The Senior Bowl experience form a media perspective is unlike anything you could imagine. A potluck of NFL personnel, from scouts to coaches to broadcasters Mobile offers a buffet of football gurus in their own right for you to choose from.
I grabbed a hot plate after the final practice had concluded and served up a dish of players I could grab like Texas’ Quandre Diggs, Washington’s Danny Shelton, and Miami’s Phillip Dorsett. However, even with big names like those serving as my meat and potatoes my craving of more NFL morsel wasn’t satisfied yet. I grabbed a fresh plate and combed the field where I saw Charles Davis from the NFL network and hoped he could cure my sweet tooth as a football analysis desert.
Davis did that and plenty more offering me up his full analysis from the week of practices on both the north and south squads. Charles was quick to point out his biggest winner of the week from the defensive side of the ball which was Utah defensive end Nate Orchard stating he was one of the more consistent players off the edge all week, and from his perspective improved his draft stock the most.
Davis pointed out in a deep class of pass rushers it was easy to point out Kentucky’s Za’Darius Smith and Washington’s Haulia Kikaha. Both players impressed Davis thoroughly all though for different reasons. For Smith it was his burst and quickness off the edge while also pointing out his momentum in which he carried from a great Shrine Game week into Mobile, while for Kikaha it was his hand usage in which he has mastered from his judo karate background.
Another position that impressed Davis was the cornerback group where he rattled off a number of players that displayed the talent to make a case for being picked early in the draft. Miami Ohio’s Quintin Rollins and TCU’s Kevin White jumped out at him and impressed day in and day out, but it was former Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall that brought the biggest smile to Davis’ face saying he had the most talent of them all and was a giant piece of clay in which a coach could mold.
Other winners from the week Davis was impressed with was Oregon State cornerback Stephen Nelson, Northwestern safety Ibraheim Campbell, and Nebraska running back Ameer Abdullah.
The real unsung hero of the week long even Davis was enthusiastic in pointing out though was Senior Bowl director Phil Savage, mentioning the passion the former general manager still has for evaluating talent and giving players every opportunity to showcase their skills as well as giving all 32 teams and more (arena football league, Canadian football league, etc) the chance to get an extremely rare in depth look at the next class of draftable rookies.
While picking Davis’ brain about the week of practice and his overall impressions was something that will always stick out for me, what was most impressive was Davis’ ability to reference two of my favorite movies new and old in “Back to the Future” and the new release “Boyhood”, but no spoiler alert will be given here, meaning you’ll have to pay the price of admission and “get yo popcorn ready” to watch the full interview.