Archives for May 2, 2021

‘”I enjoy the Senior Bowl, I hate that I missed it, but it was for good reason with how long our season went,” Beane said Saturday. “But it was great to see guys go down there and compete. You see it every year where agents get involved and talk guys out of it from an injury standpoint. While you respect it, you do really like to see where these guys take that chance and they want to compete against the best of the best. Usually that’s what it is. The best seniors, that do choose to play, show up at that game. It’s a fun week. It’s a fun atmosphere.”‘

‘The Bills no longer are taking the incremental steps that teams in building mode must take. They’re no longer having to preach, “Trust the process.” They trusted it, so much that all their top players headed to free agency – Matt Milano, Daryl Williams and Jon Feliciano – chose to re-sign.’

‘He had hoped to play defensive end in the NFL, but he was told in high school that he was too slow off the ball to have a legitimate chance. So he switched to offensive tackle. It was a challenging transition at first. He liked the reckless nature of playing defense and struggled with the need to master fundamentals, technique and the overall demands to be sharper with the mental aspects of the game on the O-line.’

‘The numbers: Finished his college career with 22 touchdown catches (tied for sixth in program history) and 2,269 receiving yards, which ranks 13th in program history. He seems most comfortable in the slot, meaning he will have the opportunity to learn from Cole Beasley. At 5-foot-10, Stevenson has been compared to a larger version of Isaiah McKenzie. He also had 26 carries for 231 yards and two scores.’

‘Physical style: Hamlin is good playing near the line of scrimmage. He led Pitt in tackles in 2018 and 2020 and was second on the team in 2019. He had 192 tackles for his career and 10 tackles for loss. He had some experience at cornerback and slot corner early in his college career but spent most of his time the past two years at safety.’

‘He’s coming off an injury. Wildgoose missed the Badgers’ win over Michigan in 2020 because of Covid-19 protocols, then suffered a broken scapula against Northwestern and ultimately decided to opt out for the rest of the season.’

‘Senior rebound: Anderson played in only three games as a junior before a shoulder injury ended his season. But he bounced back in 2020 by starting all 10 games as a redshirt junior. He was a first-team All-Big 12 pick.’

‘“When he signed with an agent, I had my wife stay home and from there I was able to take care of the bills, basically,” said Greg’s father, Oscal Rousseau, a mechanic who works on ambulances and fire trucks for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. “Basically, by him opting out, that gave us an opportunity to have my wife stay home so she didn’t have to be at the front line of the pandemic.”’

‘Like Lawson and Epenesa, Basham is not a true, dip-and-bend speed rusher. Nobody who plays at 280 in college is. He’s down to 274 now, but Basham is faster than both and a tick more athletic than both.’

‘“We’re aware of that. We’ve had conversations and we’ll get that handled by the deadline Monday,” Beane said in his post-draft news conference Saturday night. “Nothing in the draft affected either one of these guys. It’s just, there’s no reason to do it before then in our mind. We just wanted to focus on the draft and now we’ll take care of that before the deadline on Monday.”’