Quick pass to Crabtree for 10 yards on 2nd & 12. Sets up 3rd & short, which barely gets converted. Niners score a TD on this drive. *Ansah minimizes these plays.
I think you're right that Starks could play a potential role in this. However, if the plan is to move forward with Starks & Odrick inside and let Soliai walk next year, then it might be wise to draft our future end now so he has time to get his feet wet. To me, El Jefe seems like the type of principled guy who would put the good of the team (even if it's long term) ahead of himself.
I'm not saying Tank's bad vs the run but IMO he gets pushed back or around vs college tackles more often than Coyle/Ireland would prefer in their DE replacing Odrick.
Honestly, if we plan to let Soliai walk after this year, I'd rather wetake Ansah, start him at end, start Starks and Odrick inside and trade Soliai for something... a 3rd or 4th? But this won't make sense if Ireland is in a prove-it year. This is how instability can lead to more instability instead of long term decision-making.
Here's the problem with the idea of moving Odrick in to play DT, imo. If you plan to let Starks go, you need Odrick to be gaining weight to hold up inside for a season. So you'd want to know sooner rather than later.
I can see that rationale. There's obviously a trade off there with losing him for a year but if the trade itself has enough value I don't see why it couldn't be considered. what about trading Misi and letting Vernon take over SAM? I wouldn't mind this possibility if Chase Thomas is there in the 3rd round. Draft Thomas and then trade Misi for a future 3rd/4th or a player and avoid having to pay him next year, and upgrade the position in the process at the cost of essentially swapping a 3rd for a 4th. ??
I'm going to bump this thread because there's something that bothers me. Todd is going to have my head for this, I'm sure. There's a lot of stuff coming out about how Ezekiel Ansah did not train with an outside trainer for the NFL Combine. Now Ian Rapaport says that the vertical he jumped was the first time he'd ever measured a vertical or jumped one in his life. Everyone is licking this guy's nipples for this stuff, oh my god what potential he has, he ran a 4.62 and didn't even TRAIN for that? He jumped a 34 inch vertical and had never done it before? Wow! He's awesome. No. Just stop it. This was the most important test in the guy's life. He's not trying to get into grad school or something. He's trying to be paid MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to be the best in the world at what he does. And this is an important stage in showing those evaluators that he's worthy of being paid those millions of dollars. MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!! I just wanted to say it one more time. The most important test of his life, everyone else in the Draft taking it seriously, working out as hard as they can, earning 0.01 seconds more of their 40 time with buckets of sweat in some strange facility with strange coaches teaching him new techniques, new diets, etc...and this guy's sitting back at campus going to classes and not training, figuring "I'm an athlete, I got this". That doesn't bother anyone else? Really? Thing is, first off I've heard whispers in the past that Ansah wasn't a strong work ethic guy at BYU but I can't comment further unless I were to speak off the record with coaches there. Secondly, I remember reading one of my fellow draftniks talk about interviewing him at the Senior Bowl and asking him whether he prefers a two-point, three-point or four-point stance, and he had no idea what those were. THAT'S YOUR POSITION!!!! It's not like you were just asked who REALLY should have been MVP of Super Bowl 25. It's not even as if you just got asked if the corners are playing off coverage or tight coverage on a certain play call. Third, he shows up at the Senior Bowl and really did not show up well in practices. I heard no positive reviews of him from the guys doing the reporting and on the televised portions he really wasn't doing well. But then what happens? He goes out and just kills it during the game. Not necessarily by beating offensive tackles straight up, he left that to teammate Cornelius Washington, but he redirected well, reacted explosively, knocked a pass down, etc. Isn't it dangerous to be a "go with the flow" guy that plays different on Sunday than you practice on Monday through Thursday, and doesn't show a passion or a work ethic for perfecting every aspect of your craft? I'm not saying draft the guy in the 7th round...or even in the 2nd round. I'm just saying that scares the bajesus out of me, and I have a GENERAL problem with the very idea that we're supposed to take all this news running around about Ansah not training for the Combine as a GOOD development. I've already learned that lesson the hard way from Matt Jones.
He's the Cordarelle Patterson of defensive ends. No production just an athlete. Just kidding CK. I agree with your assessment and I still say he's 28 years old.
Great stuff. I re-read my initial post about Ansah and the truth is, he takes your breath away at first sight with thoughts of "what could this guy look like with COACHING"? because his raw instincts and physicality are phenomenal. But over the last month I have cooled on Ansah, in part because of the types of things you mention, CK. I still think he has incredible upside. I am comfortable saying he has Pro Bowl potential.... but what the **** is the deal with him not learning his position, not training etc? It can;t be that he just wants a payday then will get lazy.. because he is not even acting like he cares to put an effort into getting the payday. Is he taking this seriously at all? Is this a guy who, at spome level, expects this whole bubble to burst anyways so isn;t putting too much into it? I could see that if he's on drugs and expects a positive test at some point. Yeah, his mindset is sufficiently a question mark to me that I would discount his value to the 25-35 range at this point, despite top ten potential. Tank Carradine is my favorite DE in this draft.
"NBA age rule complicates Blazers trade when Tanguy Ngombo found to be 26" http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2011/06/nba_age_rule_complicates_blaze.html and... http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/21/11-athletes-who-lied-about-their-age/
I dunno. I was impressed when I heard he didn't train for the combine, just stayed on campus and went to classes, and still did as well as he did. It makes you wonder what he can do when football becomes his profession and he is training seriously all the time. He already did better than most of the guys who worked extensively at some training facility before the combine. I cannot say that is a negative thing.
It may be able to be boiled down as simply as the fact that football is not his first, or even his second sport. Hell, you might even say it's not even his third sport. He was a soccar player and a basketball player before he was a football player. And when I say football may even be his fourth love, I mean that track and field was his sport all while soccer and basketball were his sports.
When he doesn;t bother reading his playbook, will you be equally impressed? Or when he doesn't bother rehabbing his injury, so he is out longer.. or worse, plays hurt and permanently damages himself (and your investment)? If he performs well on Sundays, over his whole career what do your 24 year old draftee linemen get from their mentor and role model? to skip the weight room? To not worry about preparation? But they won't get away with it will they? Or let me put it this way... you call your investment advisor and ask him about how your $100,000 portfolio is doing. He says, "Walter, I have great news for you, man. This year you made $10,000 on your portfolio... but the amazing thing is, I really didn't do ANYTHING I was supposed to... heck, I think we could have gotten you twenty of thirty thousand if I had actually done more! Isn;t that amazing!? Impressive, eh?"
Oh he clearly oesn;t give a **** about football. By all accounts it took a lot of PERSUADING to get him to even play it. So he isn't willing to do the boring practice and preparation stuff with the same dedication as other guys, I guess. But we are guessing. Who knows why he doesn;t bother.
Ziggy isn't from Nigeria, he's from Ghana. Nigeria is noted as being a country with much more than their share of con artists and scammers. Those links tell me nothing that makes me think Ziggy is any older than he says he is.
IMO, to be more impressed with that news than wary about what it implies...shows misplaced priorities. That's my opinion. We already knew the guy was a fantastic athlete. We had the track and field history handy, referencable. We could pull him up on tape. We knew that. What we need to know, since football was just his Plan C after Soccer and Basketball didn't work out, is whether the guy loves this sport, wants to know everything about it, and wants to work helish hours perfecting every aspect of his game and impressing the evaluators so that he can be the best professional football player he can be. We don't know that. And he's not doing a very good job showing it.
Many assumptions there. When he is on an NFL team and it his job, there is no reason for me to think he won't train the same as other NFL players. He didn't do any special preparation for the combine at some special facility, but he was more than likely doing the same workouts on campus as he'd been doing since he's been on their football team. That what he did at the combine was more natural, impressed me. YMMV.
Oh for ****'s sake, I thought "will someone think that pointing out that the country is different actually refute the main point here? nah." and here we go. Click the link to the people from china, south america, and all over if it allows us to discuss the point: people lie about their age in sports. Hell, people from different cities, zip codes and stuff even do it. Can we stick to the concept, not the lawyering granularity that is irrelevant? And, by the way, it as not meant to conveince people that ziggy, in particular, has evidence suggesting he is lying. It's to suggest, more broadly, that this is common and would not at all be surprising.
Football was Plan C because when he was in Ghana he knew very little if anything about it's very existence.
I disagree entirely. You may make or lose millions of dollars depending on how you run-lift-etc and 99% of the other people in this process (suggesting this is not random) deign it worthwhile to, you know, DO something to incrase the chances of getting said millions. This is similar to the conecept of being paid to perform a job as an NFL player. If the idea of being incentivizd by being paid millions of dollars is entirely unmotivating to Ezekiel Ansah, while almost every other atheletes is the opposite, it doesn;t raise any red flags for you as to whether he may also be different in his approach as a paid player? Like I said, totally disagree, C.
Chris' point is he is HERE now, with LOTS of reason and opportunity to know everything about it and STILL treating it as plan C.
Until I see some actual proof that he is lying about his age, I'm just going to take Ziggy at his word. All I've seen so far is wild unsupported accusations and intemperate speech purporting that since other athletes from various countries lied about their age, we cannot trust Ziggy about being honest about his.
Is that why Ian Rapaport reported that the vertical jump that Ansah did at the Combine was the first one he's ever done in his life? I think it's contradictory to be impressed with his performing well at the Combine without having a lot of training, and then to turn around and claim that he trained just as well and effectively on campus as he would have if he'd takent it as seriously as all the other players.
I agree that there is no evidence right now... although I thought there was a discrpenacy between two reported ages of his somewhere? Anyways, he LOOKS like a guy in his late twenties, to me, but that doesn't prove anything. He could very well be much younger than he looks.
It was his Plan C in America to. He had to be convinced to try out for football after basketball didn't work out. And does it matter WHY it was a Plan C? It's still a third-love. That can carry with it some implications.
IMPRESSIVE! Kidding aside, this is a guy who wil benefit from being forced to practice daily with the coaches watching. He needs structure to be imposed on him, it sounds like. Wher eI could see this hurting him (and the team) is : playbook, injury prevention and rehab, example for younger players over his career.
I know the relationships that owrk out best are when you say, "Will you marry me, my first choice said no, my second choice said no, and everyone is saying I HAVE to propose to you so I finally caved... so whaddaya say?"
I'm not getting into the age thing. It's not worth it. I'm no birther. I'm just saying that IF you read news about Ansah not really training properly for the Combine and you come away impressed by that, then you're admitting that he didn't train properly for the Combine. You just think that the sign of his athletic potential is more important than the sign that he didn't take it as seriously as everyone else. And I think that demonstrates valuing the wrong priorities in this particular case. I say that because this is a player we already knew was a great athlete. Learning he could run a 4.63 or whatever and jump 34 inches at 270 lbs even though he hadn't trained properly didn't really present us with new information. We already knew he was a great natural athlete. It's the entire reason he is where he is. What we still need to know, since American Football is really his third-love as far as sports go, is whether he takes preparation seriously, wants to know everything he can about the sport, will spend hellish hours and buckets of sweat trying to perfect every part of his game, etc. That's what we don't know. And like I said, he's doing a poor job showing it.
We're through!! Hey Chris, remember when I said I'd take your wife's place and go with you to the draft? I lied. A few things from me: a) I'd first like to know if this is stuff that's been twisted into misinformation. b) If it's not twisted it's definitely concerning. c) If he chose not to train for the combine, I'd like to know why. Is there a chance he wanted to let teams judge him on his natural ability or perhaps feel he's already conditioned enough for the underwear olympics based on his track history? d) Not sure what to make of all this b/c when he's on the field it's easy to see the intensity & passion he plays with. From what I've seen, including the Senior Bowl, he plays so hard to the whistle that he sometimes wears himself into exhaustion (like on the final Senior Bowl drive), so I'd be greatly interested in what player I'm getting. e) that makes his measurables look all the better!
That's the best GIF evar. http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/NFP-Sunday-Blitz-1729.html https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/309003020757254144 https://twitter.com/JoshNorris/status/295313839413678080 His own agent is the source of this stuff. Well, except for the 2, 3 and 4 point stance stuff.
So do a lot of football players. Jadeveon Clowney is only 19 in this picture, allegedly. Check that kid's birth certificate! Barry, how old does Tank Carradine look to you? 30? If Ansah looks in his late 20's then EJ Manuel looks 32.
I'd like to know how culpable BYU is in all this? What kind of direction did or didn't they provide, and did they help him understand how important the Combine is, as well as push him to prepare for it etc? Perhaps he simply didn't fully understand the significance of the event since this stuff is new to him? The only other BYU player in Indianapolis was Braden Brown, so I wonder if he trained for it, and if he did, did he train on his own to where no one else at BYU was actually preparing for the combine? It's still concerning, but I'd like to know all the gritty details involved.
Would I be remiss in suggesting that all of these questions already pre-suppose that he isn't self-motivated to look into and take care of all this stuff? Also, some past graduates of BYU that succeeded in the NFL include Dennis Pitta and Austin Collie, for whatever that's worth. I don't recall about Collie but Pitta tested very well at the Combine and seemed like a do-everything-right kind of guy heading into that Draft.
