2016 Scouting Report: Devontae Booker, RB, Utah

Second Level Speed

Booker has solid speed, but it’s not close to elite. Booker hasn’t run a 40 due to injury, but the tape gives pretty clear examples that his speed isn’t one of his most spectacular attributes. He didn’t have a lot of opportunities on the tape on breakaway runs, but there are two plays below that illustrate this:


The first play above shows Booker breaking away with a step on defenders, but he’s unable to finish off the run and gets taken down from behind by an LB. The second run, against Cal, is quite impressive, but at the NFL level he probably gets pushed out of bounds by the defender that contacts him.

Fumbles

During the six games watched, Booker fumbled the ball twice. The first fumble was due to a well timed punch by a defensive tackle, while the second time he was concentrating on turning upfield, but lost the ball when his hand hit the ground. That lack of concentration could become an issue at the next level, but there weren’t any severe ball security issues that Booker displayed during his time at Utah.



Passing Game

Pass Blocking

As a pass blocker, Booker needs to show better technique. He is generally good at identifying which defender to block. However, he struggles to get a good punch on blitzers, and shows poor technique on cut blocks, as seen in the plays below:





The first block is very impressive from Booker, and it shows his mental processing ability while blocking. He first pushes on defender on to his lineman, and then moves to another defender. This is an advanced concept, and great work by Booker.

Despite consistently knowing where he should be blocking, Booker clearly lacked initial strength as a blocker. Multiple times on tape he got knocked back by defenders or disengaged from immediately, such as in plays two and three. These are issues Booker will need to shore up, as pass blocking is important for RBs on third downs.

Booker’s cut blocking was typically atrocious. Perhaps his best cut block came against Michigan in the fourth play, but even then he isn’t showing great technique as he attacks the wrong hip of the defender (although it is successful). There were way too many plays where Booker ended up at the feet of the defender to whiff completely, such as the fifth play above.

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Matt Fries

Matt fell in love with football as a young kid, but his passion for the strategy on the game flourished as a hobby during his time in college. Now graduated, Matt loves scouting individual players as well as breaking down strategies teams use to create winning plays. For all of Matt's articles: <strong><a href="http://nflbreakdowns.com/author/MattFries/">Click Here</a>.</strong>