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U of Tennessee WR Justin Hunter (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Matt Waldman
- Start date
Kitrick Taylor
Footballguy
It wil be interesting to see how this affects him. Will he maintain enough speed at vertical explosiveness with the weight? If he can, I like his chances to be a WR 1.Faust said:
He should be handed the #1 spot, hasn't really earned it. I'm excited for him, anxious for the future to be now and all but...bit nervous. We don't have much to go on.
Assuming they don't draft a big time WR, Hunter is in a very very very great spot to be a huge pick next summer for FF.
Assuming they don't draft a big time WR, Hunter is in a very very very great spot to be a huge pick next summer for FF.
King of the Jungle
Footballguy
Not as concerned about his weight as I am about his maturity. If the weight is notable muscle that is a good start.
Leroy's Aces
Footballguy
One More Rep
Footballguy
KellysHeroes
Footballguy
15 pound is ALOT for a WR to gain, even at 6'4". But its way early, I sure he'll burn about half of it off.
Touchdown There
Footballguy
208 pounds is crazy skinny for a 6 ft 4 guy. If it is good muscle he should be fine up to 225.
bonesman
Footballguy
For a pro athlete maybe. For the general public that's considered overweight (though barely) by BMI standards. (AJ Green is 6'4", 207 BTW)
His 'cepts look plenty strong from the combine picture on his instagram. That was probably a bad angle.
FUBAR
Footballguy
Touchdown There
Footballguy
Especially tall guys. Actual body fat is important but the standard tool to analyze that is shot by long frames.
bonesman
Footballguy
:X 
cstu
Footballguy
King of the Jungle
Footballguy
Pretty high praise. I am not as optimistic but as an owner it is nice to hear positives.
It is nice to hear positives but I felt better about those comments before I read the entire article. When Nate Washington gets the high praise treatment and is called a "stud" it makes Jefferson's positive spin on Hunter lose a little credibility, he just comes across of hyperbolic.
az_prof
Footballguy
ha! Good point! I didn't even think about that but you are correct. Still better to hear praise than criticism and this is the same coach who last preseason was dishing a lot of criticism at Hunter, challenging him to do better.
Washington turns 31 in August. He isn't a great player to begin with--how long can he realistically hold off Hunter?
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Well, he is a high pick so you have to get him on the field. Hope he comes though this season.
Tibereas
Footballguy
Does this guy start to produce this year or another year of marinating?
Quick slant: Hunter was inconsistent last season, and is still a work in progress, but he seems to have matured. He's added 15 pounds since last season, which should help, but he has to win the mental game, too.
Jefferson on Hunter: "He can be the receiver that puts us in the playoffs, and helps us win our division. With the growth he is going to go through, if he can keep progressing he can be the receiver that puts us over the edge. He has that much potential. He has great ability, and has gotten bigger. But keep in mind this is just his second season in the league and he is learning his second offense. He is coming on, but he has to keep working. I like the course he is on."
Quick slant: Hunter was inconsistent last season, and is still a work in progress, but he seems to have matured. He's added 15 pounds since last season, which should help, but he has to win the mental game, too.
Jefferson on Hunter: "He can be the receiver that puts us in the playoffs, and helps us win our division. With the growth he is going to go through, if he can keep progressing he can be the receiver that puts us over the edge. He has that much potential. He has great ability, and has gotten bigger. But keep in mind this is just his second season in the league and he is learning his second offense. He is coming on, but he has to keep working. I like the course he is on."
Xue
Footballguy
Hunter's biggest weakness wasn't his weight. He needs to learn how to catch the easier passes.
PFF data has his drops at 5 out of 23 catchable balls = 21.7%! According to Greg Peshek he was around 12% his final season.
Hunter caught 5/6 on passes 20+ yards. So on passes less than 20 yards his drop rate is 4/17 = 23.5%.
Whoever his QB is going to be is better off throwing it away from Hunter's frame and force him to extend his arms to make the catch because it seems that's they only way he uses proper form.
BigSteelThrill
Footballguy
MAC_32
Footballguy
maybe, but he sure doesn't play like it. He's not physical. At all. Fits what was circling about him predraft. Soft. Not something that's usually fixed so I'm not expecting much beyond an inconsistent deep threat.
Tibereas
Footballguy
There was another WR that was not physical, at all. His name was Randy Moss. and I will call Moss soft as well. Not saying this guy is anywhere near Moss but to say you have to be physical to be consistent is wrong.
Personally I feel he is going to develop into a WR 2 for fantasy teams. Tennessee will not allow a true WR 1 for some reason.
MAC_32
Footballguy
how many of these types end up like Moss? how many end up like Limas Sweed?
EBF
Footballguy
He doesn't need to be physical when he can run downfield and get to passes that nobody else can catch. He made enough spectacular plays in his rookie season that I'm cautiously optimistic that he can become an impact player with a little more maturity and refinement. Sidney Rice had a great year with Favre as a "run downfield and go up and get it" guy before his knee issues. Hunter can be the same type of player except he's a much better athlete.
He actually looks like kind of a steal right now when you see where Hopkins/Patterson/Watkins/Evans are going IMO.
He actually looks like kind of a steal right now when you see where Hopkins/Patterson/Watkins/Evans are going IMO.
ROYALWITCHEESE
Footballguy
Xue
Footballguy
Rice had a huge season when everything "broke right" for him. Favre fell in love with him and bombarded him with targets.
Hunter is a better athlete, but Rice was/is a better WR. He can actually catch the ball.
In that season, Rice had only 3 drops on 87 catchable targets = 3.45%. On passes less than 20 yards, his drops were 2/77 = 2.6%.
EBF
Footballguy
Wallace couldn't win a jump ball to save his life. That's a big part of what makes Hunter special. Unreal height + length + leaping ability combined with very good speed. He basically cannot be covered on deep routes. If that's not something that interests you, I don't know what to say.
Sometimes when you focus too much on what players can't do you can lose sight of what they CAN do.
Sometimes when you focus too much on what players can't do you can lose sight of what they CAN do.
Xue
Footballguy
I'm not even comparing what they do on the field as if that wasn't obvious.
Sometimes when you focus too much on what players and or can't do on the field you lose sight of what their numbers can or can't be.
Hunter can't be covered on deep routes. Wait, sounds like Mike Wallace.
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Time Kibitzer
Footballguy
I don't think dropping footballs is as big of an issue as not having proper technique. A guy like Terrell Owens dropped a tonne of balls, but he was still a hands catcher with proper technique, and combined with his other skills he was able to be a dominant WR.
So even though a guys like Justin Hunter and Kelvin Benjamin suffer from a large amount of concentration drops, they're both examples of guys who use proper technique to catch the football, so I certainly don't think it's wise to doom them to fantasy irrelevancy.
Bob Magaw
Footballguy
I'll qualify it with a maybe (you could be right, I just don't think so, but will explain why as succinctly as possible, below), but I don't say that about a lot of WRs. I put teammate Patterson in that class, they are different kind of WRs.
He was an elite track athlete in the jumps. There aren't a lot of hulking, yoked up jump athletes. Weird, thats a stumper, no idea why?
Anyway, one thing I cited last year as a possible reason for an optimistic projection, was that once he became committed to year round NFL weight training and nutrition, he would probably get bigger and stronger. He has added 15 lbs. since then. He was pretty skinny, so I wasn't expecting early David Boston in his prime-type physical dominance. Now he is bigger and stronger.
I'm sure the comments came from watching games, but there was a meme partly spawned by WR position coach Jefferson's tough love approach as a rookie, so if only to distinguish this belief/meme in the thread that seems to point in the same direction, but may have originated from different places, the same position coach just said Hunter has the kind of talent to elevate the team into the playoffs.
You have brought up a point before, so preempting it, people don't necessarily assume prospects always improve (I think they know that, but thanks - that wasn't prompted just by the last thread, but has been said a few times recently, and seemed important enough for you to make explicit, so addressing it here, it could be relevant to this discussion, too), because they happen to cite A player in A thread. They are just taking a stance on that player in that thread, and hopefully offering a rationale and suggesting specific reasons for why they think THAT player might improve (and the thread can agree or disagree on the rationale and specific reasons cited about THAT player's prospects for improvement), not making sweeping, blanket generalizations about all players improving.
But the flip side is important, too. Players do improve sometimes. It's a given that everybody is doing the same thing, projecting who will improve and who won't. That's presupposed.
You saw Hunter before he bulked up and gained strength, and anything circling around him pre-draft would by definition have also been referring to him before he bulked up and gained strength, so that really isn't two different things, they are referring to the same thing.
As to some traits being hard to fix, one of them was needing to get bigger and stronger, which he has made strides towards, as far as the physical part, whether it is hard or not may not apply to him. He's doing it, whether we think it is difficult to or not. Maybe if he *IS* bigger and stronger, he will play bigger and stronger. Besides, you don't really want this guy to be 230 lbs. if it robs him of explosiveness, that would be waste. He didn't look soft on the TD catch that won in SD. As far as being more consistent, not assuming he will improve, but for those prospects that later prove capable of improvement, it needs to come from increased reps and more experience. They traded up to get him and he went within a handful of picks of being a first rounder like Patterson, he will get more opportunity going forward, Nate Washington isn't the future.
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MAC_32
Footballguy
The predraft stuff was more work ethic based than anything. He doesn't put in the work and doesn't get the mental aspects of the game. He does what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is better than the competition. Works in college, not in the pros. Successful pros need to be great players but they also have to put in the work and have their head in it.
I'll be watching him closely come July/August. Adding weight is a start, but he's got a lot more to prove.
I'll be watching him closely come July/August. Adding weight is a start, but he's got a lot more to prove.
Bob Magaw
Footballguy
You are bringing up what is really a separate issue, though they could be related. The fact that he was working out twice a day sometimes and claimed he wasn't taking days off (if true), could be a sign that, if the light ever wasn't on, it is now.
Again, to me, a more face value explanation for the lack of bulk and physical strength is there aren't a lot of Sumo wrestler-sized elite, explosive jump athletes (he may have had higher aspirations in track at one point, which isn't the same as being lazy or a prima donna). If you think about it, he is probably at least seven years behind many prospects that have lifted like maniacs (and caught the ball, where applicable to WR prospects) year round since being Freshman in high school. But the works when he wants to, if true (I don't recall hearing it, sometimes what is heard is disinformation, like teams saying Clowney is terrible because they want him to fall to them
), would be bad if he wasn't diligent about catching technique, route running, etc.
He did lose time with the knee injury (only played three games in 2011), and was an early entry prospect, so I could forgive him for things like not being a master technician route runner, and how many rookies are? Hunter also came back strong in 2012, which showed the requisite level of discipline, work ethic and professionalism to rehab diligently. To the point where he put himself in position to play well enough to nearly crack the first round, despite the setback and his relative inexperience.
I'll be watching, too, needless to say. No question he still has much to prove, but if he fulfills his potential, I think he can be special, a rare talent. The upside is arguably pretty high, if he isn't extortionately expensive. If he breaks out, his value will surge very quickly.
Again, to me, a more face value explanation for the lack of bulk and physical strength is there aren't a lot of Sumo wrestler-sized elite, explosive jump athletes (he may have had higher aspirations in track at one point, which isn't the same as being lazy or a prima donna). If you think about it, he is probably at least seven years behind many prospects that have lifted like maniacs (and caught the ball, where applicable to WR prospects) year round since being Freshman in high school. But the works when he wants to, if true (I don't recall hearing it, sometimes what is heard is disinformation, like teams saying Clowney is terrible because they want him to fall to them
), would be bad if he wasn't diligent about catching technique, route running, etc.He did lose time with the knee injury (only played three games in 2011), and was an early entry prospect, so I could forgive him for things like not being a master technician route runner, and how many rookies are? Hunter also came back strong in 2012, which showed the requisite level of discipline, work ethic and professionalism to rehab diligently. To the point where he put himself in position to play well enough to nearly crack the first round, despite the setback and his relative inexperience.
I'll be watching, too, needless to say. No question he still has much to prove, but if he fulfills his potential, I think he can be special, a rare talent. The upside is arguably pretty high, if he isn't extortionately expensive. If he breaks out, his value will surge very quickly.
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EBF
Footballguy
Hunter is a much better receiver than Wallace. Even in college, Wallace was just a guy who ran deep. He never caught more than 39 passes in a season. Hunter had over 70 in his final season. If you added better red zone skills and better possession ability to Mike Wallace, you'd have a really promising FF WR. So while that comparison might be intended as unflattering, it actually demonstrates why Hunter is a compelling target right now.
ROYALWITCHEESE
Footballguy
MAC_32
Footballguy
If Sherman were still in Miami I'd say give me Hunter, but the new guy is supposedly using Wallace more appropriately so I'd flip flop. Close though. I don't think it's crazy to still have Hunter higher. I think Wallace really took advantage of Roethlisberger's ability to extend plays. He was misused last year, but he's still going to miss that too.
EBF
Footballguy
I think he has more talent, yes. Mike Wallace was exposed for what he is last year: a one trick pony.
Roethlisberger doesn't get the hype of Manning/Rodgers/Brady and maybe he's not in their league overall, but he's a really good QB who is especially adept at big plays. Burress, Holmes, Wallace, and Brown have all shined in that situation. Not to say those guys weren't quality players in their own right, but certainly Ben's presence helped get the most out of their skills. Especially Wallace, who is the most limited of the group when it comes to things besides running really fast in a straight line.
Bronx Bomber
Footballguy
Well Hunter only had a few games in the NFL so is comparing production really fair? The only thing to compare is a known skill set to a partially known/ projected skill set.
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Can't tell on the speed but in case anyone has not seen this video I think he answers the question about his vertical explosiveness still being intact: http://www.tennessean.com/story/titansinsider/2014/06/03/justin-hunter-tennessee-titans-ken-whisenhunt-nfl/9914533/
Traded him in my Dynasy this off-season, I don't think he'll be consistent especially with Jake Locker at the helm. He's a hell of a pro and probably can string together a good year like Braylon Edwards but there are major character concerns here.
He's definitely a fringe WR3 going into this season though. I wouldn't want to count on him though.
He's definitely a fringe WR3 going into this season though. I wouldn't want to count on him though.
