This article comes from friend of UTHDynasty.com and contributing writer, Katie Flower. Follow her @FF_Skyler399 on twitter.
I coached youth sports for 14 years and one of the things I would start each season with is to ask the kids to finish this sentence: Practice makes __________
You may have thought what the kids all replied and that is perfect, but that is not the answer. Practice makes permanent. If you practice doing something the wrong way you are only going to in grain those bad habits into your routine and it will be very difficult to relearn new good habits. The younger that you are when this is addressed and changed, the better, however, when in the heat of the battle, your body through muscle memory will revert to the old habits at the worst possible time. Only by practicing the right way each and every time do we have a chance at perfection.
With a little over a week until the NFL draft I am re-watching the combine for the fifth time, and as I listened to Kurt Warner talk about the quarterback prospects, it sparked the idea for this article. He said that Marcus Mariota has not taken a snap under center or called a play in a huddle since high school. While some NFL offenses utilize the no-huddle, the shotgun and a spread offense is not the norm.
This means that a guy like Marcus is not only going to have to adjust to the speed of the game, a new playbook, calling the plays in the huddle, but his mechanics and footwork will need to be rebuilt from the ground up. The perspective of starting a play from under center versus seven yards behind the line of scrimmage is completely different, it affects timing among other things. The more a prospect needs to learn or re-learn from the habits they have ingrained, the longer the time it will take them to succeed at the next level.
The same goes for running backs that start in the shotgun as opposed to the I-formation and vice versa. If a running back always begun his play from seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, his vision and setting up his blockers is quite different from when it is from three yards behind a quarterback under center. As good a prospect as Bishop Sankey is/was, his coaches had to work with him on his footwork so that he could be successful in their offensive scheme. He still has a lot to work on until everything starts to become second nature for him.
The NFL draft will answer the question of where each rookie goes soon enough. As you assess the players and who you are going to select in your draft and make your final rankings, look at the fit for each player and not just the opportunity as it pertains to situation. Ask yourself how much does this player need to change their already formed habits to fit into the offense (or defense) of the team that selected them? You may be able to use this as a tie breaker between two prospects, and it may mean the difference between winning your league in this and future seasons.
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