Ryan Shazier transcends position

[Spike]

20 pages of hairpulling about a 3rd rd pick and nothing bout our #1?

time to break the trend

Like I said before...Steelers passed on Darqueze Dennard, and the Bengals took him, Steelers passed on CJ Mosley, and the Ravens took him

that's how this draft will be remembered


PITTSBURGH -- Of the many things to like about the Pittsburgh Steelers picking Ryan Shazier in the first round of the NFL draft, here is another one: to peg him as just an inside linebacker is short-sighted.

"Ultimately you're in sub-packages so much that you really need to have guys that can match up and that's what Shazier brings, and he brings pass-rushing ability," ESPN analyst Todd McShay said during a post-draft conference call. "I think they get faster and more athletic with that pick alone."

So do the Steelers.

"When we took Ryan we talked about a defensive playmaker over anything else," Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. "He fit the bill in that regard."

The speedy Shazier is also the kind of player defenses need to counter offenses that spread them out and increasingly force them out of their base set.

"What's happening today is there are multiple receiver personnel groupings, like 60 to 65 percent of the time," Steelers linebackers coach Keith Butler said. "(Shazier) fits the part of the game that is starting to put faster people on the field."

Shazier ran a sub-4.4 seconds in the 40-yard dash at Ohio State's pro day, and he is so fast that Steelers defensive backs coach Carnell Lake asked Ohio State cornerback Bradley Roby during a pre-draft visit if Shazier could play safety.

And he wasn't joking.

"There is no reason why he couldn't play safety," said Lake, the former Steelers standout who played safety and cornerback during his 13-year NFL career. "This guy is big and fast and aggressive. If for some reason Keith Butler doesn't like him, I'll take him."

That's not going to happen.

But Shazier is going to line up at different spots because of his speed, versatility and ability to play in space.

"He has the athleticism to drop back into coverage and match up," Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said. "He has speed. He's going to get on people quicker than they know because he's very fast."

Shazier is not even the fastest player in the Steelers' draft class -- third-round pick Dri Archer takes that honor -- which shows how much of a premium Pittsburgh put on adding speed through the draft.

"I think you covet speed, but it's football not a track meet," Tomlin said. "If you get a capable football player who happens to be fast, it's an asset. Speed players that we were able to acquire in this draft fit that bill: football players first who happen to be extremely fast."

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/127571/ryan-shazier-transcends-position

 

[t-man]

Looks like our coaches are just as fed up with seeing passes over the middle with linebackers a step behind the defender all game long as well. Hopefully this added speed fixes that glaring issue.

Joe

 

[keslerclan]

Lake should know, he was also a LB in college.

 

[antdrewjosh]

Why Ryan Shazier in the first round? Pittsburgh was the fifth team in the past five seasons to allow at least 5.0 yards before contact per rush outside the tackles.

 

[Wingman]

I did not see much about our guy prior to the draft. I saw some high light video of Mosley and based on that was glad we did not take him. I would have liked Dennard better than Mosely but he was not my real want to have with the first round pick. I was hoping for a really good offensive tackle to fall to us and was a bit disappointed we did not take Martin who was available and taken in the next pick. After looking at the stuff on our first rounder I can see now why they did what they did and it makes sense to me at this time. Unlike last years pick of Jones, his selection still does not seem like the way to have gone based on talent and what we have seen from him so far. Eifert would have been better for us than him.

 

[Hollywood Bags]

Man, Shazier sounds almost God-like. Truly a miracle that he fell to us.

 

[Roy92040]

I often thought that was the mistake that Seattle had made with the Boz. As quick and strong as he was I thought he should of been playing at safety, just saying.

 

[Omar10213245]

Get over your boner for CJ Mosley, he's really not all that

 

[SteelBuckeye]

Why Ryan Shazier in the first round? Pittsburgh was the fifth team in the past five seasons to allow at least 5.0 yards before contact per rush outside the tackles.

The second part of your statement answers your question. Shazier's ability to move laterally quickly should help in this regard also.
The thing I don't get is that prior to this draft, we were almost as thin at both ILB and OLB as we were at CB. So, what's the problem with addressing ILB with the first round pick when it's obvious from all that they have said that they had Shazier rated higher than "Mr. Grab and Clutch" Dennard? They preferred Gilbert to Shazier. Gilbert wasn't there. They preferred Beckham to Shazier. Beckham wasn't there. They preferred Shazier to Dennard. Shazier was there.

 

[antdrewjosh]

Rhetorical question.

 

[SteelBuckeye]

Rhetorical question.

My bad, didn't read it in context.

 

[21STEELERS21]

Which would be the bigger upgrade? Shazier over Williams or Dennard over Allen

 

[Litos]

Which would be the bigger upgrade? Shazier over Williams or Dennard over Allen

That's almost a rhetorical question too, no doubt shazier is the better upgrade

 

[jdell]

Eifert sucks! He wouldve been a wasted pick! and the Steelers would be down 1 more olb

 

[Vader]

Don't you have to master one position before you can "transcend" the position?

 

[Spike]

Don't you have to master one position before you can "transcend" the position?

We're just hopin Mr Clean can be the "Troy" at LB on our defense. Looking for playmakers.

Colbert knows if he blows another draft he's gone if he Stellers miss the playoffs 3 years in a row.



yea verily

 

[Spike]

I listen to what Colbert says


http://blog.triblive.com/steel-mill...raft-1-on-1-with-kevin-colbert/#axzz31W4hAL7E


Q: Have you been able to finally get some rest after a grueling road leading up to the draft?

A: “I have no problem with that. You always have to take care of yourself and sleeping is usually not an issue for me. It was a long process, but it was an enjoyable one. Once you get into it and start moving through it, you keep doing it until you get the job done. That phase of the job is done and now it’s time to find out what we can and cannot do with these guys.”


Q: If you had to estimate, how many man hours do you and your staff put in over this entire draft process?

A: “I really don’t think you can. This process actually started last year at our Combine meetings in May and it continued through – the summers are usually slow but it picks up in training camp. It is pretty much a 6-7 days a week job from August through the end of April. You are ready to go and start it all over again. It would be hard to total the hours. Our scouts do a great job and they love doing it. They are passionate about it and, of course, when we plug the coaches into it, they are passionate. I don’t think anybody looks at it as a job more as a labor of love, I guess.”


Q: You got the fastest linebacker in the draft, the fastest player in the draft and one of the fastest wide receivers in the draft. Is it safe to assume that you wanted to improve your team speed?

A: “As long as they can play. Where we picked those guys, we felt that they can not only run fast, but they are good players. Ryan Shazier was a highly productive linebacker on a really good team. Dri Archer‘s speed is unique, but that is only part of his ability. He was also highly productive, not only as a runner, but as a kick returner and potentially a punt returner. Martavis (Bryant) not only runs fast but he had a ton of plays down the field with a big play offense that featured the best receiver in the draft in Sammy Watkins.”


Q: All of us experts had you picking a cornerback or a receiver in the first round. Well, we were wrong. I have always been curious if you – even if it is for curiosity sake only – take a look at some of the mock drafts, even if it is only by some of the top guys who do it, just to get a feel?

A: “You do notice them and you can’t help but to notice the mock drafts because they are on every prominent website that you go to for news. You basically see in any given draft people talking about usually 20-25 guys and there is a lot of air time for that group of players. If you see a name that’s outside of that group – you evaluate them and it’s not like you don’t know about them. But when you see somebody mentioned, those people are getting that information somewhere so maybe there is something to lead you to believe, even if you don’t like him, that somebody else does. That may or may not influence whether you have him available to you when you pick. With this draft as unique as it was with the talent level so deep to you didn’t see people reaching from outside from even our own evaluations. It’s unusual. Teams have their board the way they like it but this draft, I think, had a lot of the same ratings on them because there were so many to choose.”



Q: One of the assistants on Saturday during the media scrum said “there were a lot of guys you liked but all those guys got drafted.” I assume you won’t tell me who specifically, but I would have to assume one was cornerback. Did what maybe Cleveland did and Chicago did right before you force you to switch up?

A: “As I said even when we did our press conference last Monday, I said that there were 19 guys in this draft that we would be extremely happy to get and Ryan (Shazier) was in that group. There were guys who went ahead of Ryan who were really good players. They all aren’t at 19. Somebody has to be at 1 and somebody has to be at 19. When you pick a guy like Shazier, he was a part of that group. We were extremely excited that he was there but there were other players that we would’ve entertained and maybe we didn’t have an opportunity to pick them. That doesn’t diminish our excitement for Shazier.”


Q: In today’s NFL, is there a such thing as a Levon Kirkland-type inside linebacker of 290 pounds guy anymore or because of the rule changes of not allowing to hit as much, is it going toward the speedy 230-pound inside guys like Shazier?

A: “The game has changed. The high school game crept into the colleges which crept into the NFL because of the players that are groomed at each level. You have to adjust to it. Football over the last five years in the NFL has become the lateral type game. You almost saw it back in the early 2000s when New England started spreading people out and you saw some different things and you thought that this could be the wave of the future. It certainly has stuck. You have to have people that can make plays laterally not to say that people aren’t going to try to run down your throat if they get mismatches. That lateral speed is really important and that’s why Shazier was really exciting for us to add because he can make those plays laterally. He can get down the field in coverage to some spots where some others couldn’t because of his speed. He can certainly add an inside pass rush with his burst and his ability to find some cracks inside. That’s why we viewed him as a first-round player.”

 

[Spike]

for those thousands of you that can't read more than 140 characters...


a telling statement:

Colbert: "I said that there were 19 guys in this draft that we would be extremely happy to get and Ryan (Shazier) was in that group.'


yeah, waffle - it's all on you, bud

 

[Wingman]

He just chose to give a vague answer which was more pleasant than telling the idiot that we are not going down the road of what ifs. Tomlin gave about the same answer later in the interviews. One thing they did say is there are a lot of projects in this draft. It looks like the only two real solid players are one and two. After that we have speedy Gonzales who I hope beats the odds, we have a wide out with some issues that were discussed, we have a corner that Lake thinks he can make something out of, we have a huge linemen that will need lots of work, a defensive end to linebacker project that works about 1/3 of the time, an offensive lineman that is our offensive line project, and a tight end that fell likely because of some injury issues I thought. In reality I do not see any of these folks going anywhere for a while, even if we have 8-8 or worse the next two seasons most of this staff will be here while the team gets rebuilt, no matter who its on bud.

 

[insaniti]

Who is the DE we are converting to LB? We only drafted 2 LB, Shazier and Zumwalt, both played ILB and OLB in college.

 

[Hollywood Bags]

http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_/id/79063/nfl-nation-4-downs-afc-north-2

Hensley: Fiction. It was only a year ago when Jarvis Jones arrived with all of the hype. He ended up getting benched. This isn't unusual. Over the past nine years, only one Steelers rookie has started a full season -- center Maurkice Pouncey. So, this isn't a knock on Shazier. He has a lot of speed and a lot of potential. He should be a Pro Bowl player down the road. It just takes time to learn the nuances of a Dick LeBeau defense. History says Shazier won't make an immediate impact. The pick here for best rookie in the division is Ravens inside linebacker C.J. Mosley.

McManamon: Fiction. Ah, that Steelers optimism. There's nothing not to like about Shazier, or the Steelers, who draft well and play hard. But to automatically assume Shazier is the best defensive rookie in the AFC North ignores the fact that the other division teams took immediate defensive starters: Cleveland with cornerback Justin Gilbert, Cincinnati with cornerback Darqueze Denard and Baltimore with linebacker C.J. Mosely. All are expected to be immediate starters. All are extremely good players. What in the world makes it more likely that Shazier will be the best rookie other than he wears black and gold?

 

[Wingman]

Who is the DE we are converting to LB? We only drafted 2 LB, Shazier and Zumwalt, both played ILB and OLB in college.

I got zumwalt mixed up with one of our undrafteds, sorry about that chief. Or listed him the undrafted guy and counted him as part of our "draft" class

 

[insaniti]

It's all good, just had me scratching my head a bit

 

[antdrewjosh]

http://www.Invalid Link - Check SN Home Page/2014/05/ryan-shazier-stood-rookie-minicamp/

 

[antdrewjosh]

How Ryan Shazier does a bit of everything
http://www.thescore.com/news/507254