A running back prospect was described as a bigger LeSean McCoy, how Shaq Lawson set his Combine goals and Jonathan Williams still respected at Arkansas.
Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
Here’s the Bills news of note for March 4.
1 – A bigger LeSean McCoy?
The running backs were one of the first two position groups to work out at the NFL Combine and while a lot of eyes were on LSU’s Leonard Fournette, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey, there was a fourth back who may have made himself a lot of money after his workout Friday.
Tennessee’s Alvin Kamara at 5-10 and 215 pounds ran a 4.53 40 time, a 39 ½-inch vertical and a 10-foot 11-inch broad jump. After excelling in the positional drills and caught the ball well NFL Network draft analyst compared Kamara to the feature back for the Buffalo Bills.
“As far as a guy laterally that can make you miss and has an unbelievable amount of quickness and explosion, Alvin Kamara is special,” said Mayock. “He looks like a bigger LeSean McCoy.”
Kamara, who originally committed to Alabama, but was gone a year later after being suspended for what were termed “behavioral reasons for the Sugar Bowl. He resurfaced at Tennessee after a year at a community college and scored almost once every 10 times he carried the ball (23 TDs, 284 carries).
While there’s no question that Kamara is a back that can make people miss, a knock on his game is he doesn’t have natural vision, a talent that McCoy has in spades. As a result Kamara takes on a lot more contact than McCoy.
And for the record McCoy has an inch on Kamara as he stands 5-11. McCoy also weighed in at 207 pounds this past season, so Kamara isn’t really bigger than McCoy either.
Kamara is forecast as a second-round pick. If he is taken in round two that is something he’ll have in common with McCoy, who was a second-round pick of the Eagles in 2009.
2 – How Lawson set his Combine workout goals
When NFL prospects get to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis they have workout goals in mind. A lot of the time they’re based on what highly drafted players at their position did the year before. For Bills eventual first-round pick Shaq Lawson, the plan was no different.
“I wanted to run in the low 4.7s and jump 10 feet in the broad jump,” said Lawson in an appearance on the John Murphy Show. “I looked at the numbers of Dante Fowler and Vic (Beasley’s) numbers from the year before and what they did at the combine.”
In the 2015 NFL draft, Fowler went third overall and Lawson’s former Clemson teammate Beasley went eighth overall after both turned in strong workout numbers. Fowler ran a blistering 4.6 40-time, a 32 ½-inch vertical, a nine-foot, four-inch broad jump, a 7.4 second three cone drill and a 4.32 second 20-yard shuttle.
Beasley was even more explosive with a 4.53 40-time, a 41-inch vertical, a 10-foot, 10-inch broad jump a 6.91 three cone drill and a 4.15 20-yard shuttle.
“Knowing the scouts are always looking for explosive guys I tried to match my numbers with those guys,” said Lawson.
Despite having 20 more pounds on his frame than Beasley, Lawson’s numbers came close. He ran a 4.7, had a 33-inch vertical, a 10-foot broad jump and a 7.16 three cone drill and a 4.21 20-yard short shuttle.
3 – Respect still resonates for Jonathan Williams
Jonathan Williams last season of on the field production at Arkansas is almost three years on the rearview mirror, but some of his former teammates in the 2017 NFL draft class still talk about ‘J-Will’ with great reverence.
One of them was Razorbacks OT Dan Skipper.
“J-Will is a heck of a back. He just puts his head down and runs and that’s something as a lineman that you appreciate,” Skipper said. “We had a great one-two combo with J-Will and Alex (Collins). Having two guys like that who can come in and run the ball was great. J-Will was a great leader. A great guy to look up to and someone who meant a lot to me as a younger guy and meant a lot to our program.”
Williams rushed for almost 1,200 yards in just 13 games and had 12 touchdowns. Just prior to his senior year at Arkansas, Williams suffered a broken foot, which is a big reason why he slipped to the fifth round of the draft last year when the Bills were only too happy to take him.