Jamar Chase - Draft Prep

[Hammerstripes]

Not sure if anyone saw the segment the NFL network did on Jamar Chase and his draft prep the other day. I usually don't pay too much attention to the "fluff" that gets aired, but there was one thing that was said that really took me back:

The trainer said that Chase has been working there since he left school and that he's shaved .20 off his 40 time since he's been there. Now, I've always been the guy that said the top 3 WRs were fairly interchangeable, but man, going from 200 pounds to 207 of pure muscle and shaving off time on his 40 is a true testament to his work ethic and draft prep.

It doesn't change my preference to draft O-line at 5, but it does make me feel a lot better knowing that he's been able to fully utilize the offseason and put himself in a much better spot athletically.

[Wes Mantooth]

Fwiw, the Athletic had a really nice piece on him a few days ago that I think everyone should check out if they have a subscription.

https://theathletic.com/2504321/2021/04/13/lsu-jamarr-chase-is-so-good-that-defenders-and-his-dad-agree-the-nfl-draft-has-a-clear-wr1-but-chase-wont-hear-it/

[kdgjr]

(04-21-2021, 01:24 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Fwiw, the Athletic had a really nice piece on him a few days ago that I think everyone should check out if they have a subscription.

https://theathletic.com/2504321/2021/04/13/lsu-jamarr-chase-is-so-good-that-defenders-and-his-dad-agree-the-nfl-draft-has-a-clear-wr1-but-chase-wont-hear-it/

For thiose without...

a’Marr Chase is so good that defenders and his dad agree: The NFL draft has a clear WR1. But Chase won’t hear it

Larry Holder Apr 13, 2021 55 
Jimmy Chase said his son Ja’Marr complained when he decided to hang up two posters of him in the family’s living room inside their Harvey, La. home. Ja’Marr isn’t one to boast about his 84 receptions for 1,780 yards and 20 touchdowns during his sophomore season at LSU. His dad is.
“He’s just even-keel,” Jimmy said. “Do you know how much trouble I had to go through just to put those pictures on the wall right there? He says, ‘Why are you putting that out here, dad?’ I said, ‘Ja’Marr, that’s the Biletnikoff award. OK? I’m going to put that out here!’ That’s the Biletnikoff, and that’s the national championship. He calmed down and was like, ‘OK, dad.’
Jimmy and his wife Toeleah couldn’t be more different in how they approach the news surrounding their wildly talented son, who’s a potential top-five NFL Draft pick later this month.
Toeleah avoids the hype as much as she can. She doesn’t want to hear about it. But she lives with Jimmy, who can’t get enough of the attention his son has received since Ja’Marr’s jaw-dropping performance in LSU’s 2019 national championship season.
“(Ja’Marr) doesn’t even look at anything,” Jimmy said. “He doesn’t even watch TV. He doesn’t watch it.”
Toeleah wasted no time interjecting.
“But you do,” she said.
“All the time,” Jimmy said with a laugh.
“Every day, all day,” Toeleah said.
[img=756x1008]https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2021/04/08133050/Resized_20210405_202220.jpg[/img]
Ja’Marr Chase was not happy when his dad hung posters of him up in their Louisiana home. (Photo courtesy of the Chase family)
“And the Twitter machine,” Jimmy said unabashedly. “I have to keep up with everything, especially right now. I’m just keeping an eye just to see how things are moving. But he doesn’t watch it and he really doesn’t want to talk about it. I’d say ‘Ja’Marr, you know they said this.’ He’d say, ‘Really, dad?’ (As in why are you telling me this.) They’d tag him in the tweets and things. I’d be excited and I’d go run and tell him. He’d just say, ‘Yeah, dad.’ Just like it’s nothing.”
Toeleah stood a few feet away from Jimmy as he carried on about what’s happened and what’s happening with Ja’Marr. She sipped her coffee wearing a T-shirt with “Blessed Mom” splashed proudly across her chest. It’s her subtle way of professing her pride for Ja’Marr, who turned 21 on March 1.
“She just has to listen to me because who else am I going to talk to?” Jimmy said both in jest and in all seriousness.
Then Toeleah admitted that there was a point where she let a momentary span of media weakness seep in.
One day Toeleah just happened to search Ja’Marr’s name on Google shortly after last year’s NFL Scouting Combine. She scrolled through the entries and stumbled upon this headline: “Who’s the most respected WR at the combine? The LSU wideout still in Baton Rouge.”
She couldn’t help herself. And then she read, and it hit her.
This is happening. This is really happening.
Ja’Marr wasn’t even draft eligible at the time. And yet the top cornerbacks in the 2020 NFL Draft couldn’t refrain from bringing him up.
The question: Who’s the toughest receiver you faced in college football?
“It was Ja’Marr Chase,” former Alabama cornerback Trevon Diggs said. “He’s real good. He’s a stud. Quick, fast, has good hands, runs good routes, he’s a baller.
“I respect that man.”
Ja’Marr was only 19 at the time of the statement.
An Alabama player saying those kinds of words about an LSU player probably makes the Tuscaloosa houndstooth crowd’s skin crawl. Chase piled up six catches for 140 yards and a touchdown during the Tigers’ win in 2019.
The avalanche continued.
Former Alabama safety Xavier McKinney on the toughest receiver he faced: “It was probably Chase or (Justin) Jefferson.”
Former Clemson cornerback A.J. Terrell went into the national championship game as one of the country’s premier defensive backs. He left having to reaffirm to NFL teams he’s still a first-round prospect, which he still was, after squaring off against Chase, who finished LSU’s perfect season with nine receptions for 221 yards and two touchdowns against Clemson.
“Definitely Ja’Marr Chase (was the toughest matchup),” Terrell said. “Going out there on the biggest stage, we had a great game. I made a few plays early in the game and he made a few plays in the first half, and we went back and forth throughout the whole game.”
The conversation with Toeleah and Jimmy spun into this question: Are you ready for what’s coming?
“No, I’m not ready,” Toeleah said.
“But we’re here!” Jimmy boasted. “What are we going to do?”
Both of them know who’s ready, though. Unequivocally.

---

Archbishop Rummel high school in Metairie, La. grew into a perennial prep football giant once Jay Roth took over as head coach in 1995. He guided the school to multiple state championships before stepping down in 2019, though he remains at the school as the athletic director.
“I texted him (Ja’Marr) the other day and I said, ‘Ja’Marr, you’re bringing me out of retirement,’” Roth said. “Because now I’m doing interviews about you again. I haven’t talked football with anybody for three years and now he’s getting ready for the draft, people are calling me. I had a guy call me from Cincinnati today and he wants to do a podcast.”
What makes this so amusing is that Ja’Marr’s primary athletic focus when enrolling at Rummel wasn’t football.
“I never really saw (football) coming,” Ja’Marr said. “I always wanted to be a basketball player when I grew up. When I got to Rummel and started playing football, I just fell in love with football more.”
As you’d predict, his father fist-pumped this decision.
“Basketball was his thing,” Jimmy Chase said. “I wanted him to play football. He was good at football. He don’t like nobody to touch him, but he was always fast. He played running back. And then at one point he tells me that he doesn’t want to play basketball anymore. I was like ‘Really?’ Then I’d turn around and say ‘Yes!’
“Football was going to be the little side thing. Then football came so easy to him.”
You would have thought someone of Roth’s coaching stature would’ve known about Ja’Marr and his football potential before coming to Rummel, right?
“I didn’t really know of him when he got to Rummel,” Roth said. “I know he wanted to play basketball when he got here.”
Ja’Marr ended up being a three-sport athlete with basketball, track and … football. Still, it took Roth a minute to figure out Ja’Marr’s potential.
“His first game his sophomore year against U(niversity) High (Baton Rouge) where he caught four touchdowns,” Roth said. “He set all the records in receiving his sophomore year. I was telling myself, ‘He can’t be this good as a sophomore.’
“Evidently I must have believed myself because I didn’t give him the ball enough. He was that good.”
Roth circled back to one theme with Ja’Marr: humility and gratitude. Those attributes have been much of the refrain seemingly his entire life.
“Being this day and age where kids and parents aren’t afraid to knock on a coach’s door and not ask but tell them (to involve them more),” Roth said. “Never once did Jimmy or Ja’Marr Chase knock on my door and ask why isn’t my son this or is he that. Never once. They just trusted the process the whole time. You just don’t get that from athletes and parents these days, especially with a blue-chip guy like Ja’Marr.
“When he won the Biletnikoff (award for outstanding receiver in college football), this was pretty cool,” Roth said. “When he was at the event, him and coach (Ed) Orgeron called me that night from New York to say that they had won the award and to thank me. Ja’Marr called me and coach (Nick) Monica (current Rummel coach). That was pretty nice for him to think about his high school coach when all of this was going on.”
Ja’Marr will become the highest NFL Draft pick from Rummel in the school’s history later this month. The program jumped onto the national landscape with multiple championships. Roth views Ja’Marr’s success on a different level.
“Well there’s no doubt that the most sought after jersey number of anybody who’s come to school here in the last four years has been No. 1,” Roth said. “Definitely everybody knows that jersey.”
But what about his high school basketball legacy?
“That’s exactly why (I went there),” Ja’Marr said with a laugh. “And that ain’t what I left for.”

---

J.J. McCleskey knows talent when he sees it. The former seven-year NFL veteran is able to say he has coached Ja’Marr Chase and Alabama receiver and top prospect DeVonta Smith.
Before he took the job as Tulane’s secondary coach, McCleskey served as the head coach of the Bootleggers, a prominent Louisiana 7-on-7 team, during the time Smith and Chase played for the squad. Smith played both cornerback and wide receiver his junior year before sticking strictly to receiver his senior year. Smith and Chase missed each other by a year since Smith, an Amite, La. native, was a year above Chase in school. Chase teamed up with former LSU teammate Terrace Marshall for their senior seasons to make quite the dynamic 7-on-7 duo.
McCleskey admittedly hesitates to make comparisons if they’re not valid. He never hesitated with Chase and Smith, though, and he never seemed surprised.
“Ja’Marr is a faster Cris Carter,” McCleskey said.
He quickly followed up.
“DeVonta Smith reminds me of Jerry Rice,” McCleskey said.
What makes those prototypes so interesting is that arguably every NFL franchise would take Carter or Rice in the top 10 of any draft. If you throw in former Alabama wideout Jaylen Waddle into the mix, there might be three receivers drafted in the top 10.
For reference, here’s a recent look at how many times multiple receivers came off the board in the first 10 selections:

• 2017: No. 5 Corey Davis, No. 7 Mike Williams, No. 9 John Ross
• 2015: No. 4 Amari Cooper, No. 7 Kevin White
• 2014: No. 4 Sammy Watkins, No. 7 Mike Evans
• 2011: No. 4 A.J. Green, No. 6 Julio Jones
• 2009: No. 7 Darrius Heyward-Bey, No. 10 Michael Crabtree
• 2007: No. 2 Calvin Johnson, No. 9 Ted Ginn Jr.
• 2005: No. 3 Braylon Edwards, No. 7 Troy Williamson, No. 10 Mike Williams
• 2004: No. 3 Larry Fitzgerald, No. 7 Roy Williams, No. 9 Reggie Williams
  

Of those examples, only the 2011 class yielded two legitimate NFL superstars with Green and Jones. So the percentages might point to only one of Chase or Smith or Waddle becoming Pro Bowl/All Pro-type receivers. So why does McCleskey believe Chase and Smith can buck the trend?
“Both of those guys not only have football IQ, which is learning the playbook and all of those things,” McCleskey said. “But it’s also about football awareness. It’s rare to have all of that. I’m not saying that I called it back then. But to be discussing those two guys in the way I’m talking now, I’m not surprised at all.
“Some kids can’t handle uncommon,” McCleskey said. “Those guys are uncommon. When you’re uncommon, you have to work uncommon. And both of those guys have embraced that.”
The other unique tie-in comes with having college football’s No. 1 wide receivers in two consecutive seasons not only come from southeast Louisiana, but come through the same 7-on-7 program.
“If you think of the last two years of college football, two guys from Louisiana completely dominated the game,” McCleskey said. “We’re talking about SEC coaches who get paid a lot of money to stop those guys. And none of them could figure it out.”
Chase captured the Biletnikoff award for 2019. Smith won that award and every other one, including the Heisman Trophy, in 2020. Smith saw his draft stock rise through his play last season, while Chase, who opted out of the 2020 season, could only watch.
And that wasn’t easy for Chase to do.

---

Chase was one of many top prospects to announce in August that he would voluntarily opt out of the 2020 college football season, and so he had to watch his teammates play from the couch of his parents’ home. LSU’s 2020 season didn’t exactly resemble the program’s mighty 2019 campaign. The Tigers finished 5-5.
“Watching them guys play games that I knew we were supposed to win was the hardest thing I had to do,” Chase said. “I had to sit there and watch it sometimes. Sometimes I turned it off.”
Chase and his family did not make the decision to opt out lightly. The choice came down to a few questions: How would the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions hinder Ja’Marr’s health? Would it be worth the risk? And with such an uncertain 2020 season, would playing actually hamper his draft stock given his prospects for the NFL couldn’t realistically go any higher?
Add it all up and that’s why he sat out the season.
“My decision came off my family,” Ja’Marr said. “A lot of family based moments, I had a lot of stuff going on with my family at the time so I wanted to take care of that. But during the season, I didn’t want to play a few games and then opt out because that doesn’t look right. If I’m going to play some games, I might as well finish the whole season.”
Ja’Marr stayed in Baton Rouge initially after opting out in August. He remained close with his teammates, especially the receiving corps at first. But once the season cranked up, Ja’Marr moved back home, feeling a sense of isolation without football.
“Going through that was tough,” Jimmy said. “Really tough. Add that to the season they were having and all of that kind of stuff, it really took a toll on him. I’d have to remind him how he’s going to be a professional now. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions, business decisions, because it’s about your future now. We went through that for a couple of weeks at home. …
“We kept him close to home. We noticed that he was struggling a little bit. Life without football. Life without a team. His whole life changed. It was his first time not playing sports since he was a young kid. Gamedays were the hardest day.”
One thing jumped out to Jimmy as they watched games together, though. He never fully grasped his son’s football IQ.
“We watched the games with him,” Jimmy said. “He would call the plays before the snap was gone.  And he would say how Terrace (Marshall) needs to do this because the defense is about to do this. And Racey (McMath) needs to do this so he needs to watch out for this. He’d call the play and I was like, ‘Damn!’ It would happen just like he said. So sitting out actually helped in that sense. He never really watched football. He was always playing. Now all he could do was watch it. He told me and I saw how much it helped him.”
Watching games with Ja’Marr, his parents sensed his pent-up energy. He was healthy, but he wasn’t playing. The energy fed right into Ja’Marr’s passion for working out. He’d run to the gym often after games to let that energy free.
The regimented workout routine really kicked up about six months ago.
“He’s been at EXOS (A Dallas-based training facility) since November,” Jimmy said. “They had an opt-out session group that started out where they would work out three days a week. So he started out there at the end of October or early November. That lasted until the end of December. Then in January, he started getting into the more combine workouts. He’s been working hard and getting stronger. That’s really the only thing that’s been keeping him sane is working. That’s all he could do.”
It paid off.
Ja’Marr reinforced his draft stock by producing these numbers at LSU Pro Day: a 4.38 40-yard dash, a 41-inch vertical leap and 11-foot, two-inch broad jump. The numbers nearly mirrored physical freaks like Julio Jones and DK Metcalf from the respective workouts at the NFL Scouting Combine.
“I would say I kind of surprised myself,” Ja’Marr said after pro day. “I was going for a low 4.4, but last night I was feeling good about my starts, I felt like I could’ve got a 4.3 this morning.”
Later that afternoon, Nike announced via Twitter that Ja’Marr had become their latest NFL player under the shoe company’s endorsement umbrella.
Relief has almost set in for Ja’Marr’s parents after he blew away his pro day workouts. But even before that, was there ever a fear that Ja’Marr might have become a forgotten figure for this year’s draft after a year away from the game?
Toeleah turned and looked right at Jimmy.
“No, not with me around,” Jimmy said.
“I was about to say that,” Toeleah said.
Ja’Marr’s NFL journey is about to begin. Maybe it will take him to Atlanta (a tough ask given the Chases bleed black and gold) or Cincinnati or Miami or Detroit. The mock drafts and projections will disappear. And not even Jimmy will be able to talk Ja’Marr’s ear off about what he’s reading or watching through the barrage of draft coverage.
“You know it’s funny that the tables have turned,” Jimmy said. “Because I’d try to groom him, and now he’ll say, ‘Dad, I’ve got it.’”

[kdgjr]

sorry for the wall of words.

[Joelist]

I heard he can do this:

https://youtu.be/b2dehpRFyLA

[masonbengals fan]

Even though I'm on board drafting Sewell. Chase is sure tempting.

[Nicomo Cosca]

The EXOS training he did was some next level stuff. I started a thread in the draft section with a video about it. You can see why he completely killed it at his pro day.

[*bfine32*]

Chase had plenty time to practice pre-draft drills while D-Smith was setting records, winning National Championships, and earning the Heisman

[WVUHomer]

Good for JaMarr's family that they will have to bleed Orange and Black now lol.

[Hammerstripes]

(04-21-2021, 08:03 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Chase had plenty time to practice pre-draft drills while D-Smith was setting records, winning National Championships, and earning the Heisman

Yep.  Pretty much a duplicate of Chase's sophomore season - minus the Heisman.  I still think that title game for Smith was the most dominant WR game I've ever seen.

[Nicomo Cosca]

(04-18-2021, 02:04 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Sure I did; but I did it in threads about Sewell. 

(04-21-2021, 08:03 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Chase had plenty time to practice pre-draft drills while D-Smith was setting records, winning National Championships, and earning the Heisman

I didn’t realize this thread was about Devonta Smith...

[*bfine32*]

(04-21-2021, 09:48 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: I didn’t realize this thread was about Devonta Smith...

This thread is about Chase prep for the pre draft drills 

[Nicomo Cosca]

(04-22-2021, 12:03 AM)bfine32 Wrote: This thread is about Chase prep for the pre draft drills 

Right. So why bring up Smith at all (other than to throw some passive aggressive shade about Chase opting out?).

[*bfine32*]

(04-21-2021, 09:16 PM)Hammerstripes Wrote: Yep.  Pretty much a duplicate of Chase's sophomore season - minus the Heisman.  I still think that title game for Smith was the most dominant WR game I've ever seen.

I've never seen such a separation of 2 players based on pre-season drills. When the whistle blew to end the 2020 CFB season Chase and Smith were neck and neck fof WR#1.

Since then Smith has skipped workouts and Chase has shown what doing nothing but working out for one year can do. DV has went from #3OA talk to mid 1st round because of it. 

[*bfine32*]

(04-22-2021, 12:10 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Right. So why bring up Smith at all (other than to throw some passive aggressive shade about Chase opting out?).

To contrast two different routes? The OP actually brings up how Chase has separated himself from Smith in this preseason.

[NATI BENGALS]

(04-22-2021, 12:11 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I've never seen such a separation of 2 players based on pre-season drills. When the whistle blew to end the 2020 CFB season Chase and Smith were neck and neck fof WR#1.

Since then Smith has skipped workouts and Chase has shown what doing nothing but working out for one year can do. DV has went from #3OA talk to mid 1st round because of it. 

Idk if it was BS or what but when they were talking about his hand still being bruised and ligament damage at the first Bama pro day I got a little scared.

Unless I saw the hand at 100% before the draft I would be super hesitant to draft a WR with one healthy hand in the first round.

Maybe we get them both. We go get Chase and then the skinny kid with the bum hand falls way further than expected like players do every year. Bama has a history of sending damaged goods to the NFL.

[NATI BENGALS]

I don’t think Sewell has been busting his ass like Chase. I saw his training vid. Seems like he got in to the process a little late. With no excuse really IMO. Maybe that is where his work ethic and maturity questions are coming from.