Senior Bowl Report: Tuesday morning … Don’t want t read to much into one practice, but several players jumped out at this morning’s Senior Bowl session in Mobile. Normally, the defensive linemen have an edge in the one-on-one OL-DL drill, but today one had to give the edge to the big uglies on the offensive front. And the ugliest may have FCS All-American G/T Grey Zabel from North Dakota State who had an outstanding practice. He was fluid, showed excellent balance, hand placement and arm extension as he worked at both OG and OT and even took a couple of snaps at C, In fact, the only blotch on Zabel’s day was when he went offside in the team drills. Other offensive linemen who stood out included NC State G/T andrew Belton, Miami OT Jalen Rivers (who actually played mostly inside today), Caleb Rogers of Texas Tech, Josh Conerly of Oregon and USC C Jonah Monheim. Minnesota’s Aireontae Ersery was solid in the 1-on-1s, but did get beat to the inside by Jah Joyner in the team drills. On the other hand, none of the defensive rushers really dominated in the one-on-one drills, although DTs Josh Farmer of Florida State and Oregon’s Jamaree Caldwell both got plenty of consistent penetration; Farmer using pure strength and Caldwell quickness. Edge rushers Donovan Ezeiruaku, Mike Green of Marshall and Olu Oladego also flashed some real quickness, but generally had to take the long way around to get to the spot.
Arguably, the star of the day – and we advise not reading a whole lot into the any day of practice at an all-star game – was Miami TE Elijah Arroyo, who was just so smooth and explosive getting upfield. Oregon’s Terrence Ferguson also caught a number of balls, although he was operating as more an underneath receiver. His Ducks’ teammate Tez Johnson, the diminutive 156-pound WR, was also basically just too quick for the National team corners, while underrated Virginia Tech WR Jaylin Lane may have opened some eyes. Overall, though, it was also somewhat of a tough day for the DBs as several including Darien Porter of Iowa State, Florida State’s Azareye’h Thomas, Nebraska’s Tommi Hill and Sebastian Castro of Iowa struggled in man coverage. At the same time, though, several others were able to hang tough including Quincy Riley of Louisville, Dorian Strong of Virginia Tech, and maybe somewhat surprisingly, Bihal Kone of Western Michigan. Meanwhile, at least in the team drills arguably the one defender that kind of jumped off the screen was Oregon LB Jeff Bassa, who busted up several plays.
