This is the most impressive video that I've seen. Brandon Flowers. I love this kid. And it's not highlights of a guy picking off a lame duck and running it in for a TD, like other CB highlights. The kid is physical, hard hitting, runs over players. That, my friends, is what a Belichick player looks like on film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMNyu77Ld8
Some experts have Brandon Flowers rated as a 1st round talent, but because this draft is so deep in corners he's not likely to go until the 2nd round. I like his aggressive style.
Mark my words though, Darren McFadden is the #1 skill position player in this entire draft. If he lasts to #7, it may be too much to pass up on this guy. He would instantly become the fastest player on the team not named Randy Moss. I'd like to pick a defensive player, but if the top defensive players are gone, McFadden is a pretty good fallback option imo. McDaniels will find a way to use an explosive talent like D-MAC.
Clips:
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=foxsports&vid=dafa4525-d50d-4a1e-a696-45c353cfb436
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APEFj8Glx7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcssslTgHBQ
I'm not the only one who has said good things about McFadden.
“There are a lot of good running backs out there, but I don’t think there’s anybody out there right now better than McFadden,” Dye said. “I said last year after I saw him as a freshman that I thought he was the best running back that I’d seen, and it looks to me like he’s gotten better.”
-Coach Pat Dye, Bo Jackson's coach at Auburn
“I think they’ve got the best football player in the country on their team,” said Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom.
Troy coach Larry Blakeney said, “He’s a Bo Jackson type guy, a Herschel Walker type guy from the older days in the SEC. He can do all the things they could do … he runs fast and he breaks tackles. And he can line up at quarterback when they try to out-gap you with formation, and he can actually throw the football pretty well.”
“That guy can play in the NFL,” LSU Coach Les Miles said of McFadden. “That tailback can turn right around and play in the NFL.”
“McFadden’s been off the charts in my book,” Georgia Coach Mark Richt said. “There aren’t many guys that can dominate the way he’s dominated.”
"He's a dominating player that can take over a game. He's big, he's fast, he's strong, he's physical, he's tough."
- Will Muschamp, Auburn Defensive Coordinator
"I watched him against Alabama...he's something now. He's like all the great backs I love - he initiates contact. He punishes people and if they flinch, he's gone. That's a special guy. My kind of football player."<o
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- Mike Ditka, NFL Hall of Famer
- Arkansas Offensive Coordinator David Lee on Darren McFadden against Alabama
“You can’t let him get his hand around your face or shoulder-pad, that’s really the only way to try and stop it. He’s very good at it. It’s not a lost art, but you don’t see a lot of backs use it to their advantage like he does. Looking at the tape from this past week, I saw one play in which he stiff-armed the safety from Alabama and just dropped him. He’s got an S on his chest I guess.”
- Rich Brooks, Kentucky Head Coach on the use and effectiveness of McFadden’s stiff-arm “He’s a combination back to me. He’s the swiftness and smoothness of O.J. Simpson, who I actually coached against, and we beat (USC) 3-0 the year that they won the national championship, and we held him to 195 rushing yards.
- Rich Brooks, Kentucky Head Coach on whom McFadden reminds him most of as a player "I would say he’s a combination of O.J. and Earl Campbell. He's got such a relentless spirit about him. That's the intangible thing about him that you just can't find in hardly anybody. Darren McFadden's got it. I don't know how to describe it other than he just attacks the tackler, you know, in just a hell-bent-for-leather attitude every time he's got the football under his arm. He does it on a consistent basis all the time, which separates him from almost anybody else.”
"He may be one of the best backs I've ever seen, not only in college, University of Kentucky defensive Coordinator Steve Brownbut in pro football.”
“If you think the guy is just fast, you’re wrong. He can deliver a blow like a linebacker.”
- Former LSU All-American and current Washington Redskins safety LaRon Landry
“I like his total package – size and speed. People say guys who run upright are easier to hit, but you have to catch us first. And if you do, we’ve got enough size to give out some punishment.”
- Former SMU All-American and NFL star Eric ****erson
“I can see what people are talking about when they compare him to me. He’s not a little guy trying to hide behind linemen.”
- Former SMU All-American and NFL star Eric ****erson
"(Darren) McFadden is definitely the best running back in college football."
- LaDainian Tomlinson, 8/17/07 on the Dan Patrick Show
