I led off yesterday’s North report with a description of the practice format that the Detroit Lions coaching staff is using for their squad. It is a routine that incorporates a lot of structure designed to keep players focused on specific techniques with short bursts of high intensity activity.  Players receive immediate feedback, and they are given multiple repetitions in a short period to work on one or two techniques at a time.

In contrast, the South practices are far less structured thus far. Coaches don’t fill every moment with a drill, and there is a lot of dead time where players literally stand around and wait for the next segment of practice to begin. When speaking with Cecil about this format, he made a good point that intent of the lower intensity approach was for coaches to have more time to speak with players and coach them up. However, neither of us saw the South coaches from the Miami Dolphins staff maximize the allotted dead time for instruction.

The best example I can use to underscore this point was the difference in wide receiver drills. The North coaches focus on drilling the proper techniques to catch high-velocity passes covering a short distance. Receivers have five drills where the focus is on them to keep their arms high in and out of their breaks, turn their heads quickly back to the ball, and to catch the ball with their hands away from their body.

The South coaches have only one drill that incorporates short throws and none of these techniques taught in North practices are emphasized. The Dolphins staff spends far more time on intermediate and long throws with far less focus on hands technique or route running, and a lot of dead time between reps.

QB Notes

Tim Tebow (Florida): The Florida quarterback struggled in this practice, and according to observers of the South team’s Monday session, Tebow’s performance was actually an improvement from yesterday. There were several flaws on display with Tebow’s game. His slow, elongated release is well known, and his throwing motion in these practices has not changed at all. His footwork on drops from center was equally deliberate, and because he rarely incorporates drops from center when in Urban Meyer’s spread offense, his feet were not in synch with his arm. This resulted in several late and underthrown passes. Then there were the multiple muffed center-quarterback exchanges in the 11-on-11 drills. Granted, all of these techniques can be fixed with time.

However, the question teams will need to ask themselves is how early do they want to invest in a player where they need to overhaul his technique to become a productive quarterback? The media might characterize players like Reggie Bush, Percy Harvin, and Dexter McCluster as “players without a position,” but I think a more accurate description for these players is “players with multiple positions.” On the other hand, Tebow is truly a player without a position.  He is not fast enough to be a linebacker or safety. His hands are a question mark, and he’ll need to bulk up to be a tight end on the line of scrimmage since he lacks the speed to be a move-TE. All of these positions will require a two or three-year learning curve.

As a personnel guy, I would not want to recommend to my organization that they draft a player who has two or three years of development before he can make an impact in a starting lineup and at positions that will not yield the same return on investment that comes from a project-made-good at quarterback.

The things I mentioned thus far about Tebow’s performance are fixable. However, there is more about Tebow’s game that will require long-term work for him to develop into a pro passer. One of these issues is his ability to throw the ball to his right. Only once in the 11-on-11 drills did Tebow throw a ball to his right, and it was a short flat route to Citadel WR Andre Roberts. Tebow repeatedly missed or ignored open receivers on his right, including his Florida teammate Riley Cooper getting excellent separation on a deep streak early in the route.

To nail the point home with this example, Tebow didn’t even get rid of the ball quickly on this play, and there was no pressure in the pocket. Tebow should have spotted Cooper easily. He waited until another receiver got open on the left sideline, delivered the ball late and slow, and the receiver made an impressive one-handed grab off the defender who tipped the ball as he undercut the late throw. Tebow not only didn’t see players coming open to the right side of the field, but he is also too self-conscious about his skill to throw to the right side of the field.

Even more often than Oregon State QB Sean Canfield on Monday, Tebow chose to run the ball on 11-on-11 drills when he could not make a throw to a receiver on the left side of the field.  It was clear he held onto the ball because either his receivers were covered, or he didn’t feel comfortable attempting a downfield pass in the middle of the secondary.

Tim Tebow is a tough, smart, and physical player with a good work ethic and seemingly excellent character. Cecil calls him the NFL’s future version of A.C. Green. However his flaws as a quarterback are both mechanical and conceptual. Some people believe his leadership skills will elevate his game beyond his flaws and be the difference that will make him a success in the NFL. Those people don’t understand that proficiency is a building block of leadership. As a quarterback, Tebow is, at best, years away from being proficient. If I were to answer the question teams will have to ask in their draft room, I would grade Tim Tebow a priority free agent, at best.

Tony Pike (Cincinnati): Sitting in end zone seats among media, scouts, and team representatives, I overheard four people comment that Tony Pike was the best quarterback on either roster. If you are a member of an organization where you need to cover your rear end to keep your job then Pike is indeed the best quarterback for your team’s needs. He has the height, arm strength, mobility and production to be a safe pick. However, if you want a quarterback that doesn’t go into a shell after a negative play, then I can think of a few other options from these practices.

When Pike gets sacked or pressured into a bad play, he goes into a funk for the next two to three downs, and this downturn in performance manifests itself in Pike holding onto the ball too long, or making very hesitant decisions. Pike demonstrated this against Florida in the Sugar Bowl, and this tendency is still very apparent on Day One and Day Two of the South team practices. Arm strength, height, and mobility will do you no good if you don’t have the maturity and mentality to deal with temporary failure. Maybe Pike will grow out of it, but his arm, accuracy, and mobility are not elite QB material in the first place – just “good enough” for some to justify making him a QB to consider early on draft day if you need one.

Zac Robinson (Oklahoma State): I thought Robinson threw the prettiest ball at South practice today. His throwing motion was smooth, his release quick, and the ball arrived to the receivers with a spiral and on a line. He was also the only quarterback other than Jarrett Brown and Dan LeFevour to challenge safeties in the middle of the field, and he did it more consistently than the other two. Nothing I mentioned here makes him a special player, but it does provide a good contrast to what the other quarterbacks aren’t. I’m looking forward to watching his games I have on queue at home.

Dan LeFevour (Central Michigan): He threw the ball with more zip today. His out routes arrived on time and with accuracy compared to Pike and Canfield in this practice. He also had one of the highlights of practice when he completed a deep seam route to Oregon TE Ed Dickson for what would have been a long touchdown. He showed good patience to wait for the play to develop, but also made a timely, decisive throw in this five-on-seven drill to get out of the pocket and in a place for the TE to run underneath it in stride. The Lions coaches complimented him on the throw. As mentioned above, LeFevour challenged the safeties and linebackers more often than any QB in the two practices other than Robinson. He hit a receiver (I didn’t catch his number) on a tightly covered dig route as well. Tony Pike might be the name brand with the marketable buzz, but LeFevour might just be the discount model with better craftsmanship.

Sean Canfield (Oregon State): Canfield’s performance thus far has been disappointing. He has yet to display the arm strength to make even the prerequisite throws to effectively operate an NFL offense. To compound the problem, his passes were wobbly, and the North’s morning practice had virtually no wind compared to the gusts during the South’s session. Canfield’s routes even in five-on-seven drills were safe out and flat routes, and even with this play-it-safe mentality in practice, those passes were not as crisp or accurate as they needed to be. At best, Canfield is nervous about not making a mistake, and it’s affecting his game at a really bad time.

Jarrett Brown (West Virginia): Brown throws the ball with good velocity and I really liked that he challenged the safety on a deep post in 11-on-11 drills today. He also showed his trademark mobility to elude the pass rush and slide to his left while looking downfield. Although he didn’t complete a pass on this play, it’s nice to see he didn’t drop his eyes from the secondary on the play. However, like Tebow and Robinson, he also had a little trouble with the center exchange today. He also spent time running a drill with linemen and runners where he handed off the ball or ran keepers from the I formation and the spread, while the other two QBs were throwing the ball to receivers in five-on-sevens. Brown never rotated with the other QBs to get included on the action.

RB Notes

I did not focus much on runners in the North practice, and only a little more in the South practice, so this will be quicker reading.

LaGarette Blount (Oregon): One of the highlights of the North’s morning practices were the blocking drills featuring RBs versus LBs with a coach serving as a QB in the pocket. Blount was the most consistent pass blocker in terms of his punch, footwork, and reads.

Lonyae Miller (Fresno State): Blocking is his major weakness as a football player. His best tool in his pass protection arsenal is a magnet for yellow beanbags: holding. I enjoyed watching his burst and lateral cuts in the open field to seams in the flat after catching short passes. Without improved technique as a blocker, NFL fans won’t get to enjoy what I saw today when he got the ball.

Joique Bell (Wayne State): For those who are curious, his name is pronounced “Joyk,” and the onomatopoeic quality of his name will likely be something you can use to describe the sound of him bouncing off defenders with his shifty, powerful running style. He demonstrated some nice stutter moves in the hole to set up LBs for a couple of big runs into the third level of the defense. Physically, he might have the biggest thighs and calves of all the runners here and he has enough burst and wiggle to get the job done as a pro. His blocking needs work. He frequently got out-classed by linebackers, but he was aggressive in the drills, and actually earned the respect of his opponents for his high effort and willingness to talk trash and raise the intensity of the exercise. He did get the better end of the deal on a couple of blocks, one of them a final match up with LB Sean Witherspoon who tried to take a finesse approach off the line and get under the RB. Bell did not fall for change-up, showing good feet and quickness to re-direct Weatherspoon’s route from the QB, winning respect from the most vocal – and arguably the most NFL-ready LB – on this field today.

Rashawn Jackson (Virginia): There was a reason for his individual coaching on blocking prior to Day One’s practice, and we saw it today in pass protection drills with the LBs. Jackson struggled with his balance, frequently getting pushed backward and thrown aside. He’ll need more work in this area.

Ben Tate (Auburn): One of the nice facets of the South practice was that they used backs in receiving drills where they were required to run intermediate and deep routes where they had to set up their breaks at key points in the pattern. Tate demonstrated that he can catch the football, but he was slow out of his breaks on several routes. Tate also failed to work back to the ball on a corner route where he had over a yard of separation on the LB and the ball was underthrown just enough that he should have stopped his route to make a play on it. Instead, he continued to run away from it while watching it fall at his feet. Either he misjudged it, or didn’t have the football IQ in this situation to adjust.

Stafon Johnson (USC): The only time I saw him was during an 11-on-11 drill where he showed good patience following his blockers and setting up their assignments to get to the outside. If you have the ’09 USC-Ohio State game on TIVO, you can see the same thing for 29 yards in the second half, plus an example of his speed as he outran a CB down the sideline.

Anthony Dixon (Mississippi State): I interviewed Dixon on media night and he gave pretty cerebral answers about the craft of running the football. For a kid whose maturity has been questioned a bit due to some weight issues prior to his senior year, his description of what he reads from pre-snap to the whistle on his favorite running play at Mississippi State was filled with details that you could see if you watched any of his games. His ability to articulate his process was a true reflection of his polish as a runner.

This is a back with good footwork, and unlike LaGarrette Blount whose game can be neutralized with good penetration into the offensive backfield, Dixon has the agility and savvy to turn these situations into decent gains. In 11-on-11 drills, he showed a quick lateral cut to avoid the DT’s penetration into the backfield to gain four yards from a potential five-yard loss.

During receiving drills, Dixon showed burst and sharpness with his setting up and coming out of breaks, frequently getting separation against some of the faster LBs on the South squad with good stems and breaks. Although he didn’t consistently make catches, many of the throws were a little wide of target and forced him to make significant adjustments to just get a hand on the football. In earlier drills without coverage, he demonstrated the skill to adjust to the ball downfield and soft hands to catch it.

One of the major “what are they thinking” moments for me this week was learning that Dixon would be used extensively at fullback in practice. Dixon might be the best all around back in this draft. He lacks the explosiveness of the top juniors, but he is a polished runner. Dixon reminds me of Jerome Bettis with more speed and a better physique – he has that kind of potential due to his vision, agility, and savvy with setting up defenders.

Speaking with CBS Sportsline’s Chad Reuter and Rob Rang after practice, they made excellent points that Dixon might have received this assignment to test his maturity with change, and because LSU’s Charles Scott, who was expected to see time at FB, was scratched from the roster because he failed his physical due to a collarbone injury, leaving the roster short on true fullbacks.

To Dixon’s credit, he was an aggressive, and willing blocker today. He cut down an LB off LG as the lead blocker on an I formation run in 11-on-11 drills, getting low enough to nail the defender in the chest with a crack that could be heard from the top of the end zone seats. He also showed the quickness to hook and turn – without holding – the outside penetration on an I formation run, which sealed the edge. His worst block of the day was an assignment from the spread to lead the RB to right end and seal the edge. Dixon got to right end, and instead of seeking the LB further into the hole to deliver the hit he waited for the defender to arrive before meeting him with a good shot. Dixon once told the media that eating was a hobby of his. As long as he finds more constructive past times, he will be one of the better power backs to come out of college in recent memory.

WR Notes

Mardy Gilyard (Cincinnati): Gilyard continued to fight the ball today in drills. There were three drills where he repeatedly dropped passes:

• The four-cone drill where receivers ran and cut around each cone set in a square to catch four high-velocity throws from a short distance.
• The gauntlet with the tall pads to weave through, catching two to three balls with each pass.
• A drill where each receiver made four consecutive passes back and forth between a narrow path of the tall gauntlet pads in front of them, and cones behind them that the coaches instructed them to stay in front of at all times.

Gilyard dropped numerous passes, and he caught balls with his hands that he let get a little too far into his body or behind him. One of the problems the Lions coaches are trying to correct with Gilyard is his tendency to drop his hands while running his route, which makes his reaction time to quicker passes too slow to catch the ball away from his body. These hands techniques are his greatest weakness as a receiver, and it might mean he’ll need a year or two of work to eliminate this problem enough to be a reliable starter.
However, there are numerous positives I saw from Gilyard from these same drills. He practices with the highest intensity of any receiver I saw from either squad. He goes at full speed on every drill, and full speed for this quick athlete is impressive to watch. He is visibly angry when he doesn’t make a perfect catch. He might not be a fantasy factor in most leagues as a rookie, but I can see why a team will invest a first day pick – and maybe a high one – on Gilyard’s athleticism and effort which should help him make good on his potential. DeSean Jackson he is not, but he’ll always be compared to the Philly receiver due to physical similarities and talents after the catch.

Danario Alexander (Missouri): Alexander has soft hands and didn’t have too many drops in drills. However, the position coaches had to exhort him to run two drills at top speed. Either Alexander is a little lazy with his approach or, like some of the QBs throwing nothing but short perimeter routes on 11-on-11 drills, he is concentrating on not playing not to lose rather than playing to win. In a high-pressure atmosphere where he might be overly concerned with catching the ball, he’s slowing his pace a little more than desired.

Jacoby Ford (Clemson): He had a solid day once again, playing with decent quickness and catching most balls cleanly with his hands. Coaches did warn him about getting his hands further away from his body. Scott Coulter at Travelle Gaines’ training program mentioned today that Ford is a good kid with sound physical skills, but what he’ll need to demonstrate at some point early in his career is the ability to work the middle of the field.

Taylor Price (Ohio): Price was a little up and down with his performance in these North squad drills, but one positive was his ability to adjust to errant throw. Even his position coaches throwing him these footballs either took the blame for bad throws that he missed or actually thanked him for making them look good on that drill. Something worth noting as we continue to learn more about his game.

Dorin Dickerson (Pittsburgh): He didn’t fight the ball in drills, but he also had a lot of trouble keeping his hands high so he could react to these short throws quickly and catch the ball away from his body. He did show some quick reaction time in the gauntlet drills. However, I didn’t see his performance in the five-on-seven or 11-on-11 drills today.

Andre Roberts (The Citadel): CBS Sportsline’s Chad Reuter commented that Roberts’ weigh-in result of 190 lbs. was a huge watershed moment for him because at 5-10, he needed to show scouts that he had the size to withstand punishment. Even more good news is that this added weight didn’t change his speed and quickness. Roberts routinely had one or two yards of separation against every cornerback he faced on intermediate and deep routes in one-on-one, five-on-seven, and 11-on-11 drills. Combine this with his soft hands, and Roberts proved that he wasn’t just a big fish in a small pond at The Citadel.

Jeremy Williams (Tulane): Williams wasn’t outstanding, but he did just about everything well today. His routes were crisp and he got good separation consistently, and he made some nice catches on throws that let him a little too far and forced him to stretch for the completion. He did fall on a route, and he dropped a couple of passes after some nice stems and breaks to get open, but I see Williams as a player that an astute evaluator of talent will feel is a bargain in this draft.

Joe Webb (UAB): Webb consistently caught the ball too close to his body on drills where he ran dig routes or deep outs. He also rounded off his breaks or tipped of his routes with enough frequency that he didn’t have an impressive showing.

Shay Hodge (Ole Miss): There were only two things I saw today from Hodge. He made some nice adjustments on the football in early drills across the middle of the field on dig routes, and he made an impressive catch on a deep streak against coverage 40 yards downfield by tracking the ball directly over his head – one of the most difficulty ways to track an catch a deep pass for a receiver. However, if you’re thinking Mike Wallace re-dux, slow down.

Dexter McCluster (Ole Miss): He might be the most entertaining player on the field. Linebackers and corners repeatedly bumped him off his release, but he anticipated the contact well enough to get downfield with minimal or no delay. He caught the ball cleanly and I only saw one drop, which occurred two-thirds of the way through practice, and it was simply a ball he didn’t look into his hands before turning up field. He knows how to use his size to his advantage as a runner, getting small (as if he weren’t already) to squeeze through traffic for extra yardage. The South’s highlight play of the day was a diving catch on a deep streak with a full layout to catch the pass with his hands, drawing applause from the herd of Tebow fans even though their QB wasn’t the guy throwing McCluster the football.

Riley Cooper (Florida): Cooper’s routes were impressive in the intermediate range of the field against coverage on five-on-seven and 11-on-11 drills. I watched him make a great stem to the outside to set up the inside cut on a dig route, getting good separation against what was initially tight coverage. He followed up with another good stem inside, a second stem to the outside further downfield, and then break back to the inside where he had to cut in front of the corner at the last moment to be the first to the ball. He also got open deep on at least three routes in five-on-seven and 11-on-11 drills, but his QBs did not target him, despite being even with the CB in the early stages of the pattern. I continue to have good initial impressions of his game: good hands, aggressive back to the ball, savvy with intermediate routes to set up his breaks. A lot to like thus far.

TE Notes

With the exception of Ed Dickson’s catch mentioned in the Dan LeFevour notes I only watched the South tight ends today.

Anthony McCoy (USC): McCoy looked very smooth in and out of breaks on routes versus coverage and he also showed a good shake move just out of his release from a three-point stance that created initial separation from a potential jam. He had a few drops, but they were on passes that required a difficult catch. There’s a fluidity and athletic sophistication to his breaks on the ball that stand out.

Jimmy Graham (Miami): He isn’t as polished with his breaks and routes, but his speed and ability to adjust to the ball in the air was very apparent. He caught the ball cleanly today.

Colin Peek (Alabama): Peek made good catches in coverage and ran disciplined routes to get enough separation to make a play on the ball. However, he lacks the speed and burst of tight ends that will be an integral part of the average NFL passing game. He will be a valued player on a roster because he can block and catch, but he won’t be a huge weapon.