenda on their criticism..he played well in the game, the snuff of the reverse was a thing beauty, instincts, speed and explosiveness all on display, he's shown those things during his games as well, it's hard for us to put his stock in the right position because we're not privy of some personal interviews that could help us decide where he's at in terms of love for the game, we know he desperately wanted to play basketball and that he's only played 2 full years, and that he feels his body is like a delicate flower, so there are some weird things that might affect his stock to GMs that can talk to him, but if it's just based in talent, speed, strength, instincts, I think he's a solid first round pick.
I noted in an earlier post in this thread that Ansah indeed had a very good Senior Bowl game. I'm certainly not trying to take that away from him- what is valid, imo, is what he did and didn't do during the game. Short version- his two sacks were great for him personally, but hardly indicative of a player who is a pass rush demon, which I've been reading more and more since the Senior Bowl and the combine. Don't mistake those sacks with a stud DE going to an All-Star game and whipping prized OTs. He did play very well against the run, more power to him. There's a distinct redundancy in the "for" and "against" Ansah arguments. I'm tired of it, and I guess that most others are as well. The short version of the "con" argument is that he has a lousy first step (NOT fast twitch), he can't bend the arc and his idea of a pass rush tends to be engaging an OT in a dancing bear contest, waiting for an opportunity to release and chase- and that's a problem. All of this and the "pro" arguments just go round and round, offering no benefit that I can see, just a continuous debate. There is no correct answer- rating players is subjective- until his career plays out. My guess is that he will never be a very good pass rusher and he might ultimately end up at SOLB on a 3/4, where his lack of pass rush ability is more acceptable. But a more likely scenario is the obvious, 3/4 run stuffing DE with limited pass rush ability. At the end of the day, the best thing to do is just watch the film. To the best of my recollection I was the 1st one to mention Ansah on this site, and I made a point to watch a couple of BYU games on ESPN and youtube footage that was available- those were the best tools at my disposal to scout Ansah. I was not impressed. To each his own, watch the film and be your own judge- that's the best that we can do.
YOUR OPINION. So tell me, from all the film you've watched, how much experience rushing the passer did he have BEFORE this year? And BTW, you're exaggerating how much time he spent rushing the passer from off the edge.
Really? NUGap was kind enough to provide this data in post #76 regarding Ansah pass rush stats: "Since I've now moved over here, I might as well comment on this. I'm the guy with indirect access, and CK is right. It's slow, painful and incomplete. Disregarding that, I have the number of pressures and sacks for Ansah, but not the number of snaps (another incomplete piece of data...) Ansah had 21 pressures and 4.5 sacks for a total of 25.5 total "pressures". BYU faced 378 passes last year, if we guess that Ansah rushed the passer on roughly 75% of those (total guess), that means he had 239 pass rush snaps. That comes out to a snaps per pressure of about 11.37, which would put him 4th to last among the other pass rushers CK listed. The lowest number of snaps any of those pass rushers had rushing the passer was Dion Jordan at 232 snaps. If Ansah rushed the passer only that many times, his SPP would be 9.18. 5th highest in the group, but still around average, nothing spectacular." And personally, based on the games I watched, I would say that Ansah pass rushed on considerably more than 75% of the pass plays, and the 75% guess skews the numbers to make him look less crappy as a pass rusher than he actually was. As to your other comments, a point was made earlier that pretty much sums it up- Ansah's been playing football for three years, long enough to get a freaking law degree- and pass rushing isn't the proverbial rocket science. If he hasn't gotten a clue by now, that's a huge caveat emptor. Part of the distaste of discussing Ansah, quite frankly, is your utter and blind devotion to him. You defend this player with the fervor of a father defending his daughter's honor on prom night- to like a player is one thing, but you're more than a bit over the top when it comes to Ansah. I'm assuming that you're not a close friend or family member, so maybe a little objectivity and open mindedness would merit some consideration here. So again, as to how often he rushed the passer before this year- I don't know and I don't really give a s***. He's been playing football (iirc DE and LB) for three years, he should have a grip by now. And if you're not troubled by Ansah, after three years, being asked about two or three point stances by coaches and him looking at them as if they were talking in some kind of Mandarin Chinese dialect- then more power to you. Given your blind devotion to this player I would expect nothing less. Bottom line- he's a sh**** bend the arc, beat the OT and get to the QB pass rusher. As in relatively incompetent, reminiscent of the Country Bear Jamboree from Disney World when I was a kid. He is a purely awful pass rusher in that regard. The tape showed this, but you will undoubtedly have some excuse for this or better yet an NFL role for him in which this gaping weakness is minimized. So good for you. Personally, I wouldn't touch this guy with a top 20 pick and for Miami, I wouldn't touch him in the first two rounds, not my kind of player for this team.
Understand and understood, watch the film.. I agree with you about being him not being a bonifide pass rusher, and I do have some concerns about the passion part of the game..other parts are impressive like leverage, shedding technique with eyes in the action, instincts, anticipation, speed/size ratio. I'll tell you this, he didnt look to be in the right frame of mind during his proday..looked like he didnt have that edge to go 100 percent..looked to be laboring at times. There might be something there worth looking a little deeper into, I think CK has mentioned this issue specifically, not sure though.
In terms of rushing the passer,I believe his issues are hand related, their sloppy and not compact in his movement..doesn't use them to his advantage, poor hand fighter, needs to put in the work to improve the skill.
Of course you don't give a s*** about what he did before this year b/c you obtusely made up your mind about Ansah long ago and obviously don't care about factoring in objective information like how long he's actually been rushing the passer and more importantly how much time was spent coaching him up on skill. With Ansah, we're not talking 3 years of a learning a new position; it's 3 years of learning the game of American football, and it probably took him the first year or two just to gain a feel for the game, hence spending most of his early time as a special teamer while bouncing around between the defensive line and linebacker. Yeah, I'm sure he received TONS of pass rush reps in games and practice during those first 2 years. Do you actually think BYU would skip right through coaching him up on the fundamentals of the game and head right for developing an advanced pass rush repertoire? Get real, man. Ignorance is bliss though, right, so you keep on thinkin' a foundation doesn't first have to be paved before focusing on the more technically advanced stuff. By getting the fundamentals down first rather than subjecting Ziggy to information overload he was able to play fast and make an impact in only his third year of football, D1 COLLEGE FOOTBALL at that, but for some cuckoo reason you think developing a pass rush repertoire is more important than establishing a proper football foundation. I suppose you also believe colleges & universities should start off with 4th level classes and then work their way backward to the basics. too, eh? BTW, I like how you left out the reason why NUGap intentionally left Ansah out of his study and instead tried to twist his words into supporting your biased argument.
Perhaps it's time to stop treating Ansah as if he's your first born. I didn't twist anything btw as per the NuGap info, I just copied and pasted what he said- there is no conspiracy here, despite your ample man love for Ansah. In the two games i watched he rushed for the majority of the pass snaps iirc, way higher than 75%. So I'm going by what I saw, not your blind devotion. Seriously dude, the rest of your post is blah blah defend Ansah at all costs blah blah. It's why I have about zero interest discussing Ansah with you, you're so biased it's silly. He's been playing football for three freaking years and hasn't grasped some remedial aspects of the game- that's concerning, and it's embarrassing. Compare that to Menelik Watson, who by all accounts is a sponge and has devoted himself to film study. If Ansah put as much work into learning the nuances and fundamentals of football as you have defending him, this probably wouldn't be an issue. Let's cut the bulls***- by most accounts, after three years of organized football, Ansah is fairly ignorant as to the game. I'm more than happy to discuss football with you, but outside of Ansah. You will defend him come he** or high water, so discussing Ansah with you is like discussing the guilt or innocence of a client with his lawyer- as in, what's the point? You'll just come up with one justification after another. Pointless, and not worth the effort.
perhaps it's time you stop both the infantile remarks and attacking the poster rather than the post..... and it's quite silly you're comparing an offensive tackle who mostly had to worry about only blocking the guy in front of him to a defensive guy who had a significantly greater foundation to build just to reach the point where he could begin focusing on actually developing his trade as a pass rusher; not to mention Watson's past as a basketball player benefitted his transition to pass protector. An offensive tackle you can send on the field and basically teach him how to block from day 1 b/c he doesn't have to worry about learning how to tackle, properly defend the run, keep his feet clean, get off blocks, diagnose the play, etc, etc, etc just so that he's not a liability. You'd be a complete idiot to skip all those defensive fundamentals and jump right into trying to make Ansah a pass rusher from day 1 like you can do with Watson as a blocker. Convenient of you to ignore the fact Watson only had to worry about playing tackle, meanwhile Ansah's plate was stuffed full of playing every technique along the Dline as well as spending time at linebacker. Yeah, that's really apples to apples there.
Why the hell should he give up on his position on a prospect?, because he's not changing his mind because of your analysis? that doesn't make him a dick, his points are as valid and researched as yours.Looks to me that Todd believes the kid is gonna get a lot better and has the potential and measurables to do so, you believe he's tapped out..
Jim is just as stubbornly steadfast in his belief about Ansah yet according to him I'm the one whose belief is "come hell or high water" even though Jim takes it a step further by not giving a s*** about what BYU did with Ansah during his first two years of football. What a freakin' hypocrite! Making matters worse he's arrogantly acting as if his opinion is the shiznit and represents the overwhelmingly popular belief to where I'm some type of fool for disputing it, when in fact just about every analyst now has Ansah as their number one or two DE. But then again this is the same guy who was heavily supporting Damontre Moore as a top pass rusher when I was calling him massively overrated, so I'd have to question the validity of his opinion on anything pass rush related TBH.
Not my point at all- he has every right to his opinion. But what the opposing point of view seems to come down to is "yeah he's not a good traditional pass rusher, but..." That just doesn't work for me. I've gone out of my way to point out that Ansah has some compelling qualities to his game, but what I'm tired of is the parade of excuses as to what he isn't good at, namely pass rush and actually learning the nuances of the game. The whole discussion has become circular, redundant, boring and actually rather boorish. Just not a lot of fun and not really worth it. Is Ansah tapped out? I don't think so. I think that he can become an effective DE in the NFL, but I have my doubts about him developing into a good pass rusher, and he certainly isn't one now. Again, just watch the film, that really is the bottom line. Ansah is a thoroughly uncompelling pass rusher, and he's referred to in the Rang piece as a 'demon pass rusher" or something close to that. And it's nonsense, which also shows a thorough misundertsanding of the player- pretty much a whiff. He'd be a nice 2nd rd pick for some team as a 3/4 run defending DE who can do some good contain work. If you're looking for some consistent heat on the QB a la Justin Tuck, look elsewhere.
Interesting that you brought up Damontre Moore, who at one time just about every analyst did indeed have him rated the #1 or 2 DE, Kiper had him #1 or #2 overall at some point. But that didn't really matter, did it? Nor does it matter re: Ansah now. I listened to your criticism of Moore, CKs and others and revisited the film- he was indeed getting stonewalled by OTs quite a bit. It was a valid point. You, on the other hand, treat Ansah like he was your favorite Tonka truck or Bob the Builder toy that someone dare criticizes, and you resort to hissy fits. And as to Moore, I'd still draft him over Ansah for the Dolphins, because he is and will probably always be a better edge rusher than Ansah, and that's what this team needs. My guess is that Ansah, like Moore has done, will start sliding down the draft boards a bit. And in the actual draft I think that he'll be chosen in the late 1st/early 2nd round area, where he belongs. I wouldn't even consider him at #12 for Miami- despite my concerns, he's a lousy fit imo. You can continue to make excuses (I love the one above about the BYU coaching staff and Ansah's first two YEARS of not learning basic football) for his crappy pass rushing skills until the draft, and eventually we'll see how he pans out in the NFL. In the meantime I can't say that I'm all that interested in your thoughts on Ansah, you're too emotionally invested, and that doesn't make for a good, productive or enjoyable discussion.
Uhhmm... what? I have honestly read and re-read what you typed, and am not getting it..and it's not a knock. I respect your opinion...I just don't get it this time.
That's all well and good, but I wouldn't. All of these mock drafts and rankings count for squat, we all know that, they're just for fun. But at the same time, just about everyone had Moore in the top 5 overall, and there was a reason for that- he was a productive player and a darned good edge rusher. Then again, as I mentioned earlier, I listened to some of the criticism, revisited the film, and there are in fact some issues to his game, plus he had the lousy combine (he did lift better at his pro day). I'd much rather have Moore opposite Wake as an edge rusher than Ansah, for reasons I've given repeatedly. He's simply much better at it, and my guess is that Ansah will have a very difficult time generating a consistent pass rush in the NFL.
I missed this post earlier, this is a classic. Watson had to concern himself with stunts, blitzes and various defensive formations, and you think that Ansah had more to learn and a harder position at DE? Seriously? His mind must have been brimming with LB info when he failed to learn what a 3-point stance is...
For me, I'd take the inside out speed, especially in a DLineman DMoore is stiff and slow footed, he has other rushing the passer attributes athletically though he is limited, Ansah has a much higher ceiling
Anymore of this and Phinsational will have to diss out some points/bans. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
'Raw" has more to do with their experience than their talent. You were saying raw talent meant their talent was raw or different from just talented players.
said the guy who can't have a discussion w/o repeatedly insulting the other poster and non objectively could care less how Ansah spent his first 2 years at BYU despite it being a pertinent bit of information when forming an opinion about his pass rush development or lack thereof. You might be fine with preferring to make up assumptions in such a way that it conveniently supports your opinion, but I'm not obtuse-minded like that and would rather know all the facts, even if they contradict my initial opinion.
TV experts more like it.. Damontre Moore was an easy early detention of someone that was overrated relative to where the tv experts had him going, I remember back way when when it was funny to see that dude going top 10..I'm glad you caught it..
I did think that Moore was going top 10. As to Moore: I like that he was productive, athletic enough to take over the joker roll from Von Miller. I like how he turns the corner on OTs, he bends it pretty well imo, some disagree. He has good/not great size for 4/3 DE, he should add some muscle. He's good at tracking down ball carriers at the LOS, active. A pretty good 1st step, but he never really looked all that fast. Still, I like him. What gets me is that supposed pros like Mel Kiper- and I kind of like Mel, somewhat- had Moore rated as high a #2 overall, lauded his "explosiveness" and when he bombs at the combine he goes from #2 overall to out of the 1st round altogether. Really Mel? How much film did you actually watch? Personally, I liked Moore, listened to some criticism, watched more film and adjusted my opinion- I think that he's still a 1st rounder, just not a top 10 guy. This whole DE draft class is flawed. But Mel basically dismissed him after a bad combine, and quite frankly that makes me wonder about Mel. As to Mel, he's ok but his ratings are a bit odd, lack conviction imo. Players tend to move radically up and down his board for reasons I can't identify. Mel is no Joel Buchsbaum, that's for sure. Joel, RIP, had more conviction and was a flat out better player evaluator. I liked Paul Zimmerman as well, but Joel was the best. So Moore- he's a good DE imo, but flawed. CK was right as per his lack of strength and he just isn't fast, and that will hurt his draft stock. I adjusted my opinion downward- I reserve that right as I gather more information. I saw another mock today, here's what it said: "ANALYSIS: With quarterback Kevin Kolb now on the Buffalo's roster I think they will grab a quarterback later on in the draft. Guard is a need but so is wide receiver and finding another pass rusher. Buffalo could trade down in the first round to grab a wide receiver. If they stay here at the No. 8 spot I see them going with a pass rusher like Ezekiel Ansah." http://profootball.scout.com/2/1281940.html Really? The guy had 4 sacks on the year and can't bend the arc to save his life, and now everywhere I look he's a pass rushing demon- which is bulls***. The point is, and Ansah is just an example, do these guys actually watch the film or are they just spouting off? Because the film certainly does not show Ansah to be a pass rushing demon. Did Kiper really have a firm opinion about Moore before he rated him #2 overall? Moore had a bad combine and Kiper tanked him, and that seemed a bit odd/extreme. Just about all of these draft guys are questionable imo- I probably post more mocks than anyone, at the end of the day because I enjoy them, not because they're particularly good. Back to Joel Buchsbaum, back in the day his draft book was the freaking bible- now, who is there? No one nearly as good imo. Better to judge for yourself- the games are the best of course, but youtube, especially if you watch film that isn't a highlight reel of a player you want to scout, is good stuff imo. I've used it for Moore, Ogletree (pretty much the whole Georgia defense for that matter) and especially Menelik Watson, who is pretty freaking incredible if you watch his film (FSU film). So anyway, back to Moore- I like him, I question his speed and explosiveness, but as things stand now I think that I rated him about 1/2 round too high. I would guess now that he's rated about on par with Alex Okafor.
I was giving some credit to Jim, basically for changing his opinion on Moores stock was the right thing to do imo.
Hate to insert myself here but I don't think that's what he's asking him to do, at all. I don't like how either side is arguing this one. They're both making it personal/insulting rather than just debating points.
I thought Jim was frustrated with Todd's conviction and his unwillingness to budge from his stance as it pertained to Ansah as a pass rusher..
I think they're both frustrated with one another for the same reasons. But the post you quoted of Jim's was in direct response and quoted a post of Todd's that said the following: I mean, come on. That's not arguing a point. It's insulting someone AND arguing a point. I just don't see why it's necessary. So when Jim expresses frustration with how Todd is arguing, I think it's pretty clear it has nothing to do with the mere fact that Todd has his opinion and isn't likely to change it. On the other hand, when Todd expresses his own frustration with Jim, it probably has to do with statements like, So really, both of them just need to cut the crap.
