I bet a whole $5 on the American team -3.5, on FanDuel, for fun, and they took my money with impunity.
I am leading this report off with my wager loss info to set the table for this game -- it went nothing like I would have expected it to. It was really weird…
The American Team, that I was convinced was loaded with much more high-end talent (after watching the practices the past week) than their counterparts/the National Team, sabotaged their own cause in this game…and I don’t know why, and likely never will.
Not that it matters, this type of thrown-together all-star game event, but it’s still strange to me what happened here -- the American team had the (voted on) QB of the week (Max Duggan/TCU), the overall MVP of the week (voted on by the players) in RB Tyjae Spears/Tulane (and also, perhaps, the biggest breakout star of the week for the NFL Draft), and they also had Tyreek Hill wannabe Nathaniel ‘Tank’ Dell/Houston, as well as the week’s top TE Luke Musgrave/Oregon State. All this offensive talent and then some (they were deep on offensive talent), and I was all ready to sit down and watch this offensive show, but instead -- I got the Heisman hand/stiff arm to the face…some of the week’s stars for the National Team didn’t start/hardly played!?!?!
I would have been mad, but accepting of it, had those top players chosen to not-play to keep themselves injury free for the Combine and NFL Draft. Especially Tyjae Spears…he had NOTHING left to prove, and only injury to be risked. But the National Team didn’t start Duggan at QB, and he barely played at all, and Spears started at RB for two plays then was barely seen throughout, while Dell had already (smartly) bailed on the game itself. Duggan played for about 4-5 minutes, not stepping onto the field until right before halftime.
It was all very odd…and explains, in part, why the American Team got wrecked -- but this hopeful showcase of top talent ended up empty. They did stream their top offensive talent in, lightly, enough to put them at injury risk but not enough time or continuity to shine. Very strange.
On the other side, the National Team went with their best, mostly, right away and it paid off in continuity and ‘the win’, ugly as it was. The offensively loaded American Team never scored a TD in this game.
All that to say: Per usual, this game was disjointed…as you tend to expect. However, it was even more disjointed/strange to not see one team’s best players out there to start, but they eventually did play/see some snaps, but barely touched the ball/barely played. So, this game had watered down talent by its own hand for one team…so, it’s hard to really sink your teeth into anything that matters, scouting-wise from the game itself. The practices were way more important to the process, as they always are…but never more so than this particular year.
You can read my day’s 1-2-3 practice notes on FFM: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3
My 2023 Senior Bowl re-grade series (updated scouting info/grades after the week of practices and game) started Sunday with re-grading the RBs and will run daily for the next week, position group by position group…as a lead-in to the NFL Combine previews/grades starting soon after.
After all the re-grades of the position groups are finished, we will cap off the 2023 Senior Bowl scouting with a Top 10 Dynasty Rookie Draft Mock post-event ranking.
My notes from the actual game itself…
Player Game Notes:
-- Jake Haener/Fresno State (12-19 for 139 yards, 1 TD/0 INT) started at QB for the National team and ended up winning the game’s MVP. He was consistently OK/good all week…and in this game. Not great…not wow…just plausible. But the TV analysts loved him and are now pushing him as the next Brock Purdy, because this while whole offseason every QB draft analysts see as ‘too small’/’physically unimpressive’ (among NFL QBs) -- they’re gonna play the ‘…but, maybe he’s Brock Purdy’ analysis card with.
Two things about Haener’s ‘MVP performance’ here…
1) QB Jaren Hall/BYU was supposed to be the ‘it’ QB prospect here, overall and for the National Team for sure, but he was clearly not…mid-week Haener started taking the ‘#1 reps’ on things and you could see Haener was moving to top guy for his team…and Hall was maybe the worst pocket passing QB prospect in Mobile (of the 5 pocket QB who attended).
Well, Hall didn’t even play in this game. He was scratched with no real explanation. Very odd the National Team only had two QBs to work with…usually, it’s a 3-4 man rotation in the Senior Bowl game. Hall better have had a provable injury as an excuse, but I think he might have bailed because he got outclassed and passed up on the roster…just my speculation. And if true, or hinted as true -- Hall is going to fall out of this draft, like I theorized he might on one of my practice reports. Hall is one of the biggest ‘losers’ from this week. He cost himself a ton of money/draft stock this week.
2) My vote for MVP of this game would’ve been National Team RB Evan Hull/Northwestern (10-74-0, 2-11-0/2). The bully RB…bullied his way through the American Team just about every touch he had…in a game without a lot of run game effectiveness outside of Hull.
How much did Hull improve on our scouting/grading this week…you’ll see it on our re-grade series all this week.
To get the rest of R.C.'s Senior Bowl scouting report, including notes on Jayden Reed, Michael Wilson, Tyjae Spears, Kenny McIntosh, Chris Rodriquez, Camerun Peoples, Max Duggan, Malik Cunningham, Tyson Bagent, Andrei Iosivas, Jalen Wayne, Will Malory and Ivan Pace, sign up for Weekly Report - Free!
To get the edge from all of FFM's premium content, Get Total Football Advisor Now!
