An honest no bullsh!t assessment on the Florida players taken

[PowerRunRevival]

Just a caution flag for folks, if Spikes' groin injury was bad enough last season, and he was still suffering the effects of it in his 40 for his Pro-Day, don't be surprised if he starts Training Camp on PUP or even misses a few weeks at the start of the season.

That is also what I was thinking. Hopefully we're wrong. I'd like to see him start the season as our strong middle linebacker. I think what probably ends up happening is McKenzie, Spikes, Mayo and Guyton rotate with TBC, Crable, Cunningham and Murrell rotating at olb. That's a pretty young and potentially very good group.

 

[bucky]

That is also what I was thinking. Hopefully we're wrong. I'd like to see him start the season as our strong middle linebacker. I think what probably ends up happening is McKenzie, Spikes, Mayo and Guyton rotate with TBC, Crable, Cunningham and Murrell rotating at olb. That's a pretty young and potentially very good group.

Actually, I hope we're not wrong. If a healthy Spikes is back to his 2008 form and runs a 4.7, he's every bit as good as McClain. I'll take 8 weeks of PUP for that. However, I would think if he needed surgery, he would have opted for that rather than running a 5.0 and hurting his draft stock.

 

[TruthSeeker]

That, and he's not a good football player.

lol, good one dude, lol. You been hanging with Hernandez smoking that mj ?

 

[Kasmir]

Here's an interesting article discussing college measurable correlates with NFL pass rushing success:

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Introducing SackSEER

Claim is that vertical leap, short shuttle time, adjusted sack rate, and inverted games missed are the best correlates. By their measure, Hughes, Morgan and (ironically) Griffen are the best sack prospects in this draft. Dunlap has a crappy vertical leap (31.5") and a mediocre short shuttle (4.61s). There are no good numbers for Cunningham, although the following article claims he ran a short shuttle between 4.12s and 4.3s, and vertical leap of 35":

NFL Forum :: - Jermaine Cunningham projection

That's actually really good pass rushing athleticism -- much superior to Dunlap or Kindle -- and actually is comparable to Jared Allen's numbers coming out of college.

Take it all for informed speculation, but there's at least an argument that Cunningham has both elite pass rushing measured athleticism and a good history of in game performance. It's easy to see why he was picked where he was.