Nobody knows Draft prospects like the fans who rooted for them in college. I would like to make scouting reports from college bloggers a regular feature in the lead up to the NFL Draft. We will start with the University of Pittsburgh's wide receiver, Jon Baldwin, a player some mock drafts have the Jets picking at 30.
Helping us out today is Anson of SB Nation's Pittsburgh blog, Cardiac Hill.
Jon Baldwin has had a fairly successful career at Pitt and has been the team's best deep threat since Larry Fitzgerald. He's a big, physical receiver that's capable of making big plays at any time and his size allows him to reach up and catch a jump ball. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have great quarterback play in two of the three seasons he was at Pitt. Last year as a junior, he was working with a new starter (Tino Sunseri) who wasn't always incredibly accurate - particularly at delivering a good deep ball, which was Baldwin's strength. Off the field, he had some pretty telling quotes about Tino and showed he's not really afraid of throwing a teammate under the bus - here's a write-up I put together about it: http://www.cardiachill.com/2010/12/8/1863595/jon-baldwin- nfl-bound. In addition, there was the whole draft fiasco where he sent a text message to his reporter saying he was gone, only to retract that statement shortly thereafter. There have also been the familiar whispers about not going hard on every play. It's hard to pick that sort of stuff up just watching the game, but I did observe him to be a pretty good blocker on running plays when he doesn't have a chance at getting the ball. One big thing that I find problematic is his tendency to drop balls. He's made several spectacular plays over his Pitt career, but like Terrell Owens, has dropped some very catchable balls. He'll need to work on that at the next level.
What do you think? Does this change your opinion at all on Baldwin?
Many thanks to Anson for stopping by.