Lammey: Notre Dame’s Dexter Williams may be best RB at Senior Bowl

The second leg of the “All-Star Road Trip” takes me to Mobile, Alabama, and the 2019 Reese’s Senior Bowl.

For 14 years in a row, I’ve made this road trip to see some of the best incoming talent to the NFL. Last year, for example, we saw first-round quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen at the Senior Bowl.

This season, I want to see if guys like Drew Lock (Missouri) and/or Daniel Jones (Duke) are able to impress enough to be selected in the first round of the 2019 NFL draft.

Wednesday was an unusual day in Mobile. For the first time since I’ve been covering this game, practices were canceled at Ladd-Peebles Stadium and moved to an indoor facility that was closed to the media.

That meant I had to wait around for the coaches tape to be released. Once it was on Wednesday evening, I was able to break down the practices with three different camera angles to work with.

Here is my report on Day 2 of Senior Bowl practices:

Bend, bang, bounce

In a zone-blocking system, a running back has a choice of three things once he gets the handoff. He can bend the run back against the play side, he can bang the run between the tackles where the play is designed to go, or he can bounce the carry outside for a wide run.

Notre Dame running back Dexter Williams looked masterful when running in zone concepts on Wednesday.

Williams showed great patience when running the ball and allowed the blocks to fully develop in front of him before making his decision.

Measuring in at 5-foot-11 and 215 pounds, Williams has the size to bang it between the tackles with authority. He also showed the footwork to maintain his balance when defenders were trying to get him to the ground.

He might be the best back at the Senior Bowl this year.

Disruptive up front

Any team looking for defensive line help is going to like what they see from this draft class and the players featured up front at the Senior Bowl.

One player who continues to make plays and get after the passer is Washington defensive tackle Greg Gaines. During 9-on-7 drills on Wednesday, Gaines was able to get off the snap quickly and get into the backfield.

He blew up some plays against the run and did a good job of making the quarterback move off his spot. Gaines measures in at 6-foot-2 and 316 pounds but moves with agility for a big man.

Broncos buzz

Drew Lock did not have a great day passing the ball. He wasn’t bad per se, but Lock didn’t get a chance to showcase his No. 1 talent: his arm strength.

Instead of filling the air with footballs and passes that were fired deep down the field, Lock spent most of the day throwing short to intermediate passes.

The North team did not do a good job of blocking for the quarterbacks during passing drills. There were a few plays where Lock basically had to throw the ball away with immediate pressure in his face after he turned after a play fake.

Speaking of play fakes, one, perhaps underrated, part of Lock’s game is his ability to fool a defense with a fake handoff. He does a good job of hiding the ball in his left hand with his back turned to the defense. Lock will sell the handoff by casually jogging through the fake, only to pull the ball up to his chest and fire off a pass.

Lock is not throwing with great anticipation so far this week, but if given time he does get to show off a few of his tools.

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