Jets gush about Stephen Hill
Greetings-
Some post-draft tidbits for you about Stephen Hill. The Jets PR people were good enough to send me a transcript from a news conference with GM Mike Tannenbaum, college scouting VP Joey Clinkscales and senior personnel executive Terry Bradway. Some interesting stuff on Mr. Hill.
1. Tannenbaum said the team studied Demaryius Thomas’ adjustment to the NFL to get an idea of how Hill might transition from the Tech offense to the NFL, and spent a lot of time getting to know Hill. In addition to the pro day at Tech, the Jets worked him out at their facility and also in Atlanta, which lasted about an hour and a half.
Tannenbaum: “We really feel he can run all the routes we’ll ask in our offense. Again, he was a very good blocker in a run-oriented offense. He has very good football acumen and we feel the transition can happen really quickly.”
2. Clinkscales’ assessment of Hill: “He is a tall kid who can run. He is flexible, can sink his hips, he can drop his weight and get in and out of routes. More (important) than the offense is his skill set, and I think his skill set transfers to this level pretty well.”
3. Clinkscales, on if Hill reminds the Jets of anyone:
“He’s unique. He’s a 6’4 kid that weighs 215 and runs a 4.32. He’s a unique athlete, he really is. Calvin Johnson, maybe? And I’m not going to put that label on him but from a height, weight, speed moniker. He’s just a unique athlete.”
4. Tannenbaum shared an interesting detail from his interview with Hill regarding his recruitment to Tech. As presumably a lot of teams did, the Jets asked Hill why a wide receiver would play for a run-oriented offense.
Tannenbaum: “He said they were initially the only team that had offered him and he had committed to them and later on in the process a few other more traditional passing teams had offered him a scholarship, but he didn’t want to back out on his commitment,” Tannenbaum said. “I thought that was very admirable. Again, that’s not why we took him or why we were interested in him, but that was an interesting anecdote because we were asking him why would you go there knowing you’re a receiver and that they’re going to run the ball.”
If you’ll remember, Hill committed to Tech in the fall of 2008 (he had actually committed to Central Florida prior to that) before Georgia (Tennessee did, as well) made a late push, which caused Hill to waver before sticking with Tech.
5. Bradway on the transition from the Tech offense:
“I think there’s a transition for all of them, to be honest with you. With the spread offenses, they don’t normally run the NFL route tree. But it was important for us to put him through that to see that he could do it. Like I said, at the combine, at his pro day, and at his work out for us, he showed that he can do that. This guy is really coachable. He’s willing to work. With (wide receivers coach) Sanjay (Lal) and our offensive coaches, I think the upside is going to happen pretty quickly for this kid.”
6. Clinkscales on why Hill didn’t have more catches in bigger games:
“Well, I would go back to what was stated a few minutes ago. On the season they completed 64 passes. So probably against some of the better teams they weren’t completing a lot of passes. I don’t think it had anything to do with his production in those games. They had a tough time throwing the ball.”
6. Hill said that he was hoping to end up with the Jets, given the connection he’d made with coaches during the pre-draft meetings.
“They had a little bit of background on me, and I had a great background on them. I feel like I’m in the right spot.”
On playing in a pro-style offense with Mark Sanchez: “I feel great, especially now that I’m in an offense where I can catch the football a little bit more. Catching the ball from Mark Sanchez is great. I’m going to make sure I get with him as soon as possible and we’re going to try to get this thing rolling.”
On what he’ll bring to the Jets:
“A lot of big plays down the field and getting big touchdowns at the right time, of course. Other than that, I feel like I could bring a lot, especially blocking. I can definitely put somebody on their butt.”
Thanks for reading.
Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog
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205 comments Add your comment
JM
May 1st, 2012
11:57 am
Congratulations Stephen!
HighTech
May 1st, 2012
12:11 pm
lol @ George Stein. The Truth’s handle should be The Uninformed.
George Stein
May 1st, 2012
12:18 pm
Totally, HT.
FL Jacket
May 1st, 2012
1:22 pm
The “Truth”…
Don’t you know the unwritten rules of Journalism? “When it calls you Eddie Murphy and bleeds…it leads”
The Truth
May 1st, 2012
1:29 pm
Sorry. I was too busy packing WnE’s fudge to actually read anything. My bad.
Techno
May 1st, 2012
1:34 pm
Just wait till he starts dropping passes he should catch.
FL Jacket
May 1st, 2012
1:40 pm
“Just wait till he starts dropping passes he should catch.”
Just wait until he starts catching passes he should drop…
Burdell
May 1st, 2012
2:14 pm
The previous two posts summarize Stephen Hill’s legacy at Georgia Tech.
juvenal
May 1st, 2012
3:07 pm
Jerry Rice had a lot of drops his rookie year….
jarvis
May 1st, 2012
3:56 pm
I think Hill will be a good pro…hopefully the Jets will have someone to deliver the ball to him.
Dawg48
May 1st, 2012
4:02 pm
I’m going to the grocery store to buy some milk to see if 5150’s face is on the back of it. I’m worried about him.
WnE
May 1st, 2012
4:42 pm
re:
Jerry Rice’s College stats.
1983 Mississippi Valley State WR 102 1450 14.2 14 4 -14 -3.5 0 106 1436 13.5 14
1984 Mississippi Valley State WR 103 1682 16.3 27 1 -3 -3.0 0 104 1679 16.1 27
His last 2 years in college Rice had 102 & 103 catches in 11-game Seasons.
Imagine the problem Hill MIGHT have with drops since he only caught 50 balls his entire career.
WnE
May 1st, 2012
4:46 pm
let me try those Rice stats again:
1983 Mississippi Valley State WR
rec yds. avg. tds
102 1450 14.2 14
1984 Mississippi Valley State WR
rec yds. avg. tds
103 1682 16.3 27
George Stein
May 1st, 2012
4:53 pm
“Imagine the problem Hill MIGHT have with drops since he only caught 50 balls his entire career.”
Don’t worry! He’s been working with Terrance Mathis.
The Truth
May 1st, 2012
5:01 pm
WnE would know about drops…..you should see how often he drops his jar of Vaseline-and he’s caught WAY more than 50 balls
sports
May 1st, 2012
5:03 pm
what a joke, probably want the team
Dirtybirdsin12
May 1st, 2012
5:05 pm
Comparing Hill to Calvin is blasphemy. I watched Hill drop at least 5 sure TD’s the past two seasons. Plus to hear Hill mention that he is glad to be in an offense where he will finally get passes thrown his way is an outrage. I don’t know what makes him think he’ll get more than the 5-8 looks a game he got at Tech, and a comment like that is nothing but detrimental to his former coach’s efforts to recruit. I’m not sure which is worse, his lack of class or his catching ability.
Hill top 56
May 1st, 2012
5:27 pm
They say you can’t teach speed .. which the guy has to go along with size , Maybe he will make it time will only tell . I remeber a game played in late Nov. he didnot have a good game when they had to throw that was the QB ’s play there I think . still on the fence about this . more coments to come .
Out.
Ghost
May 1st, 2012
5:43 pm
Did any Tech players get picked up as free agents?
Tampa Gator
May 1st, 2012
6:12 pm
@Paul in NH….
Tebow could play on the Super Bowl winning Jets…..and he still would have a lot top prove. Tebow does not need to prove anything to anyone. Tebow has won a national title as a college QB. He personally has won a Heisman Trophy. He QB the Broncos to a division title in his first year as a starter….and then beat the odds makers by helping his team upset the Steelers in the playoffs. Again….Tebow could be on a Super Bowl champion and he would still not measure up to most of you. Tebow is just good….at winning. I will take a winner any day over super duper QBs who don’t win anything.
Ghost
May 1st, 2012
6:37 pm
Tampa gator, I agree with you about Tebow, I don’t think his skill sets fits the NFL as a starting QB. But if I were a GM I would find a role for him.
FL Jacket
May 1st, 2012
8:00 pm
Tampa..
Is any criticism of Tim Tebow allowed? Nobody is disputing he has the “it” that QBs with strong leadership need to have.
But so did Colt McCoy…and Vince Young…and Jason White. Winning (or almost winning) a MNC or a Heisman only means you were most valuable to your team winning at the college level.
Delbert D.
May 1st, 2012
8:06 pm
I think the Jets have some ideas on how to use Tebow. We are not NFL coaches or GMs, so we don’t have the awesome responsibility of making it work. It worked fairly well for Denver last year. Sanchez had better have a really good year, or the Jets will draft another QB to split time with Tebow.
Delbert D.
May 1st, 2012
8:18 pm
The Raiders now have two Heisman trophy winners at QB, Palmer and Leinart.
dry dirt road
May 1st, 2012
9:04 pm
On the first page, Frankly commented about SH getting picked by the Jets. I recall another SH who played at Tech and was drafted by the Jets. Does anybody remember who the player was? Put on your thinking RAT caps if you went to Tech. The person who comes up with the answer wins the Double Jeapordy question. Well, I’m waiting. Coincidetal initials should provide a hint, a veritable link to the coincidental NFL team that drafted two players from Tech. Well, the player was the starting fullback on Coach Carson’s old gold jerseys, white pants and white helmets unis teams. He played in Coach Carson’s pro style I formation offenses. The QB of the Jets then was Joe Namath. Well, the other SH’s name was Steve Harkey, a white guy. I watched him on tv for the Jets as much as I could and SH never hung on with the Jets and made it in the NFL. Steve Harkey played on the ‘71 Tech team and maybe the ‘72 team. Rock Perdoni was on his Tech team, and black QB Eddie McAshan was the QB. I mention Steve Harkey was white just in case anybody wanted to know what race he was, because I’m sure everybody knows Stephen Hill is black. Stephen Hill was a manic-depressive receiver who was manic when he caught passes and depressive when he dropped passes, and he definitely dropped his share of them, which then dropped Tech fans’ “high in the sky apple pie” hopes of all the apple pie good things that long bomb catches and long yardage gains for Tech do toward scoring.
duronimo
May 1st, 2012
10:47 pm
I’m a UGA man but in my opinion Jets got a guy who is going to have a long NFL career. I think they did their homework.
Paul in NH
May 1st, 2012
10:47 pm
Tim Tebow was a great college QB, led UF to an MNC and plenty of wins and was a worthy winner of the Heisman trophy. And as a predictor of NFL success, that is close to meaningless.
Since 1980, there have been 17 QBs who have won the Heisman and the majority (Andre Ware, Ty Detmer, Gino Toretta, Charlie Ward, Danny Wuerfell, Chris Weinke, Eric Crouch, Jason White, Matt Leinert, Troy Smith,) did very little in the NFL.
FL Jacket
May 1st, 2012
11:38 pm
Paul…
Charlie Ward might have been the best QB in the 1990’s…and would have been a #1 overall pick if he was in college today. The fact that no NFL team drafted him and gave him a shot was unfortunate.
Tripleoptionspread
May 2nd, 2012
12:50 am
Please kill the videos and get back to work!!
Stephen Hill - Page 2
May 2nd, 2012
7:13 am
[...] HelluvaMGTmjr Senior Member Join DateAug 2011 Posts2,896 More tid bits: Jets gush about Stephen Hill | Georgia Tech Tannenbaum shared an interesting detail from his interview with Hill regarding his recruitment [...]
dagnabit
May 2nd, 2012
7:19 am
Last night’s braves story is front and center. Congradulations! But, isn’t it time that the Jets stopped gushing over Steven Hill?
OldGold-1964
May 2nd, 2012
7:48 am
Very good stuff. Rather than dancing aroud the issue and trying to defend actions to the NY press, it appears at least on the surface, they are confident in having done their homework during evaluation period. They weren’t caught up in the hype of making a flashy pick, just an adequate one. (And, Mr. Hill certainly upgrades roster “character wise” a few notches above that of his predecessors.)
UGA = Yawn
May 2nd, 2012
7:50 am
ajc.com continues to baffle me. I look in here and I see the same articles shown on this site for days and sometimes weeks. If you can’t find anything about GT to write about – shut down the site. This is a GT page – not a New York Jets page! Write about Hill while he is a GT student and athlete. I wish every GT student the best but I don’t need to continue to read about them after they leave. Pls write something about current GT student-athletes!!!!
Chuck Allison
May 2nd, 2012
9:46 am
Most folks don’t get this much positive publicity when they flunk out of Georgia Tech.
Bored with the AJC
May 2nd, 2012
10:00 am
Wow! 3 days since this was posted and the Jet’s are STILL gushing about Stephen Hill……
FL Jacket
May 2nd, 2012
10:47 am
Hopefully we’ll soon see the story of Paul Johnson and Jon Barry defending GT’s title at the Chick-fil-A coaches golf tournament…
NCDAWG
May 2nd, 2012
10:59 am
He’s going to be a bust, you know why? he played for GT
looks like the vikings are
May 2nd, 2012
11:07 am
gushing about caleb king. lmao. another uga 5 star recruit bites the dust in the game of life.
the rev richt does such a wonderful job at bringing his young men up right.
and before you point the finger at coach johnson…. no body refers to him as the reverend.
maybe rev richt didnt kiss n hug and sing happy bday to caleb enough. awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww poor caleb.
to funny for a loser of a program.
word
May 2nd, 2012
11:10 am
WnE would know about drops…..you should see how often he drops his jar of Vaseline-and he’s caught WAY more than 50 balls
George Stein
May 2nd, 2012
11:11 am
Calvin Johnson says hello, NCDAWG.
GTfan 2012
May 2nd, 2012
12:39 pm
George,
I think NCDAWG’s comment probably qualifies as the all-time stupidest thing ever said on the GT blog, and that’s saying something since we have WnE post here all the time.
Just so we are clear, NCDAWG said Hill will be a bust because he went to GT, EVEN THOUGH the BEST WR in the NFL today also went to GT. I’d say NCDAWG just embarassed himself and UGA fans. Even if he’s right and Hill is a bust, he’s still comes off as an idiot.
DawginLex
May 2nd, 2012
12:43 pm
Dang, i came over here to escape the lunacy on the UGA blogs.
Not much better here………
Was WnE really spouting Jerry rice stats in a discussion about stephen Hill?
Didn’t MVSU run the run and shoot?
Apple, meet orange?
Paul in NH
May 2nd, 2012
1:07 pm
DawginLex – Run the run and shoot? More like invented the run and shoot.
Paul in NH
May 2nd, 2012
1:13 pm
For those too young to remember the MVSU offense.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/denny-dressman/jerry-rices-hall-of-fame-_b_690677.html
GTfan 2012
May 2nd, 2012
4:57 pm
Good read, Paul, thanks for that.
Jacket68
May 2nd, 2012
7:09 pm
Are you on vacation? It’s May 2 and nothing posted for awhile. Meantime Chip and Michael are raving about everything UGA.
kingster
May 2nd, 2012
9:49 pm
Can anyone tell me has GT had anyone sign a undrafted free agent contact with any team yet?
kingster
May 2nd, 2012
10:16 pm
I am strong Tech fan, but I really don’t think kids are like the kids of yesteryear thinking about getting a solid education when they see the kind of money NFL, NBA and Baseball players are making ( I was looking at yahoo this evening and I would have never guessed a kid that went to UGA made more money this pass season(up front money) than anyone else- Charles Johnson for Carolina Panthers 34 Million) Basicly what I am saying most kids are not buying into Coach Johnson’s offense, (I feel that effect kids who play defense, kids talk and communicate), kids visit just to come to the ATL and work out and get a great meal, knowing all the time mostly that they aren’t coming, I hope I’m wrong, I think some kids use Tech as leverage stick, if Alabama, UGA, South Carolina, Clemson, Florida State wanted a kid Tech is high on, they could get him just by having them visit, I hope I’m wrong, but I really feel this way, I was silly enough to think last year that Dalvin Tomlinson (missed spelled) was coming to Tech, Alabama wanted him, Alabama got him(Tech cann’t say it didn’t make a difference), I look at Tech on Rivals and Scout, buckus/Nothing, I feel the AJC feels sorry for my team now, how can you fight someone who cann’t fight back, my nephew is a huge UGA fan in Valdosta, I cann’t say anything when he talks about Tech. Most kids grow up wanting to be a professional sports star, one kid, just one kid from Tech can say this year they had a chance, oh thats not good. Ok, ok I am finish crying.
GTFan
May 3rd, 2012
12:30 am
Hello Ken, are you there? Two more articles from Chip and Michael about UGA and still nothing from Tech’s beat writer. It’s been days since we heard from you.
RTR22
May 3rd, 2012
2:13 pm
Lets bring the facts. Bama had 8 kids drafted and 7 signed free agent deals. Quite frankly I hope any and all future Tiders have healthy and productive careers. However, once they take off the crimson jersey I am only concerned about the next kid carrying on the storied tradition that is ALABAMA FOOTBALL.
BTW, Bama has 7 former players in the NFL Hall of Fame. What say you Jawja? Got 7 lol…….NO