Breaking Down Cole Kmet

[Sugashane]

3 hours ago, dll2000 said:

All that is too little for my eyes.  When I watched him in a few games what I saw was he bends into correct football position and plays from there.  That 45 degree angle athletic position..

But you don’t want to bend into it.  You want roll your hips up into it from low to high and end up there.  Kind of like a clean and jerk or whatever they call the Olympic lift I am thinking of.   Its an explosive move and it also requires timing.  

He is leaving all the power out of his initial pop which also gains you leverage on your opponent.  

 

 

I think this video sums up your description, right?

 

[dll2000]

9 hours ago, Sugashane said:

I think this video sums up your description, right?

 

Yes.  Also notice elbows aren’t out.  That is a common mistake and you lose power there too.  I think I saw this guy or a guy that looks like him at a glazier clinic teaching zone blocking.  

Mark Schlereth sp? Has a real good set of O line teaching videos out there somewhere.  

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

Yes.  Also notice elbows aren’t out.  That is a common mistake and you lose power there too.  I think I saw this guy or a guy that looks like him at a glazier clinic teaching zone blocking.  

Mark Schlereth sp? Has a real good set of O line teaching videos out there somewhere.  

Cool. We were taught to try to keep the elbows wide and pinch the chest plate. Thats what I've been teaching my kids too.

I was a WR/TE so I didn't exactly do a ton of blocking drills though. Wasnt sure if things were different in the trenches. 

[dll2000]

14 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

Cool. We were taught to try to keep the elbows wide and pinch the chest plate. Thats what I've been teaching my kids too.

I was a WR/TE so I didn't exactly do a ton of blocking drills though. Wasnt sure if things were different in the trenches. 

Maybe I am reading this wrong. Elbows should be in. 

[dll2000]

4 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

Maybe I am reading this wrong. Elbows should be in. 

A little trick you can use with most should pads is use the bottom as a grip and lift up.  

Especially with kids who mostly don’t tighten them.  If they are loose they go up into throat and force your opponent to stand up. 

Plus your hands are tight and covered.  They won’t call that holding because a) they don’t Call that anymore and b) they can’t see that you are latched and grabbing.  You pull opponent tight to you as you do it and they can’t come off.  

One famous O line coach even teaches to bring your hands up in a double upper cut with palms facing you, thumbs out.  And you just jam your fingers right up in there.  If you can’t that’s about where your hands should be anyway.  On bottom half of breast plate  just where rib cage ends or under the pecs.  Either way its win/win.

We had a drill to work on hand speed with it.  A PVC pipe with a pad coating on it balanced across two objects about where strike point would be.  You see you can explode under it first and grab it with both hands.  Like a quick draw comp.  Got them used to grabbing.

Yeah I teach holding. So does everyone worth their salt. 

[dll2000]

6 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

 

Yeah I teach holding. So does everyone worth their salt. 

The key is to teach it properly so it doesn’t get called.  

[dll2000]

This is for O linemen in the trenches.  Open field blocking is a little different. 

You still dip and roll your hips and explode and look for proper hand placement etc.  That should be second nature after 50k drills.  Not sure what some of these colleges are doing.  

But you don’t latch on like in trenches.  

Edited May 4, 2020 by dll2000

[Sugashane]

8 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Maybe I am reading this wrong. Elbows should be in. 

No we were taught that way. Again it might be because we were out wide too, idk how OL were taught there. We were taught to get inside hands and then drive, but say I'm trying to push them outside to my left then my right elbow flares out as my left arm tries to pull in. Trying to keep myself attached to the defender and get his shoulders perpendicular to the LOS.

Basically we tried to turn and drive them to the sidelines or to the center, depending in there were bubble screens or designed flats in a two option play. In high school we were taught to keep your elbows in so I assumed the technique in college was better. Lol. 

[dll2000]

13 hours ago, Sugashane said:

No we were taught that way. Again it might be because we were out wide too, idk how OL were taught there. We were taught to get inside hands and then drive, but say I'm trying to push them outside to my left then my right elbow flares out as my left arm tries to pull in. Trying to keep myself attached to the defender and get his shoulders perpendicular to the LOS.

Basically we tried to turn and drive them to the sidelines or to the center, depending in there were bubble screens or designed flats in a two option play. In high school we were taught to keep your elbows in so I assumed the technique in college was better. Lol. 

 

Elbows out is a hold over to decades of football without use of hands allowed on Oline.  

But when these things become confusing just think practically.  If you were pushing a car with no back wheels would your elbows be out? 

Now some coaches use a single forearm, but it is for blow delivery and provides a larger surface.  They use it in combo blocks.  

 

[Superman(DH23)]

On 5/4/2020 at 8:48 AM, Sugashane said:

Cool. We were taught to try to keep the elbows wide and pinch the chest plate. Thats what I've been teaching my kids too.

I was a WR/TE so I didn't exactly do a ton of blocking drills though. Wasnt sure if things were different in the trenches. 

The stalk block out wide is much different.  You are basically just trying to keep your man in front of you so you are between him and the ball carrier.  As a TE you have to crash that DE down inside so the runner can read your butt to determine whether to hit the hole or stretch it to the corner.

I too played WR/TE, but that was the 90s and we were a pro style run team.

[dll2000]

This older analytical study of TE predictor success in NFL is not exactly great news for Kmet and Bears fans.  Not terrible news, but he is no sure thing statistically speaking. 

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1552&context=statistics_papers

We don't have bench or more importantly broad jump, but Kole has some red flags in some leading indicators of predicted good NFL success.

He did not run faster than 4.69.

His BMI wasn't high enough 34.662 or better - he is 31.16.  (This one is admittedly confusing to me).  I thought high BMI was bad.  But apparently not.  

His has less than 65 career receptions (60)  and less than 1093 career yards (691) which were found to be good indicators of success.

He is not over 255 which is size found to be necessary to overcome indicator of not running under 4.69.  

Good news:

Final year TD bump seems to be a good sign.   

He is not far off indicator on 40 and shuttle.  

________________________

Now Shaheen for comparison faired much better in college statistical categories, but played at low level of competition so you can probably throw all that out as having any value.  I played good against high school competition, but would have been Rudy at D1 college level.  

So it is tough to evaluate based on the metrics used in this study as those are key components.  So probably not even worth looking at Shaheen in this sense.  

 His broad jump was good.  His bench was bad.  His weight is good.  His 40 was bad (as an indicator).  HIs BMI is bad. 

 

Some excerpts of different portions:

 

 

 

 

Quote

It is interesting to note that one terminal node of the decision tree stands out as having a substantially larger predicted value than the other nodes. Tight ends with a Forty Yard Dash faster than 4.69, a Broad Jump over 120 inches, and 65 or more Career College Receptions are pro- jected to have far better NFL career scores. Among slower tight ends (the left side of the tree with Forty Yard Dash slower than 4.69), the model indicates that the only path to high NFL career success is to overcome this lack of speedwithalargesize(Weight > 255)andhighcollegepro- duction (over one thousand ninety-three Career College Yards).

 

[dll2000]

Lets take best TE in NFL - George Kittle and see how he fares in some of leading indicators of this study.

40 = 4.52.  Crushed it.

Broad jump = 132".  Crushed it.

Shuttle = 4.52.  Here he failed bad as indicator is 4.14.

College career yards = 737 below mark of 797, but not far off

College career receptions = 48 vs. mark of 65. 

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by dll2000

[G08]

From SI: "One source I spoke with last night stated some NFL teams had him as low as 4.67"

 

I didn't love this pick at the time -- I'm still not sure that I do -- but we brought him in to be a 'Y' TE. I don't think he's going to be a game breaker in the same vein as Travis Kelce, but I don't see why he can't be a poor man's Zach Ertz.

[Heinz D.]

1 hour ago, G08 said:

I don't think he's going to be a game breaker in the same vein as Travis Kelce, but I don't see why he can't be a poor man's Zach Ertz.

He could be. There's a chance he's even better than that.

But all that uncertainty clearly demonstrates why he was a bad pick. (Where he was selected, and with all the Bears' other needs.) 

[dll2000]

Every one who interacts with Kmet talks about his intelligence from his high school coaches, to college coaches and now his pro coaches.  It is one of first things they bring up.

 You get that many different people saying it In different situations and how they emphasize it and bring it up on their own and tone of voice they use, it isn’t just coach speak.  It is true.