With Hill it's going to be a spark thing. He either figures out how to hold onto the ball reliably or he doesn't. He has no history at this point that suggests he has the hands or reflexes to be a good WR. That leaves him something very important to work on because if he gets that down then he can be very good.
I saw Hill as having two problems last year: One, he was not looking the ball into the hands. The other was that he was hearing footsteps. I really don;t think his hands are bad. I know nothing about his brain.
Hill is so so raw... however he sounds like a great kid with a great attitude and great physical skills. Hopefully he'll be serviceable this year... I haven't given up hope on him yet (unlike Ducasse).
This is just extremely untrue. A ton of receivers come into the league with questionable hands and proceed to play very well. It is a coaching point, something that can be coached. What you cannot coach is 4.3 speed and 6'4" 215 lbs and 40"+ Vertical. Hill will be fine. He just needs to spend a lot of time with Sanjay Lal and the JUGS machine.
I didn't spend too much time digging this up, but I doubt there's much more considering he only caught 28 catches in his highest catch year and only 49 over his entire college career. But it should be mentioned in his 28 catch year the run first team only threw the ball 150ish times in total. So I attatch these clips, and they both get interesting around the 1 minute mark, but there are a few good catches before that. Yes you can argue there are only 2 or 3 really spectactular catches in these two clips but there are a lot of skill catches and the total number of catches between the two clips probably represent about 1/4 to 1/3 of his total career catches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kQWb4NXvJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9QIm93rcoE The problem is there's not a large enough sample size here, but one thing is clear he makes a number of very good, and 2 spectacular 1 hand grabs. Again small sample size. But you don't make those catches in such a limited opportunity offense if you don't have good hands. Which makes me believe that Hills problem isn't his hands but rather a combination of Rookie Jitters and, he did have this knock in college, of letting easy passes sometime get out of his hands by not watching the ball into his hands. This is of course to be expected of a player with only 49 catches in college, there were going to be growing pains and he really wasn't projected to be a starter last year. so with that said, just like with Sanchez who was also very inexperienced coming out of college, I'm giving him 3 years to grow in to the game and his 4th being his make or break campaign. That said, I do expect improvement from him this year...assuming we have a QB who can get him, and the other receivers, the ball accurately.
Jerry Rice had A LOT of drops when he came in to the league and nearly got benched his rookie year. While there are no official dropped pass stats he's generally credited with 15 drops his rookie year. Terrell Owens had a lot of drop problems off and on during his career, especially early on. Same with Randy Moss and Santana Moss. Braylon Edwards had A Lot of drops his first season or two. But it's really hard to go back and quantify this list since dropped passes have never been a tracked stat officially and records are extremely spotty in this regard. But I'm sure if I spent some time googling I could come up with a list of at least 20-30 NFL receivers from 1980-now who early in their career had drop problems coming out of college. (edit)-by 20-30 NFL recievers I mean NFL recievers who went on to become very good NFL Receivers after their first season or two.
Once Stephen Hill learns how to catch (and I believe he will with his work ethic and good attitude) coupled with his insane measurements, he's gonna be one of the best receivers in the NFL. Top 10-15.
Of course, to followup on my previous posts, it's possible the NFL game is too fast for him and he always drops passes, but I've seen enough film of him to know he's got the hands and that most of the drops are mental errors and technique errors...those can be remedied....Last year, like Sanchez's first season, I write off to being a rookie and having little expereince coming in to the league.... Time will tell.
Hill has said that he practices with the JUGS machine and is perfect with it. He also said that some of his drops where because he was thinking of where he was going to run the ball after he cought it, and as many of you think that will lead to less attention being put to the catching leading to a drop. I see it as a young receivers' mistake that will get fixed, especially with his work ethic.
Randy Moss had some troubles for one. Hell, the greatest receiver to ever play had trouble his first season (Jerry Rice). Obviously, Braylon had troubles. Terrell Owens, if I remember correctly, had his own problems holding onto the ball (I still don't think his hands are all that good, but it is hard to argue against his production). Mike Williams (TB) had the dropsies and he's become a pretty damn good receiver. Brandon Marshall and Desean Jackson both still have questionable hands. You just can't argue production. I don't think you're one to agree with the statement that "you should never draft a receiver with questionable hands" anyway, so was the list necessary?
I know this is a little off topic but... I really like Hill and would like to get his jersey. Unfortunately the NFL shop only has Sanchez, Revis, Tebow and Holmes jerseys that are not screen printed. I don't want to cough up $300 to get an "elite" jersey that is just fucking obscene. Anyone got a good website in which I could get a Hill jersey that has twill letters and numbers? Thanks in advance
I actually do not think his hands are bad. I think he hears footsteps, and he does not look it in. Getting his hands away from his chest would help.
Its just concentration. The pass that Sanchez threw to Hill in the NE game was spot on the money... that was a catch that a high school WR should make every time. His 100% focus needs to be on catching the pass. If he can do that he'll improve significantly.
