Sneak peek at
Pro Football Weekly’s Preview 2000
Analysis of St. Louis’ receivers
June 6, 2000
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Editor’s note: What follows is an excerpt from Pro Football Weekly’s Preview
2000 magazine, which hits the newsstands July 5. This is PFW personnel analyst Joel
Buchsbaum’s analysis of the Rams’ receivers. Buchsbaum analyzes all 31 teams in Preview
2000. Once a week, we’ll showcase a different excerpt from the magazine on
ProFootballWeekly.com.
When healthy, superstrong Ernie Conwell is one of the best blocking tight ends in
football, but the Rams have had a hard time keeping him on the field. Roland Williams is a
big target with pretty good pass-catching skills, but he is a very average blocker. Jeff
Robinson, a converted defensive lineman, also contributes, especially inside the red zone.
At wide receiver, a healthy Isaac Bruce is as good as any receiver in the game. He is
not that fast but has marvelous change of speed, body control, hand-eye coordination and
ball skills and a tremendous sense of timing. As a result, he gets into and out of his
breaks as quickly as anyone, gets very good separation and rarely gets hit cleanly.
As a rookie, Torry Holt took a lot of pressure off Bruce and really came up big at the
end of the season and in the playoffs. He still needs to cut down on his careless drops
and fumbles, but he has a great ability to get separation from the defender and is a
tremendous runner after the catch. Like Bruce, Holt has the courage to catch over the
middle and plays bigger than his size.
Az-Zahir Hakim is the quickest and fastest of the wide receivers, and eight of his 36
catches in ’99 were for touchdowns. He is a very dangerous runner after the catch,
but he drops a lot of passes. Most of his drops occur because he is running before he
catches the ball. Because he is short and smallish, Hakim operates best out of the slot as
a third receiver.
Ricky Proehl is a solid possession receiver. He went 17 games without a TD catch and
then caught the game-winning pass in the NFC championship game.
Receivers’ grade: A-minus
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