CASEY HAYWARD, CB, VANDERBILT

SCOUTING REPORT:

National Football Post:

Possesses good height and a thin build, but has the frame to add additional girth without losing much athleticism. Displays a natural feel for the pass game in zone coverage. Keeps his head on a swivel, feels routes develop around him and displays the fluidity in his hips to quickly open up and make a play on the football. Is at his best in off coverage where he can sit in routes, read and react, and can simply undercut throws. Displays some natural click and close ability when driving on passes in front of him. However, gets too upright in his drop, doesn’t consistently keep his base under him and wastes too much motion out of his breaks. Not as clean as he could be driving on the football. Picked off 6 passes last year and recorded 17 passes defended. But displays only slightly above-average ball skills. Will leave some picks on the field and I don’t think his ball skills are quite as good as his stats make them out to be. Needs to do a better job catching the football more consistently.

Not real comfortable in man coverage at this stage however. Lacks great straight-line speed and doesn’t seem to trust himself on an island. When he plays closer to the line likes to prematurely open up his hips in order to keep receivers from quickly getting behind him, will give up routine separation underneath. Gets upright when asked to turn and run, doesn’t possess the type of second gear to quickly get back up to speed and can easily be taken advantage of by vertical speed. Gets leggy out of his breaks as well trying to re-direct because of his high pad level.

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NFL Gridiron Gab

But first we figured now is as good a time as any to drop one of the greatest one hit wonder rap songs of all time.



So let’s get into more TCU stuff as interesting tidbits have been revealed and we can further look to explain some of what’s going on.

In The Bleachers – A College Football Blog and Podcast

Some guys will remind us of why we’re skeptical of their ability to turn college stardom into NFL success. Other players will make us think they deserve a shot because of off the chart measurables. In the we can slot some guys higher than before, some guys lower and all the draftniks will go back and forth over why what they saw counts more than what someone else noticed in the same player.

Last year we broke down some of the interesting terminology that you’ll hear for the next week out of Indy as well as a little ITB Commentary from awhile back so you can read both of those and I won’t bother rewriting what’s been said.

As the combine gets going we’ll hit on things as they come and of course we’ll be on the twitter answering questions, for now I just wanted to do a quick run down of the workout section of the combine.

In The Bleachers – A College Football Blog and Podcast

It's 4th and 2 from the opponent's 42. The score is tied at 17. There's 1 minute and 17 seconds left on the clock. What would you do? If you're Ken Wisenhunt, you send in Dave Zastudil to punt.

One thing I've learned about human nature is that to help convince someone of something, I should frame the issue in terms of fearing a potential loss. That's usually a stronger motivation than expecting a potential gain. For example, I wouldn't suggest to a coach that he could improve his chances of winning by going for it on 4th down more often. Instead, I'd tell him he's forfeiting a significant chance of winning by not going for it. Nobody likes forfeiting stuff. My wife suggested using the phrase "leaving points on the table." Coach Wisenhunt forfeited 13% chance of winning that game.

By far, the most common question I get from reporters is whether teams are going for it more often. My answer is almost always "it's complicated, but I think so." The difficulty in measuring 4th down aggressiveness is that it's so dependent on the situational variables. You can't just count how often teams go for it rather than kicking. To-go distance, score, and time all weigh heavily on the decisions, and there are just too many possible combinations to compare rates from year to year or even decade to decade.

If we constrain the analysis to certain parameters–inside opponent territory and when the score difference is within reason, for example–we'd get an incomplete picture. We've learned over the last few years that there can be many situations outside traditional 'go-for-it' limits in which it can be beneficial to go for the conversion rather than kick or punt. And each situation can have a drastically different magnitude of effect on a team's chances of winning. Also, why would we reward a coach if he goes for it on 4th and whatever when he's down by 5 with a minute left to play? Coaches always do that.

Here's my stab at the problem. With every 4th down situation in which it would usually make sense to go for it but a coach decides to kick, he forfeits some amount of win probability. We can total all the WP forfeited to measure the degree to which teams are erring on the side of conservatism.
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