By Jeff Risdon I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to meet with a handful of NFL scouts following some recent pro days. Here are some of the choice observations, quotes, and opinions. 1. I asked two different scouts who were in attendance for Arkansas’ pro day about their impressions of Ryan Mallett. Both agreed Mallett has the best arm in this class. Both also agreed that there are significant issues. To quote one, a veteran NFC South talent evaluator: “Everyone wants to talk about this and that with the drugs and the cockiness and the immaturity. But before I even get to that stuff when breaking him down, I don’t like the way he handles pressure on the field, period. If he can’t step forward clean, he’s a mess. And he’s so damn big and slow, he needs a lot of space to get the ball off like that. We’ve watched every throw he’s made several times and it’s tried and true that if he cannot get a full step into his throw, bad things happen. …tell me where he can play where he’s going to get that kind of time he needs. People give Peyton (Manning) shit because he can’t move, but he can slide and throw, you know, he can change it up if he has to. Mallett, no, just can’t do that.” From later in the conversation: “I know (our GM) has spent a lot of homework on him. Talked to Lloyd Carr (Mallett’s coach at Michigan), talked to all kinds of people at Arkansas, talked to guys he’s played with before. The basic consensus is that he’s a big kid but a good kid. You know, put him in the right environment and he’ll be fine. (The GM) compared him to Michael Vick that way, you know, give him a support system and hold his hand and you’ve got yourself a great quarterback. …but it will always be an effort to keep him pointed in the right direction. Some teams are better suited for that than others.” The scouts diverged on where they thought he would be drafted. The one responsible for the above quote thinks he will fall to the middle of the 2nd round, but the other scout pretty adamantly believes Mallett will not fall past Minnesota at #12. My own impression is that he’ll wind up being treated like Brady Quinn, a guy that falls into the second half of the first round but gets rescued by a team trading up. 2. More Razorbacks: Tight end D.J. Williams should definitely be seen as a draft board riser. Aside from how he’s handled interviews and performed in workouts, teams are increasingly taking a shine to his proven ability to stretch the seam. One scout compared him to Dallas Clark, another said he’s “a faster Chris Cooley”. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s the first tight end off the board. Offensive lineman Ray Dominguez is another guy bubbling up. He has built off his strong NFLPA Game week by being jovial and self-aware in interviews. As one scout told me, “he knows what he needs to work on and has no problem starting out as a backup guard/tackle guy”. He has probably gone from a 7th rounder to a 5th rounder. If his feet weren’t “cast in concrete”, he’d go even higher. His linemate DeMarcus Love is going in the other direction. The latest game film of Love consists of Cameron Heyward eviscerating him in the Sugar Bowl, plus a subpar Senior Bowl week where many felt he was the weakest lineman in attendance. His workouts have not wowed anyone enough to quench that poor taste. Back in October I projected him as a borderline 1st/2nd rounder, but he’ll be lucky to sniff the 4th at this point. 3. One of the stars of the Combine was Abilene Christian wideout Edmund Gates, but one scout offered this sobering assessment of the speedster: “Tell me how a kid gets thrown out of a JUCO in his hometown. You can fail every class and they keep you around for the money. This kid got booted from a JUCO. You damn well better believe that’s a flag.” Two things to go with that: -- He was at Tyler JUCO as a basketball player, not a football player. His football experience is scant. -- He turns 25 in June, though to be fair he’s got very fresh legs and little injury history. Keep all that in mind before going all gooey over Gates and thinking he’s a second round lock. He very well might go that high, but it’s more likely he comes off in the 90-120 overall range. 4. I asked one draft-day decision-maker whether he preferred Julio Jones or A.J. Green as his top wide receiver. He was non-committal, but offered this tidbit: “A.J. Green did exactly what I expected (in Indy at the Combine). But I didn’t ever see any reason to think Julio Jones could break 4.4.” Read that as: I don’t care what the stopwatch says; Jones doesn’t play that fast on the field. And I agree with that assessment. But I would also add that they are very different styles of receiver, so draft board statuses of who is better are likely to vary. 5. I had a very long exchange regarding Nick Fairley with a scout that knows him well. He likened Fairley’s personality to Warren Sapp’s--good-naturedly obnoxious and gregarious, confident but hungry, highly motivated to prove doubters wrong, eager to improve his faults. He told me Fairley won’t work with every kind of coach. More specifically, the team that drafts him had better have a coach that played in the NFL or commands absolute respect from players on the Xs and Os. I probed whether that means he needs a defensive-minded head coach, and he said that wouldn’t matter as long as the defensive coordinator was a strong presence. He specifically mentioned the Ryan family (Rex from the Jets or Rob with the Cowboys) as perfect fits even though neither played in the league. 6. After hearing Mike Mayock and several other wonks talk about Texas CB Aaron Williams fitting better at safety in the NFL, I brought that subject up with a scout that has professionally seen every Texas game since before the Mack Brown era began. He said he doesn’t believe Williams has the coverage mentality or the ability to quickly process information of the whole field well enough to make the switch. He believes Williams can make a solid zone corner and would be better served staying closer to the line. I hold his opinion highly, but I look at Williams and see a lot of Amari Speivey, last year’s 3rd rounder for the Lions that they quickly moved to safety with mixed results. 7. One of the questions I ask everyone is, “Give me somebody that you think is undervalued.” Three different people gave me the same guy with no prompting: Danny Watkins, the guard/tackle from Baylor. I find that interesting because most everyone pegs Watkins as a late first-rounder. One scout told me that although their final board is far from set, right now Watkins is their top offensive lineman. Another told me that Watkins “could walk in tomorrow and be the best right tackle in our division”. 8. Von Miller gets all the attention at Texas A&M, but one scout was intrigued by quarterback Jarrod Johnson. He said Aggies Coach Mike Sherman, a former Packers head coach, spoke very highly of Johnson and believes a lot of Johnson’s issues in 2010 were injury-related (Johnson was benched for Ryan Tannehill, who was significantly better). The scout told me Johnson has shortened his throwing motion a bit and has learned how to put touch on shorter throws. He should still be viewed as a developmental project, but it sounds like he is indeed developing. He’s similar physically to Cam Newton (6’5.5”, 254 pounds) and throws one of the prettiest deep balls you’ll ever see. 9. One guy trending in the wrong direction is Clemson DE Da’Quan Bowers. Widely considered a candidate to go as high as #1 overall heading into the Combine, concerns about his knee and why he only had one year with more than three sacks are apparently dogging his status. There are growing rumors Bowers needs microfracture surgery, and his inability to work out at Clemson’s pro day only fuel the fire that the knee is in much worse shape than the Bowers camp is letting on. One scout told me this: “Don’t forget he missed some time with a knee before last year. Two years, two knees, that’s a problem. You know, I think he’s a great pass rusher and a real nice kid but he doesn’t do us any good if he’s on IR.” I’ve seen and heard similar concerns elsewhere. I still think Bowers has too much to offer to fall out of the first half of the first round, but it sure sounds like the top 5 is probably not going to happen if this iffy knee situation doesn’t get positively resolved before the draft. 10. Two smaller-school names to watch for on draft weekend that are steadily rising up draft boards are Virgil Green and Shiloh Keo. Green is a lithe tight end from Nevada who put on quite an athletic display in Indy, most notably as 42.5” vertical jump and a 4.54 40 time. Those are very impressive numbers for a 250+ pound guy, and teams are apparently taking notice. One thing in his favor: the concept of the every-down, do-it-all tight end is quickly becoming as antiquated as my Playstation 2 currently gathering dust somewhere in my attic. One scout told me Green “has a lot of Ed Dickson to him”, and Dickson had a nice rookie season in Baltimore despite being allergic to blocking. My impression is that Green isn’t as fluid or natural catching the ball as Dickson, but definitely shows enough promise to merit 4th-5th round status. Keo is a thumping safety from Idaho that continues to build off his strong buzz from the East-West Shrine Game. He’s drawn comparisons to Bob Sanders and Louis Delmas for his style of play, though he’s not as fast or rangy as either guy. Sanders is actually a decent comparison because Keo is compactly built but uses his lack of stature (he’s 5’11”) to his advantage. As one scout told me: “He’s great at hiding behind the linebackers and exploding on runners. Blockers can’t find him. I thought he was quicker on the field than he looked in Indy. That’s not his venue. He’s not an athlete, he’s a football player.” I have a hard time seeing a 5’11” safety that can’t break 4.7 in the 40 getting drafted before the 6th round, but keep an eye on Keo. [email protected]