It is pretty surprising. He’s also not on many “top” lists. The DOD, Dane nor Fran mentioned him in their preview. I think I might have heard Galko say his name once before the event.
I will say if there was one strength and conditioning program you would have faith in being the most like an NFL’s, it would be Penn State. They’re pretty renowned for being ahead of the game.
Hey, one of my guys. Pretty much solely due to me looking for inside juice and this class being so scant, but his game against LSU was awesome.
But he was only there for two years and had an undisclosed nagging injury for much of one of the off seasons. He’s supposed to be a hard worker. My guess it’s a metabolism issue like it was for someone like Joe Thomas. When he lost all that weight after retirement he was like “sure I’m doing some cardio but I’m mainly just not eating the 7-8k calories to keep my weight.” The amount of time and attention it takes for some of the basketball build guys to get from 310 to 325 is no joke.
Speaking of basketball build guys, saw a nice clip of him at the Sr. Bowl with one of the Twitter “scouts” labeling him as a late day 3 type. If Rucci and Mahlman are both truly late day 3 guys than go get a Havenstein type and grab one of them. I suspect that’s low, specifically on Mahlman. We’ll see on Rucci. Just feels like bis stock is on the march.
Landon Robinson is kind of interesting in that same vein. Though he feels very Wingo like.
Nickel pool seems to be filling out which was inevitable. Ceyair and Avery Smith seem to be two of the better performers in Dallas.
Stukes is getting a ton of love as well. Hell I heard a recent mock where he went in the 1st!
Thomas never showed any strength problems as a collegian of course, though he was only at one school and had a consistent run of play. I certainly won’t write Rucci off or anything, and as a day 3 guy he’s very intriguing. Of course as you say he might be a lot more than that. We’ll see. I plan to watch him after the Senior Bowl.
I was just about to come back and add him as another. Though he seems to have a bit more positional flexibility. I think Wright does too but he’s small on the outside.
Winsnewski in the slot is interesting too. He fits us well given our safety situation bc I think he can play all over. In the upside scenario where the pick hits and both safeties come back strong he could still be starting. Though he’s more that Kilgore approach to slot and I alway figured we leaned into the coverage side to follow up Amik.
I’m starting to wonder if Rivers is last year’s Parrish in terms of getting lost in the shuffle a bit. I doubt re runs as well either. Rivers in the 4th would be a coup IMO and not some wildly impossible outcome.
To be clear I wasn’t comparing Rucci to Thomas as a player. Just that the tight end convert/basketball build OTs often have different protocols to keep their playing weight above thresholds.
Oh I would never think that. I only brought it up because Thomas managed to pull it off while Rucci hasn’t. But like you said injuries might have had something to do with that.
I think Rivers’s stock will rebound, we’re just in the heart of ‘players from elite teams everyone watched plus the guys currently at all-star game’ season.
There are more and more slot options it seems, depending on how we want to approach it. Like you said, Wisniewski is a very different approach than Ceyair. I tend to agree that we’ll lean latter, which everyone wanting some version of Emmanwori won’t like, but it is what it is.
But Emannwori wouldn’t work the same as slot 1. They basically play two slots which allows him to focus on the WILL leaning stuff. McDonald seems have to have viewed him in the way I did. Even broken clocks …
Canady might be an interesting Day late 3 option.
I have nightmares thinking about him trying to pull.
Pretty sure he meant Kaleb Proctor. Not sure how they would have pulled Kadyn aside at the Shrine Bowl. Is he there watching teammates?
Oh shit I misread that as Kaleb lol
So did I initially. And I just assumed Kadyn wasn’t there.
But …
He’s in Frisco bc he is training with Duke.
Well, shit. Not nearly as exciting.
I fully expect him to be our type though, even though imo he’s just Manu with a better pedigree.
Sometimes I do wonder how high he’d be going in this draft if he had followed through with the Iowa transfer. I’m far more on the technical issues being the issue. And weight to an extent.
It would be a risky pick but his upside is amongst the highest in the class. Can he get to and sustain a 340lb play weight?
What it boils down to for me is simple: I just don’t think he has the lateral juice to hold up outside, no matter the weight. That’s why for me he’s a guard. I feel pretty similarly about Manu, but we’ll see.
I also thought he actually GAINED weight throughout the season, which is an alarming sign.
