Attyla the Hawk
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Throwdown":2fb0jmkz said:With how little we throw the ball, you gotta catch the ball. A lot of those look like straight up trying to get up field before he has the ball, that can be coached up. I just don't see how he's a better prospect than Matthews, Coleman, or even ASJ when it comes to pass catchers
Matthews needs to be more consistent in catching the ball. I would say he's average -- maybe even a shade under average at that. He makes a LOT of catches, some of really spectacular variety. But he had a good number of drops and I'd say most of the ones I saw were just on him.
Generally, I don't necessarily ding prospects for consistency issues. I look for the ability to flash good hands occasionally, and a genuine tendency to try to catch the ball with the hands in the correct position. Matthews, when he does drop them, it's just not securing balls in his hands. He isn't a body catcher. It's much harder to convert a body catcher (like Coleman) into a consistent hand catcher than it is to just get better at hand catching.
Consistency comes with work. The NCAA is just too restrictive with their practice limits to really work on that. Unless you are just naturally great at catching the ball, it's going to be an issue. Those things are correctable. In general, I like the basis from where Matthews starts in terms of catching the ball correctly. With the body of work and the catches he does make, he clearly doesn't have hands of stone.
Coleman is a guy I've long had a nagging concern with. He doesn't pluck the ball out of the air with his hands with regularity. He also looks a little awkward when he does catch balls (a liability shared by Benjamin). Balls tend to just eat him up like a tricky grounder to a utility infielder. He didn't improve his tracking of the ball in the air in my estimation, nor did he really grow in his catching skills. By all accounts I've heard -- he is a very willing worker. But the results this year has been really disappointing to me.
I don't think it's all on the knee. I'm just talking ball skills. He just doesn't appear to have developed this year in that regard. I would have liked to see him flash improvement in that area.