The third and final North practice is in the books and our Pigskin Paul will be back later today with his detailed report from the ground in Mobile. There were a couple of quick observations, though, from today’s workout. On the one hand, it is hard to see that any of the North QBs was able to jump up and really establish themselves as a legit top ten type guy for this April. Just a lot of balls on the ground today, although a lot of that may have been due to miscommunication between the QBs and receivers. In the end, the buzz around Mobile is that of the top two rated QBs coming into Senior Bowl, Missouri’s Drew Lock probably had the more impressive week than Duke’s Daniel Jones. Lock, in particular, showed a major league arm all week, although his accuracy was inconsistent, whereas there appears to be growing concern with Jones’ overall arm strength.
While the QBs appeared to be kind of muddling through today, the North offensive line had an excellent afternoon with strong performances by a number of guys starting with OTs Dalton Risner of K-State, Northern Illinois’ Max Scharping and Kaleb McGary of Washington, each of whom spent most of the day stoning the DEs in front of them, while Risner in particular showed nice agility in space. Less heralded USC OT Chuma Edoga also continued to open eyes around the league showing surprising length and agility, although he did give up a couple of pressures when he jumped out at people rather than waiting for the play too develop. It was also a real nice day for OGs Chris Lindstrom of Boston College and Wisconsin’s Beau Benzschawel; same for Cs Erik McCoy of Texas A&M and NC State’s Garrett Bradbury. In fact, the only North offensive lineman to struggle a little bit was Wisconsin’s Michael Dieter who got pushed around a little bit and seemed a tad slow off the snap.
On the other hand, it was a somewhat disappointing day for BC DE Zach Allen, who came into the week as one of the top 2-3 rated prospects in Mobile, but struggled to get much separation when rushing the passer, although he did appear to do a better job holding up against the run. Texas DE Charles Omenihu also had a disappointing day; he’s a long, tall edge rusher, but just didn’t appear to have that little bit of an extra gear to win the edge. It also appeared at times that DE John Cominsky of DII Charleston, who had generated a little buzz earlier in the week, was over-matched at times today. The one North DE who was consistently disruptive was TCU’s Ben Banogu, who also showed some range in coverage.
