Zach Latimer and the West team linebackers are having fun at the East-West Shrine Game practices in Houston, and their working with all-time great Mike Singletary. Even Dallas Sartz, who was coached by Ken Norton Jr. at Southern Cal, is excited to spend a few days learning from the hall of famer.[details]
The good: Perhaps the most underrated player in the entire draft, he followed a fine collegiate career with a strong NFL combine showing that elevated his stock further. He has fine athleticism and produced well in his two seasons as a starter. He's an active linebacker who can make plays all over the field and has adequate size at 6-feet-2, 240-pounds. He has speed and quickness and moves fluidly to the outside to chase from sideline to sideline and he runs well with right ends and running backs in pass coverage. He has a natural feel for reading and recognizing routes when dropping into a zone and the coverage skills to blanket receivers in man situations. His speed allows him to succeed beyond short zones. He was productive against the run and most effective on the weak side which allowed him to run to the football and finish plays. He's most effective moving laterally and giving chase from behind.
The bad: When on the strong side he often was hooked and sealed off by the tight end and pushed out of the play. He needs to improve his tackling at the line of scrimmage and make quicker reads and hone his ability to attack the play sooner and beat blocking angles. He uses his athletic ability to slip blocks, but can get tied up in traffic and fail to be effective in plays run directly at him. He needs work on his reads to improve his initial reaction to the snap and has only margin strength and size to compee at the point of attack and may never be able to line up at the strong side.
Outlook: Best suited for the weak side a 4-3 defense, he looks like he could be a solid regular in time and a very good special teams player as a rookie. He definitely has upside potential. He ran a 4.49 40-yard dash at the combine and bench pressed 24 reps. He's a marginal top 150 prospect who would be a fine selection early on the second day.
This is special to Rivals.com from Frank Coyle. Coyle has written about the NFL Draft in his newsletter for more than...[Complete Bio]
var CurrentYear = 2013;
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