Written By Arif Hasan (ColdOmaha.com)
Last week, we looked at the external analysis of the Vikings’ third pick, Willie Beavers—offensive tackle from Western Michigan. Those returns weren’t good, and Beavers’ performance in college, and in a somewhat weak conference, too, was not inspiring. His athleticism tested out to be an average athlete at guard and a below-average athlete at tackle.
Sounds a lot like multiple Pro Bowl lineman Josh Sitton.
OK, it also sounds like a host of failed mid-round offensive linemen—and more of those failures exist than do successes—who compare to Beavers, but the point isn’t to say that Beavers is as good as Sitton by virtue of being a bad college tackle and an average athlete but rather that there’s still a wide range of possibilities, even if it’s a low probability range.
Hidden in the kernels of subpar college play and average testing, is there a Pro Bowler lurking there?
It’s ultimately an unanswerable question this early in Willie Beavers’ career, but we’ll do our best to see if he can live up to the best of his potential or if he’s doomed to irrelevancy.
Incidentally, Sitton tested out as an above-average athlete, but it seemed to be consensus that he wasn’t particularly interesting as an athlete and had poor agility. It was worth the look at Sitton, however, because he was slow moving backwards on film and also because it leads to an interesting conclusion.
Click here for Arif’s film study of Willie Beavers.