manxman2601

Would the ultimate cross-sport guy be a Chess Master switching to QB?

Processing power!!

patsfaninpa

Love your work Mayo. But, shouldn't this be the Antonio Gates thread? He didn't even play football in college. Or Tony Gonzalez? He played both at Cal. And, will be in Canton when he hangs it up.

mayoclinic

Why not go back to Jim Thorpe? There were obviously examples before Barwin. Ed "Too Tall" Jones played baseball, basketball and boxed before switching to football; he never played a game before his senior year in High School. But my point in the OP is that these kind of examples were relatively rare and isolated cases before, and now they are becoming widespread. I'm not making this about Barwin per se - other than his name works nicely for the pun in the tread title - but certainly 2009 it seems like there has been an explosion of kids with cross-sports backgrounds and kids with ultra-athletic skills undergoing positional switches. It's now commonplace. And teams seem much more inclined to spend draft picks on guys with rare athleticism who are still technically raw and somewhat underdeveloped, compared with previously. Gonzales was to some extent the prototype of the two sport TE. Gates was a pure convert, and was a UDFA.

The idea of great athletes excelling at multiple sports isn't new, of course. It's not surprising that guys with rare athleticism would play more than one sport early on, and excel. There seems to be more attention payed now to the benefits of cross-sports training, and to finding guys who from other sports and moving them to football. And there seems to be more position switching than I've seen in the past. It's an evolutionary thing, and Barwin certainly wasn't at the start of the process. He may, however, been at a nexus in it's evolution.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

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manxman2601

A case study to add to your thesis:

Larry Webster: From Bloomsburg basketball to NFL prospect - CBSSports

mayoclinic

Very nice. I'd be thrilled to pick someone like him up with a late day 3 pick. Good bloodlines, good athlete, great length, lots of upside, good intangibles. Nice find.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

"The key to any successful organization is to anticipate things, not react to them." - Michael Lombardi

manxman2601

Actually found him a couple of weeks ago. put him in the prospect thread:

The 2013 Prospect Thread

mayoclinic

I sae him there, just hadn't gotten around to commenting on him. But in general, I'm a big proponent of using late round picks on guys like this.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

"The key to any successful organization is to anticipate things, not react to them." - Michael Lombardi

manxman2601

I know. Thought of you when I found him (hence the Dion Jordan reference).

mayoclinic

I featured another "Barwinian" guy on Ye Olde Mock Draft thread recently, UCLA junior OLB Anthony Barr. He's an interesting story:

- Barr came from a family of Notre Dame football alums, and was born in South Bend, but grew up in Los Angeles where he attended Loyola High School. He played running back at 6'4" 235# and was recruited by both USC and Notre Dame. Pete Carroll reportedly wanted to move him to LB. He chose to go to UCLA, which at the time was coached by Rick Neuheisal, the father of the QB on his high school team. He was recruited to play the "F" back position in UCLA's offense, which is a compound TE/fullback/RB kind of position.
- Barr had some success his first 2 years, but was largely a "team first" player. He was a very good blocker, and UCLA averaged something like 257 yards rushing when he was in the game last year, which dropped off to less than half of that when he missed time with an injury.
- In spite of that, he got stuck in a depth struggle at RB. Neuheisal was fired, and former NFL coach Jim Mora was hired, and re-vamped UCLA's defense and switched Barr to OLB. He missed spring football with an injury so he couldn't practice his new position, but he used the time to study the playbook and learn the schemes, and then he used his smarts and his physical ability to get up to speed quickly. He exploded on the scene this year leading the Pac 10 in sacks with 13.5 and being voted the league's DPOY.

Barr is still somewhat raw technically and his instincts show that he's still new at his position. But he has a long, lanky frame, has tremendous agility in space for his size, and has great quickness and explosion as a pass rusher. His experience as a blocker shows that he is very physical for his long, lean frame and able to take on blocks.

So the kid is either going to come out this year and be a 1st round pick, or go back to school and possibly be a top 15 pick next year. It's even possible that he could go that high if he came out this year based on his upside. Mel Kiper currently has him #10 on his big board, FWIW.

Here's some reads:

It's Westwood, not South Bend, for Anthony Barr, UCLA's new 'F-back' - Los Angeles Times
Anthony Barr - Los Angeles Ucla Blog - ESPN Los Angeles
The Hit: Anthony Barr
UCLA Football: Anthony Barr Transitions To Possible Pac 12 DPOY
Raising the Barr on draft status - Los Angeles Ucla Blog - ESPN Los Angeles

So here's my question:

If Ezekiel Ansah and Anthony Barr had been eligible for and/or declared for the 2012 NFL draft, both would have probably been UDFAs. Neither was on anybody's "watch list" coming into this season. They weren't off the radar - they weren't even on the map. Yet they are undoubtedly tremendous talents with incredible upside - upside much greater than many of those players who were projected much more highly. They combine superior physical skills with patience, tenacity, willpower, persistence, the ability to adapt and learn, unselfishness, and versatility.

So, are these the only 2 kids like this out there, or are there others like them? And who are the ones that haven't been discovered yet, and how do we find them?

Specifically, if I'm the CEO of a major NFL team with my own league of scouts, and I have a very well developed system-specific scouting process and don't just go by the national scouting services, how do I beat the bushes to find these kids before they break out and become stars? Particularly those who have the ability but don't get the opportunity in college, and are still available dirt cheap when the draft rolls around, or are early enough in their growth curve that they are available day 2 and 3 of the draft.

One could argue that Nate Ebner is an attempt to do just that, whether or not he develops.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

"The key to any successful organization is to anticipate things, not react to them." - Michael Lombardi

patfanken

Mayo, great job, your hypothesis is more important THIS year, because of where the Pats are drafting. If the Pats are going to draft an "impact" player its going to be done around picks #30, #60 and below. At those picks any true "impact" player is going to have to be someone who has dropped due to injury, inexperience, position change, etc. Any player the Pats get where they are going to be drafting is going to be either a solid role player type player, (someone who helps but is never an all pro) or a high risk/reward developmental player (someone who either flames out it 2 or 3 years or becomes an "impact player after a few years)

I hope the Pats employ your theory, because I don't see this draft as being one that provides any "immediate improvement" to the team. Drafting this low and without the usual large number of picks to maneuver up and down in the draft, the players we get in THIS draft will most likely help us down the road.

That is why I think that any "immediate improvement" to the Pats roster is more likely to come from FA. I think we should have enough room next season (after signing our own FA's) to add one ore 2 guys who can come in an be "impact starters" Connor Barwin would be a good example, but there will be many more available at positions of need like WR, DL, and DB.....and I'm not talking about grabbing one of the top 10 guys. I'm talking about grabbing guys like Waters, Carter, and Anderson, all of whom were impact players acquired from the middle class of the FA supply.

So I'm all for taking high risk/reward players in this draft. Lets find that former basketball/track star/athletic freak who is just transitioning to football, as long as we add a few solid "pros" who we can evaluate with 4+ years of NFL tape against NFL competition.

BTW- we already have 2 on the roster in Demps and Ebner who eventually can wind up being big impact players.....or not

Our best bet will be to find guys who have great athletic ability but aren't playing their NFL position (ie Julian Edelman), or players who might have red flags due to some off field issues (ie Alphonso Dennard). This is good draft to go all out "crap shoot" and roll the dice on high risk players and hope you hit one or two. I think between the 53 man roster, players on IR, and the PS, numbers aren't a big issue for the Pats this off season. If the Pats drafted no one in April and didn't add a single player in FA; they still would have one of the youngest teams in the league

This might be the year to make quality the major focus.