Daily Short #30, Tuesday, July 25th, 2017: Good News, Bad News For Brennan Eagles and Dez Bryant
Alief Taylor WR Brennan Eagles committed to the Longhorns on Monday night in a decision that seemed like a long time in the making. He's the 14th commitment of the 2018 class, but he'll always be No.1 in my book. Texas could land any prospect in the nation and my hopes would not be any higher for that athlete despite star ranking or any other "superior" accolades.
In fact, let me get it on the record early and often that I believe Brennan Eagles is a transcendent and almost program-shifting offensive talent.
I started to recognize it the first time I saw Eagles live in a camp setting, at a time in the spring of 2016 before his recruitment really blew up. It was a very, very windy day in Dallas at the Rivals camp and footballs from the quarterbacks in attendance were getting blown off-course in the most major of ways. They were frustrating playing (and evaluating) conditions for all involved.
The one shining star in the mess was Brennan Eagles, who would track the wind-blown footballs and adjust to them in flight with such focus and such flexibility through the upper-half of his body. Already growing into a beastly 6-4 frame, he'd make use of his long arms to extend to the ball and secure it with big, banana-bushel mitts.
Eagles went on to have a junior season that produced simply outstanding HUDL highlights.
Everything you could ask for attribute-wise is shown in the 13 minutes of sickness embedded above. The ability to separate in such a variety of ways: with his feet and stems off the line of scrimmage, at the route's transition-point with a flash of acceleration, or at the catch-point with beastly physicality. The hands. The simple, pure hands that are big and strong and soft. The aforementioned flexibility through the upper-half of the body to track and adjust to the football and the length and wherewithal to go snatch it. The pure, unbridled speed (I'd peg his 40 as a high school senior somewhere in the mid 4.4s) coupled with effortless change-of-direction (his 3.99 short shuttle would have been the best of all WRs at the 2017 NFL Combine).
The good news? Brennan Eagles has it all.
He looks poised to become the next Dez Bryant.
Speaking of Dallas Cowboys star WR Dez Bryant, I recently finished a portion of my fantasy strength-of-schedule suite of tools that will be going up for subscribers at RosterWatch sometime this week. I used projected matchup data from our private analytics to gauge the fantasy schedules of the Top 50 fantasy WRs (via current average draft position) by, first, using our coverage grades for the units they'd be facing and, secondly, averaging that grade with the individual grade of the CB that I'd project them to see most in coverage within this group in every game of the season.
This second bit of data was collected manually, through various methods of research about historical shadowing and/or "star coverage" tendencies, alignments by sides of the field for both the CB and the WR, if certain DBs follow certain WRs into the slot, etc.
Dez Bryant certainly stood out in this exercise.
(opponent, projected CB matchup, RosterWatch CB coverage ranking)
vs. NYG: Janoris Jenkins (No.8 coverage CB in NFL)
@ DEN: Aqib Talib (No.3 coverage CB in NFL)
@ ARI: Patrick Peterson (No.1 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. LA: Trumaine Johnson (No.7 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. GB: Ladarius Gunter (Tied for No.64 coverage CB in NFL)
BYE WEEK
@ SF: Rashard Robinson (Tied for No.64 coverage CB in NFL)
@ WAS: Josh Norman (No.6 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. KC: Marcus Peters (No.11 coverage CB in NFL *although he does not historically shadow)
@ ATL: Desmond Trufant (No.13 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. PHI: Jalen Mills (No.51 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. LAC: Jason Verrett (No.16 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. WAS: Josh Norman (No.6 coverage CB in NFL)
@ NYG: Janoris Jenkins (No.8 coverage CB in NFL)
@ OAK: Sean Smith (No.24 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. SEA: Richard Sherman (No.2 coverage CB in NFL)
In case you didn't notice, that's only four games on the fantasy docket for Dez Bryant (should he manage to stay healthy through a season) in which he's not facing a star opponent in coverage. With no other receiving targets of Bryant's ilk to speak of in Dallas, Dez should draw plenty of attention from the top talents on the other side of the ball.
The Bad news? The top talents on the other side of the ball, given the Cowboys' 2017 schedule, are absolute murderers.
Alief Taylor WR Brennan Eagles committed to the Longhorns on Monday night in a decision that seemed like a long time in the making. He's the 14th commitment of the 2018 class, but he'll always be No.1 in my book. Texas could land any prospect in the nation and my hopes would not be any higher for that athlete despite star ranking or any other "superior" accolades.
In fact, let me get it on the record early and often that I believe Brennan Eagles is a transcendent and almost program-shifting offensive talent.
I started to recognize it the first time I saw Eagles live in a camp setting, at a time in the spring of 2016 before his recruitment really blew up. It was a very, very windy day in Dallas at the Rivals camp and footballs from the quarterbacks in attendance were getting blown off-course in the most major of ways. They were frustrating playing (and evaluating) conditions for all involved.
The one shining star in the mess was Brennan Eagles, who would track the wind-blown footballs and adjust to them in flight with such focus and such flexibility through the upper-half of his body. Already growing into a beastly 6-4 frame, he'd make use of his long arms to extend to the ball and secure it with big, banana-bushel mitts.
Eagles went on to have a junior season that produced simply outstanding HUDL highlights.
Everything you could ask for attribute-wise is shown in the 13 minutes of sickness embedded above. The ability to separate in such a variety of ways: with his feet and stems off the line of scrimmage, at the route's transition-point with a flash of acceleration, or at the catch-point with beastly physicality. The hands. The simple, pure hands that are big and strong and soft. The aforementioned flexibility through the upper-half of the body to track and adjust to the football and the length and wherewithal to go snatch it. The pure, unbridled speed (I'd peg his 40 as a high school senior somewhere in the mid 4.4s) coupled with effortless change-of-direction (his 3.99 short shuttle would have been the best of all WRs at the 2017 NFL Combine).
The good news? Brennan Eagles has it all.
He looks poised to become the next Dez Bryant.
. . .
Speaking of Dallas Cowboys star WR Dez Bryant, I recently finished a portion of my fantasy strength-of-schedule suite of tools that will be going up for subscribers at RosterWatch sometime this week. I used projected matchup data from our private analytics to gauge the fantasy schedules of the Top 50 fantasy WRs (via current average draft position) by, first, using our coverage grades for the units they'd be facing and, secondly, averaging that grade with the individual grade of the CB that I'd project them to see most in coverage within this group in every game of the season.
This second bit of data was collected manually, through various methods of research about historical shadowing and/or "star coverage" tendencies, alignments by sides of the field for both the CB and the WR, if certain DBs follow certain WRs into the slot, etc.
Dez Bryant certainly stood out in this exercise.
(opponent, projected CB matchup, RosterWatch CB coverage ranking)
vs. NYG: Janoris Jenkins (No.8 coverage CB in NFL)
@ DEN: Aqib Talib (No.3 coverage CB in NFL)
@ ARI: Patrick Peterson (No.1 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. LA: Trumaine Johnson (No.7 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. GB: Ladarius Gunter (Tied for No.64 coverage CB in NFL)
BYE WEEK
@ SF: Rashard Robinson (Tied for No.64 coverage CB in NFL)
@ WAS: Josh Norman (No.6 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. KC: Marcus Peters (No.11 coverage CB in NFL *although he does not historically shadow)
@ ATL: Desmond Trufant (No.13 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. PHI: Jalen Mills (No.51 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. LAC: Jason Verrett (No.16 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. WAS: Josh Norman (No.6 coverage CB in NFL)
@ NYG: Janoris Jenkins (No.8 coverage CB in NFL)
@ OAK: Sean Smith (No.24 coverage CB in NFL)
vs. SEA: Richard Sherman (No.2 coverage CB in NFL)
In case you didn't notice, that's only four games on the fantasy docket for Dez Bryant (should he manage to stay healthy through a season) in which he's not facing a star opponent in coverage. With no other receiving targets of Bryant's ilk to speak of in Dallas, Dez should draw plenty of attention from the top talents on the other side of the ball.
The Bad news? The top talents on the other side of the ball, given the Cowboys' 2017 schedule, are absolute murderers.
