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The St. Louis Rams were lucky last season. In the 4th round of the 2012 draft they struck gold when they drafted Chris Givens from Wake Forest, in the 4th round. The rookie became a key player in a struggling offense, that really needed players to stand up.
Chris Givens led the Rams with 698 yards. He was on his way to becoming just a deep player receiver, or at least what I thought before X, made another video. This video was also 27+ minutes long like the Brandon Gibson video, but this time I watched it twice to get a better feel of Sam Bradford's number one target heading into the season.
Notes from video
- He became a more complete receiver as the season went on.
- Started fighting for the extra yards.
- Get's solid YAC
- Not a natural hands catcher, lot's of balls got into his body. (I don't have a problem with)
- He had some drops
- He easily blows the top off the defense
- Drops passes in traffic
- Looks like a solid route runner, but the speed really helps.
- I like the way they started involving him more in the offense, end arounds, screens, curls, deep in and out routes, not just 9 routes.
- He isn't physical against defenders going for the ball, but after the catch he can be keeps legs churning to get more yards
- He didn't get pressed much, but when he was he fought off it pretty well.
- He was rarely in the slot
- Didn't really catch passes up the middle.
- Would have been a bigger deep threat, if he and Bradford had more chemistry.
This video showed me a different side of Given's. At first I thought he was just a speed guy, but he isn't. Don't get me wrong, he'll be "money" running deep routes, but he can run short routes too. He'll get open more because corner backs will worry about his deep route potential. Honestly, I'm surprised he doesn't get compared with Torrey Smith more often.
However, there will be two issues with Givens going forward, and it's not his fault. Will defenses view him as a number one and double cover him, limiting his chance to attack defenses on deep routes? Also, will Bradford throw accurate deep balls to him? Last season he had an excuse, since he had little or no chemistry with Givens, and his offensive line was poor, but this season he will have to connect on the deep ball more with Givens.
Givens is a better receiver than he is given credit for. The Rams now need another receiver to compliment him.