Building your draft board position by position - week 8: S/STs

[Box_O_Rocks]

Time for another edition of Who the devil are we going to draft? Starring this week, the double whammy Safety and Special Teams (which can be anybody you think might help the team in that specialist role or someone who is so raw he can't make it at a position and so talented you can't say Devin Hester for your jaw on the table).

Safety comes in two sizes, lumberjack and fencer. Lumberjacks are the guys who tend to line up across from Tight Ends because they have a little more lead in their pencil for dealing with guys who (in some cases) wrestle with DL and LB between pass routes. Fencers are big CBs with great ball skills and slow feet, they tend to hang back in deep centerfield and watch for fly balls to catch. There may be more to it than that, but it's the meat of the matter.

Special Teams have specialists who kick the ball and usually one guy who hands it to them, more or less. They also apply to guys who may be listed as depth at one position or another, but just happen to be so good at specific "special" jobs that they are kept for those more finite talents. Examples are Gunners: really fast guys who race the punted ball downfield to see where it lands. They can often be found in the offseason working as spotters at rifle and archery ranges to improve their speed and dodging ability.
Wedge busters: these are human bowling balls who live to see pins flying everywhere, they can be found rolling around in gutters during the offseason.
Kick returners: Kind of like when you played fetch with your dog, you throw them the ball and they pick it up and make you chase them around to get it back.
Punt returners: Similar to kick returners, they're more of the suicidal types, they fetch the ball, but do so racing head on into a crowd of ill intentioned ruffians.

As always we have a look back in history:
Week One - OC/OG: Building your draft board position by position - week 1: OC/OG
Week Two - DL: Building your draft board position by position - week 2: DL
Week Three - OT: Building your draft board position by position - week 3: OT
Week Four - CB: Building your draft board position by position - week 4: CB
Week Five - LB: Building your draft board position by position - week 5: LB
Week Six - TE: Building your draft board position by position - week 6:
Week Seven - RB/FB: Building your draft board position by position - week 7: RB/FB

Kicker (K or sometimes PK): Stephen Gostkowski
Punter (P or in one recent case %&*%^$^BBF): Josh Miller, Danny Baugher, Tom Malone
Longsnapper (LS): Lonie Paxton

Safety:
Rodney Harrison 6-1 220
Eugene Wilson 5-10 195
James Sanders 5-10 210
Mel Mitchell 6-1 225
Artrell Hawkins 5-10 195
Rashad Baker 5-10 198
Willie Andrews 5-10 195

CB/S Tweeners:
Randall Gay 5-11 190
Eddie Jackson 6-0 200
Chad Scott 6-1 205
Antwain Spann 6-0 190
Gemara Williams 5-8 185

[sebman2112]

Their converting Willie Andrews to CB. He was a Safety in college, though.

[Box_O_Rocks]

Originally Posted by sebman2112

Their converting Willie Andrews to CB. He was a Safety in college, though.

He played a bit of both, but more Safety I believe. Either way, a former Safety playing CB for Bill Belichick will find himself back there pretty quickly when there is a need.

[Urgent]

Some notable ST candidates in the draft:

PR/KR
CB Leon Hall
CB Darelle Revis
CB Josh Wilson
CB Michael Coe
S Kevin Payne
WR Ted Ginn
WR Steve Breaston
WR Chris Davis
WR Ryne Robinson

ST coverage/tacklers
FB Deon Anderson
SS Leonard Peters
SS Michael Griffin - blocked 6 punts

[sebman2112]

Originally Posted by Urgent

Some notable ST candidates in the draft:

PR/KR
CB Leon Hall
CB Darelle Revis
CB Josh Wilson
CB Michael Coe
S Kevin Payne
WR Ted Ginn
WR Steve Breaston
WR Chris Davis
WR Ryne Robinson

ST coverage/tacklers
FB Deon Anderson
SS Leonard Peters
SS Michael Griffin - blocked 6 punts

Add:

KR/PR
CB Aaron Ross
WR Chansi Stuckey

ST coverage:
Jon Beason
Chris Houston

[Box_O_Rocks]

Originally Posted by sebman2112

Add:

KR/PR
CB Aaron Ross
WR Chansi Stuckey

ST coverage:
Jon Beason
Chris Houston

And add DE/OLB Brian Robison who blocked a number of punts too.

[Box_O_Rocks]

Time to bump this a bit:

LS/LB Zach DeOssie - good coverage man.
SS Craig Dahl - good coverage man.
S/RB/P/KR Kevin Payne - 40.6 yds/punt, 21 yds/KR as senior; 28.8/KR as junior.

[SamBamsFan]

Hey, don't forget that Figurs from K State is the best gunner in college football (I've seen it repeatedly so it must be true). Given his wt/ht. ratio, he must be "wii-rey" (sorry just saw "The Replacements).

[ctpatsfan77]

Originally Posted by Box_O_Rocks

Wedge busters: these are human bowling balls who live to see pins flying everywhere, they can be found rolling around in gutters during the offseason.

Thank you, Box, for putting a really bizarre image of Mike Wright in my head.

Seriously, though, I could see BB taking DeOssie for his LB skills, and letting him LS too--although you do have to wonder why, despite BB's apparent disdain for having too many specialists, he reserves a roster spot for someone whose sole duty is LS. . . .

[Box_O_Rocks]

Originally Posted by ctpatsfan77

Thank you, Box, for putting a really bizarre image of Mike Wright in my head.

Seriously, though, I could see BB taking DeOssie for his LB skills, and letting him LS too--although you do have to wonder why, despite BB's apparent disdain for having too many specialists, he reserves a roster spot for someone whose sole duty is LS. . . .

Your welcome!

Perhaps some of the folks who attend Training Camp can fill us in on how much time Lonie spends working on his snaps with his two sidekicks (pun inadvertent and therefore allowed to stand and annoy others)? As I see it, there is a limited amount of time on the practice field, if Zach were drafted to be both LS and LB, how much time would he spend not working on LB material because he was longsnapping? That roster spot seems underutilized, but necessary to keep the exchange between snapper and holder, and snapper and punter, smooth and consistent (Dallas).