Andre Iosivas & Chase Brown article.

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Paul Dehner did a peice about Yoshi, Brown, and their new wide receiver coach Drew Lieberman for the Athletic.

Full Article: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5588373/2024/06/26/bengals-andrei-iosivas-chase-brown/

Quote:They were relentless.

And rough around the edges.

“I got really lucky,” Lieberman said. “It was mostly them. It was their coachability, their willingness to commit to this. They are the most on-point, dedicated, nice, incredible kids. Not to mention, neither of them knew a goddamn thing, so I had no bad habits to break.”

Lieberman laughs at the side-by-side video now. The differences in speed, stride length, hands and breaks looked almost comical.

“The main thing is the technique of it, just running full stride,” Brown said. “Route running is an art. You see a lot of guys, the top-tier guys make it look easy, but there is a lot that goes into it, full stride, break points, hip shifts. There’s a ton of things that break down a good route runner.”

Quote:“The whole first month of February all we did was work on being ball stoppers,” Lieberman said. “Chase became confident catching the ball. When he first came to me, every time he would catch the ball, his head would snap back first, he would flinch away from the ball. There’s no consistency with the way you shoot your hands, you are just praying you catch it.”

What followed were days upon days of catching through lunges, squats, on one leg, laying down and constantly simulating every contortion, break type and adverse condition for a catch. They rebuilt the basics.

Spending hours on the field with a receiver coach repeating these specific motions isn’t possible with the limited practice time allowed in the NFL. Every rep is valuable for learning scheme and functionality with the offense. You can talk it and emphasize it, but development can often fall by the wayside in the NFL churn.

Truly dedicating to the repetition of catching for somebody who never really did so is the gap in the market Lieberman preys upon.

“Make him fearless, make him confident, keep his head steady,” Lieberman said. “Then create consistent catching mechanics once you stabilize everything. As soon as the ball started slowing down, the game started slowing down. Chase looked like a running back when I started with him, like an uncoordinated route runner. Now this guy looks like a starting slot receiver in the NFL.”