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Spartans LB
Josh Thornhill
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Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a series of articles previewing the top NFL
prospects, by position, for the 2002 draft.
Unless you throw in a bunch of tweener DE-OLBs such as South Carolina’s Kalimba
Edwards, Florida’s Alex Brown and Syracuse’s Dwight Freeney, this will not be a
good year for linebackers. There are no blue-chip seniors at the top of the pure LB list,
and while there is depth, it really is not quality depth.
Oklahoma’s Rocky Calmus is the best-known linebacker in college football
and will be an All-American and Butkus Award candidate for the second year in a row.
However, while Calmus is a great college football player, he is a solid, but not
exceptional, NFL prospect. What makes Calmus special are his instincts and ability to make
the big play. He anticipates well, has a quick first step and plays with great effort and
intensity. However, from an NFL standpoint, he is not that big, football strong or fast.
He also will get bounced around at times and is not really an explosive player. The
question scouts have about Calmus is, where does he fit in an NFL defense? Is he big and
physical enough to play over the tight end or in the middle, and does he have the pure
athleticism teams want in a weak-side ’backer?
The best of the senior LB prospects could be Northwestern’s Napoleon Harris,
who spent this year playing rush defensive end after playing linebacker for most of his
career. Harris moved to defensive end this year because of team depth at linebacker.
Northwestern needed an edge-rush player, and Harris had enough size and the speed to fill
that role. Harris is a very good athlete with size, speed and strength. While his
instincts are not the greatest, he is getting better, and while he needs work on using his
hands, he can bend his knees and play with leverage. Harris plays with good pad level, and
is a confident, nasty and explosive player. He has a high upside. As a pass rusher, he can
come off the edge, can play with leverage and has a counter move and a closing burst. As a
’backer, Harris can turn his hips and run with backs in coverage, but he may not have
a really good feel for zone coverage yet.
Two of the Wildcats’ starters at linebacker could also figure into the draft
picture. Kevin Bentley is an undersized "Will" ’backer who has
started the past three years and been very productive. Also, Bentley has a very good
special-teams personality. He runs well, has good instincts and has a quick burst.
However, he has a real hard time taking on and shedding blockers and is basically a
run-around-the-blocker type of player, who at times will take himself out of position.
Billy Silva has played both inside and outside linebacker at Northwestern, but
he generally plays the middle. He has nice size and good stopwatch speed and can flow to
the ball. Silva hits hard, generally wraps up when he tackles and has a little mean
streak. On the down side, he has had back problems and is on the stiff side to begin with.
Silva had knee surgery in late November and does not change directions as quickly or
fluidly as teams would like. At present, his instincts are OK but not special.
Levar Fisher of North Carolina State is not very big but is big in the weight
room. He’s a very dedicated player and has a big heart. Fisher is very active, has a
good burst to the ball and can run with backs in coverage. However, he is a little bit of
a hit-or-miss tackler who, instead of wrapping up, will often try and run right through
the ballcarrier. Because of his size limitations and inability to take on and control
blockers, he will have to play on the weak side in the NFL. Fisher could do very well in a
Buccaneers, Jets or Rams type of scheme, and he should be an excellent special-teams
player if he learns to wrap more when he tackles.
Raonall Smith is the best LB prospect to come out of Washington State since Rams
LB Mark Fields. Like Fields, Smith has almost freakish speed for a 240-pound ’backer
and has been clocked in the 4.5s. Like Fields, Smith can accelerate to the ball and has
really good closing speed. On the down side, like Fields, Smith needs to see things before
he reacts to them, and he is not as explosive or physical as Fields. As a blitzer, Smith
is fine if he can beat you with speed, but he lacks moves and is not going to run over
many offensive linemen. In coverage, he can run with people, but his lack of top instincts
hurts him at times. His strong point is chasing down plays. While not as devastating a
hitter as Fields, Smith can be an explosive tackler at times.
Oregon State’s James Allen looked as though he could become a top player
after his sophomore year, but injuries and back problems have really slowed him the past
two years. He runs very well and is a good athlete, but too often he seems to be in a
position to make the play and does not quite get it done. In short, he too often is a
close-but-no-cigar player who often comes up just a half-step short or reacts a fraction
of a second too late. He also does not look as fluid or seem to change directions as well
as he did before he started to have back problems.
After a real down junior year, UCLA’s Robert Thomas has played like an
All-American this fall. Thomas has a great motor and work ethic, is instinctive and active
and really seems to time his blitzes well. He anticipates well, is often a step ahead of
the offense, plays the game on his feet and can get through trash cleanly. However, he is
an undersized inside ’backer who lacks the bulk strength to take on blockers and
control the middle. Thomas must be in a defensive scheme which protects him, similar to
the way the Dolphins protect Zach Thomas. Robert Thomas is the younger brother of former
Texas OT Stan Thomas, who was the Bears’ first-round pick in 1991 but never really
panned out.
Kansas State’s Ben Leber is the type of player who does everything he is
supposed to do, but he is not a real smash-mouth player and is so assignment-oriented that
he will rarely trust his instincts and gamble to make a big play. Leber is a smart, very
disciplined player with a great work ethic who runs well, is active and alert, uses his
hands pretty well, can cover the tight end and rarely blows an assignment. He rarely
misses a tackle and will try to wrap up, but at times you wish he were more physical and
reckless and would take a chance.
Michigan’s Larry Foote is similar to former teammate and current Broncos LB
Ian Gold, but Foote is not quite as fast, explosive or athletic. He is a very active and
productive undersized ’backer who can run and cover. He is at his best when running
to the ball, but he must be covered up and protected.
Michigan State’s Josh Thornhill is the son of Charlie "Mad Dog"
Thornhill, who played on the great ’65 and ’66 Michigan State teams and was a
ninth-round pick of the Boston Patriots in ’67. The younger Thornhill has played all
the LB positions at Michigan State, but he now spends most of his time in the middle. He
is a very dedicated offseason worker with top weight-room numbers, but he does not look or
play nearly as athletic as he tests, which leads one to believe he is not a top natural
athlete. He has straight speed, but he does not change directions or turn smoothly. While
he has good size, he does not take on and fend off blockers very well. Thornhill is very
aggressive at times and will gamble to try and make a big play. However, there are some
games when he seems to guess wrong a lot and really is not much of a factor. That has
brought on questions about his instincts. But he did make a lot of plays vs. Notre Dame
this year and has had his moments.
Florida State’s Bradley Jennings is getting a lot of All-America notice and
has been listed among the top 25 senior pro prospects by one media draft expert for most
of the year. But quite frankly, I just don’t see it. He is very physical and
aggressive and can be a force inside at times. However, he does not look overly
instinctive or seem to have really good functional football movement skills, and he will
really struggle in space. He looks like a two-down linebacker to me.
In fact, I may be tempted to rate Florida’s Andra Davis above him, now that
Davis has gotten his weight down and is in the best shape of his career. Davis had an
up-and-down year, but he’s been playing with a cast on a fractured thumb since
October. He did look outstanding in the Mississippi State game. Like Jennings, Davis is a
big hitter and very aggressive, but he seems to be more intuitive and harder to fool with
play fakes. While he may not time as well, he seems to play faster.
Some unrated players going into the year who could have moved into the picture are
North Carolina’s David Thornton, Oklahoma’s Brandon Moore
(Cardinals WR Rob’s brother), Fresno State’s Maurice Rodriguez and
Virginia’s John Duckett, who played fullback last year. All are somewhat
undersized, but Thornton and Duckett are instinctive, and Moore and Rodriguez are making
more plays and playing more. Indiana’s Justin Smith is a terrific college
player who plays much bigger and faster than his spring timing day numbers (5-11¾, 213,
4.77) and could become a factor because he is a very smart alert player and is all over
the field in some games.
While Rocky Boiman was considered Notre Dame’s best LB prospect going into
the season, the team’s best linebacker by the end of the year was by far Tyreo
Harrison. Harrison looks so much more instinctive than he looked in the past and plays
much faster than his timed speed. He also is a much stronger player than Boiman and
appears to have better lateral movement.
In the last three games, it looked like the light finally went on for Miami (Fla.) OLB Chris
Campbell, who always could run fast but often played slow because he had to see
everything unfold before he could react.
Editor’s note: The following player report was inadvertently left out of last
week’s story on DL prospects:
While Julius Peppers gets all the publicity, North Carolina’s best overall
defensive lineman this year has been DT Ryan Sims. However, while Peppers is an
eye-catcher who makes the highlight-film plays, Sims is more of a grunt who does the dirty
work and keeps blockers off his linebackers. He is a very powerful inside player who has
good initial quickness and reactions. He feels and fights pressure well, has much better
use of his hands and technique than Peppers, controls the line and pushes the pocket. He
also can be an effective player in both a one- and two-gap defensive scheme. However,
while he is quick, he lacks speed and long closing ability, and he is not going to run an
eye-catching 40-time.
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