Green Bay's Valuations of Draft Picks and Christian Watson

[Norm]

2 minutes ago, MaximusGluteus said:

I never understood why they drafted Amari in the first place.  He's short, not fast, and not agile.  I liked him in college but didn't really see the fit in GB.

I always assumed it was the jet stuff but then they never did it so idk. 

All sorts of "rumors" he's gonna to get lighter and quicker but I think that's just what people want

[Sandy]

9 minutes ago, Norm said:

I always assumed it was the jet stuff but then they never did it so idk. 

All sorts of "rumors" he's gonna to get lighter and quicker but I think that's just what people want

Heard a rumor he's getting taller too

[Tperk]

7 minutes ago, Sandy said:

Heard a rumor he's getting taller too

And not mishandle punts as well. 

[R T]

12 minutes ago, Tperk said:

And not mishandle punts as well. 

Agree, like that one lost fumble he had last season.  

[DWhitehurst]

3 hours ago, MaximusGluteus said:

I never understood why they drafted Amari in the first place.  He's short, not fast, and not agile.  I liked him in college but didn't really see the fit in GB.

I liked what I saw of him in college and in Senior Bowl practices. Perhaps my eyes were deceiving me, but I thought I saw agility, quicks. But from day one with the Packers, I've seen quicksand, as if his feet are in concrete. 

[Norm]

11 hours ago, R T said:

Agree, like that one lost fumble he had last season.  

He mostly refused to catch them from what I recall which is also annoying

[{Family Ghost}]

12 hours ago, R T said:

Agree, like that one lost fumble he had last season.  

He looked anything but confident in everything he did last year.  A total washout season.

[craig]

1 hour ago, Norm said:

He mostly refused to catch them from what I recall which is also annoying

Heh heh, also my biggest disappointment with him as punt-return guy.  He sometimes seemed to lack confidence to run to the ball and catch it, or to catch a ball on the move. 

• A short punt?  Please run up and catch it for a 35-yard punt. 
• Don't hang back at 45 yards, let it hit at 35 and roll for 15 more so that it ends up being a 50-yard punt. 
• I appreciate that there is some risk in catching a ball while you're maybe still running, or have just gotten there.  Or perhaps if you're not sure if you can judge it well enough; will I run to the ball, but be a yard or two short, and risk a whacky bounce that will bounce off my knee and turn into a fumble?  

He just seemed hesitant to trust that he could judge a ball and his ability to get there, and that he could trust his capacity to catch a ball on the run.  

Micah Hyde, said he'd played lots and lots of baseball, so as a center fielder he was used to tracking and judging balls-in-flight, catching balls in flight, and making catches on deep fly balls over his head.  

[craig]

19 hours ago, MaximusGluteus said:

I never understood why they drafted Amari in the first place.  He's short, not fast, and not agile.  I liked him in college but didn't really see the fit in GB.

My guesses:  

• I doubt Gute anticipated adding Cobb (or his equivalent) when he drafted Amari.  (Cobb was acquired late July)
• I think MLF wanted a quicker, stop-and-go change-of-direction guy to play in some of his slot packages.  He had a roster with big, tall guys:  other than sometimes Adams, slot involved guys like Lazard, EQ or Tonyan/Deguara/Dafney types.  Nobody with the stop-and-go change-of-direction quickness capacity that many short slot receivers have.  
• MLF was also still committed to his run-pass concepts and usage of receivers as blockers.  So while he saw the value of a change-of-direction-quickness slot receiver, he didn't want a slender guy who couldn't block.  Thus Rodgers at stocky 212 seemed to combine both the blocking capacity that MLF wanted with change-of-direction quickness.  (Amari probably never gets faulted for bad pad level!)
• He's built like a running back.  Perhaps they envisioned him being a pretty elusive, creative YACster on short passes, or on jet sweeps?  

We'll see.  Hopefully a lot of those hypothetical desired qualities will be manifested this year, and he'll be much more comfortable and confident?   Maybe he'll be able to catch a 1-yard pass and dart around for a first down?  Would be fun to see him emerge as a useful player from scrimmage.  

[craig]

19 hours ago, Norm said:

I always assumed it was the jet stuff but then they never did it so idk. 

All sorts of "rumors" he's gonna to get lighter and quicker but I think that's just what people want

I wonder if jet-calls isn't as much about confidence in line as in the jets?  If you don't trust your rookie 4th-round RG, your backup RT, your 3rd-string LT, your first-year-starter LG, and your rookie-starter or backup center, maybe it's not easy to call a lot of jet stuff if you think a defender might have gotten through and be hanging out in the backfield?  If Jenkins is back by October, Bakhti is back, and Runyan-Myers-Newman all have a year of starting experience behind them, perhaps jet stuff will be much more effective this season?  

[HokieHigh]

16 minutes ago, craig said:

I wonder if jet-calls isn't as much about confidence in line as in the jets?  If you don't trust your rookie 4th-round RG, your backup RT, your 3rd-string LT, your first-year-starter LG, and your rookie-starter or backup center, maybe it's not easy to call a lot of jet stuff if you think a defender might have gotten through and be hanging out in the backfield?  If Jenkins is back by October, Bakhti is back, and Runyan-Myers-Newman all have a year of starting experience behind them, perhaps jet stuff will be much more effective this season?  

amari lacks a thorough enough understanding of the offense to make plays given that he doesnt have the speed to get the edge. losing weight could help but i just don't think he will be a special playmaker in his career. 

 

ball security is definitely a problem too, so i just don't see how the roster spot is there for him this year. 

[Norm]

45 minutes ago, HokieHigh said:

he doesnt have the speed to get the edge.

I swear we've given Lazard the ball on those things. I don't think they were scared he couldn't get the edge...

[craig]

20 minutes ago, HokieHigh said:

amari lacks a thorough enough understanding of the offense to make plays given that he doesnt have the speed to get the edge. losing weight could help but i just don't think he will be a special playmaker in his career. ball security is definitely a problem too, so i just don't see how the roster spot is there for him this year. 

Fair chance you'll be proven right.  My post was more trying to understand Gute/MLF's logic in liking him enough to trade up to get him.  Heh heh, Gute, and MLF probably weren't discussing with the other scouts and saying "Hmm, so we all agree he lacks speed, lacks ball security, lacks quickness... so  let's trade up in the 3rd to get him!"  I suspect they *thought* they saw enough quickness, speed, agility, and toughness on tape to want him and trade up to get him.  

I'm just a dumb optimist Packers fan, so since he's on the Packers, and since Gute/MLF used to think he flashed enough potential to be worth a 3rd-round tradeup, I'm hoping that he emerges and justifies that projection from back then.  WE can use every variably useful guy we can get. 

He's a 3rd rounder, so I'm not sure "a special" playmaker should have ever been on my radar; if it was, it's not now.  But *if* you hypothetically end up getting a useful player, maybe one who can be used in certain packages, and maybe eventually become a contributing "do-your-1-11th" guy on 15-30 snaps a game for a successful offense, perhaps we'll say "not bad value for a 3rd rounder".  

MLF always talks about competition, competition, competition.  *If* Amari hypothetically competes well and earns a spot on the roster, good for him. *If* he hypothetically competes well, and wins a bunch of package snaps from Cobb, good for him, all power to him.  Or if he hypothetically competes and Gute/MLF like somebody else better, and determine that Amari's not fast enough, quick enough, and not sure-handed enough, I'm totally fine with keeping somebody else.  *IF* they hypothetically realize that they missed on their draft projection for him, no point in hanging onto a mistake.  You draft based on what you know and perceive at the time; if/when that's not vindicated, and you know better, try somebody else.  

Will be interesting to see how the performance and competition plays out. 

[craig]

To belabor Amari a bit further, I wonder how good camp drills are for evaluating slot guys in the Packers boring offense? 

• If the responsibility is to try to hang out and get in the way of a blitzer or pass-rusher; then to stand around at the line-of-scrimmage; and if nobody is open and the pressure is getting hot to be available for a 1-yard dumpoff pass and hopefully try to dart forward for 3-5 yards...  do they actually practice that much in camp? 
• From camp clips, it sees guys are usually going out on routes against corners and safeties; but did EQ ever go out on more than five routes last season that went more than 5-yards beyond scrimmage?   
• I guess I'm just kinda wondering how much practice EQ and Amari slots actually get at doing what they actually are assigned to do in games?  And how well the coaches can evaluate them?  

[TheEagle]

I’m not ready to give up on Amari. I saw enough glimpses to think he has a chance. There was some shiftiness when he got the ball on underneath routes. He’s a hard worker and was a team leader at Clemson, so I think he’ll take a big step forward in year 2. We’ll move on from Cobb after this year, and I think Amari will man that slot role.