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In the middle rounds, the Jets did a really nice job of getting very solid value. Neither player will likely be a star, but they will help the football team.
Bilal Powell isn’t a flashy runner, but he’s very efficient.
He’s not a dancer. Powell sticks in foot in the dirt and heads up field. And then with a good forward lean, he tends to trickle forward for a few extra yards.
Powell has very good running vision.
This is a guy who resurrected himself twice in his short life.
Coming from the wrong side of the tracks in Lakeland, FL, he was stabbed as a teenager. He got out of that neighborhood by moving in with a coach and had a great high school career.
Then he went to Louisville, and looked like his college career was going to be a disappointment. Just like the program during the Steve Kragthorpe era, the man who recruited him. He underachieved for his first three years in the program.
But everything came together for Powell as a senior. Charlie Strong took over the program, and made Powell his featured back, and he had a terrific year. He went from an NFL afterthought to a middle round prospect who got a Senior Bowl invite.
Kerley is a hand’s catcher, consistently doing a good job of not letting the ball get into his body.
And once he catches the football, he is very good at running after the catch.
Kerley doesn’t have great speed, especially for his size (5-9, 189). He ran a 4.56 forty at the TCU pro day.
But quite honestly, slot receivers don’t need great speed. Just look at New England’s Wes Welker and Miami’s Davone Best. The position is more about quickness and toughness, and Kerley has plenty of both.
Kerley is sudden out of his breaks. He is definitely a quick-twitch athlete. He has loose hips, which allows him to change direction effortlessly.
And on top of his skill as a slot receiver, he’s also a very good returner, and could be the Jets punt returner of the future. As a sophomore, he earned first-team All-Mountain West honors as a punt returner with a 13.9-yard punt return average.
In both his junior and senior years, he was named the top special team’s player in the Mountain West Conference.
Coming off a horrific broken leg injury, the Jets don’t want Jim Leonhard returning punts anymore, so Kerley could be thrust into this role sooner, rather than later.
So in closing, the Jets landed two really nice values in the middle rounds.
And two players who will help Rex Ryan (above) quite a bit in the future.
