By Kip Earlywine
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 235
40 time: 4.53
Positives:
- Good size
- Fast for his size
- Decent cut-making ability for his size
- Decent vision
- Good lateral explosion
- Plays tough
- Secures ball well
- Nose for the endzone
- Productive in 2009
- No character concerns
Negatives:
- No 2nd gear
- Not much burst
- A bit of a dancer behind the line
- No shiftiness, extremely vanilla running style
- Benefited from some great blocking
- Marginal blocker, inexperienced as a receiver
- Hybrid player (a guy who might not have a position in the NFL)
- Only uses arms to secure football, seemingly never for stuff like balance or stiff-arms
- In a general sense, not very skilled. One dimensional.
- Knee injury in 2007
My thoughts:
Toby Gerhart pretty much does one thing and one thing only, he takes hand offs and runs in a straight line as far as he can. He's probably too 1 dimensional to carry a big workload. In short yardage, Gerhart was good but not special. While he's capable of pushing DBs for a few extra yards, he's not particularly a wrecking ball at the line of scrimmage, so I don't think he'd be worth getting as only a short yardage guy. Some teams will look at him and not see a NFL RB. He's probably too small to be a fullback too. Quite honestly, I'm not sure how many teams could even use a Toby Gerhart.
My first impression with Gerhart is to be underwhelmed. I'm curious to see where he goes on draft day, but he looks like a classic 6th round pick to me. Seattle needs a power runner, so Gerhart is not totally out of the question, and Gerhart does have some zone friendly attributes (vision, cut ability and lateral athleticism), but I don't think they need to rush to draft him.
12 comments:
I have quick suggestion for the blog: Why not put a menu / list on the side somewhere on the main page to all of these? The other day I was trying to see if you had done a couple players, and I was just cycling back through the pages and stuff. It didnt seem very efficient. Up until the draft, I think easy access to these reports would be nice.
Anyways, Gerhart just does not excite me. He has but one skill. He seems to lack the total package of a lot of the other good backs out there. Will there a POTD for Ryan matthews, Ben Tate and Montario Hardesty? because then we would be talking...
What strikes me in the video is FB Owen Marecic. That guy blows holes in the line on almost every play. Just goes to show what a top fullback (like Mack Strong) brings to a team.
Kip can do you one on Freddie Barnes who wasnt invited to the combine? Would be very interested because he might be had very late and could be good for us.
I would like to see you do one of these on Legarette Blount. You might have to go back to the 2008 season to get a good idea of him.
Wes - all of Kip's POTD articles are now in the 'prospect archives' section on the right hand side bar. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the full list.
Hey, Kip, I have to disagree with you here a bit, and it's probably because I like Gerhart and my assessment of him is clouded with biases. I think he is a surprisingly quick decision maker with good vision and balance. Maybe it's just the highlight tapes, but he is a hard man to knock down.
However, I kind of compare him to Tim Tebow in that some team might fall in love with him, and if they should go in the first round or early 3rd round, I don't think it would be worth it to draft them.
Clanterman, don't sweat it if you disagree. For one thing, this isn't a real scouting report and I could always be wrong. Secondly, I like hearing different opinions and I'm not threatened by disagreement.
As far as what you said, I agree about the vision, decision-making, and balance. I kind of made note of that at the end when I said he is indeed a possibility for Seattle because he has some zone friendly attributes.
I'm very curious to see where Gerhart goes. It wouldn't shock me if he was a 3rd rounder, and it wouldn't shock me if he fell to the 6th or 7th. Some teams might love him, and many teams won't want him at all. I remember a similar sentiment surrounded Rob Sims when he entered the draft in 2006. Some scouts gave him a 1st round grade while others a 7th! That was probably because some saw him as a left tackle and others didn't, but at the end of the day, he was a 4th round pick.
If I had to guess, I think Gerhart will probably go in the 4th or 5th. But I personally wouldn't take him until a bit later than that because there are many power running options in this draft who have a wider skill set.
Regarding future POTD's, Hardesty's preview is coming very soon, maybe tonight. I definitely plan on covering as many RBs as I can since its pretty much a lock the Seahawks will be drafting one (or two!) in the mid-late rounds if not sooner. I'm going to be limited in my POTD's based on what I can find at youtube though. So some of the more obscure prospects might have a very limited preview that is more of a research paper than a mock scouting report. And I should say now- I suck ass at scouting DBs. So I'm not looking forward to previewing all those round 2-4 DB prospects (and there are a lot of them).
I agree about Stanford's fullback. He did a great job and their offensive line opened huge holes all season. Part of that is because the Pac-10 is not exactly known for dominant DL play, but still, I could have picked up 10 yards on some of those holes Gerhart ran through. Its one of the reasons I'm a big supporter of the Seahawks picking up Stanford's left tackle, Chris Marinelli, in the 6th or 7th round.
Great writeup Kearly. It's funny how some guys just don't translate well to the pros.
Request: Brandon Ghee, CB, Wake Forest.
I noticed him last year watching all the footage I could find of Curry. He's big, fast, tough and physical at the line (how I noticed him last year).
If you can get to him, I could see him being someone that we'd be interested in.
With due respect, I would disagree with some of the negatives in your assessment.
As reported by most of the scouts and press that have seen him play, Gerhart's best attribute is probably his patience and then decisiveness regarding choosing a hole to run through -- he is not criticized for being a dancer. He is at full speed within 2-3 steps, and his combine speed places him squarely in the TB group. He has an excellent stiff arm -- if you can, find some footage of the Wake Forest game in 2009 where he just brutalized defenders.
Your highlight clip has film from only 2 games, but even those show his balance (0:30) and toughness (signature play at 3:30). He was incredibly productive, even in the Sun Bowl where Oklahoma stacked 8 and 9 players in the box on every play.
I do agree with one of the respondents that Owen Marecic is special fullback.
well im not to sure i agree with u at all on this. the video says a lot and i see spin movies great cut backs, and u said he never uses his arms for anything but ball security but on the very first TD in the video he uses his arm to keep from falling and make it into the endzone.
What do you think about Gerhart now that Minnesota, a decidedly better drafting team than the Seahawks, and better than most of the league for that matter, traded up 11 spots to take Gerhart in the 2nd. You thought he'd go in the 6th. Thoughts?
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