Ah Ha! So THAT Is Who We Drafted at Receiver!
By Matt Cordon (kh). Filed in 2007 Draft |
It is not very surprising, but Dallas plans to use fourth-round pick Isaiah Stanback as a receiver rather than a quarterback. The Blue and Silver has a thread about him, and the general sentiment there is that Dallas still should have tried to jump up and take Meachum or Jarrett.
This is from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
IRVING – The Cowboys wanted a receiver, but the one they drafted hasn’t played the position since 2003. And he admittedly hasn’t been catching too many passes lately.
“But believe me, I’ll be getting a lot of catches in now,” said Washington quarterback Isaiah Stanback, the Cowboys fourth-round draft pick who will move to receiver.
The Cowboys believe Stanback’s athletic ability will lead him to become one of the growing number of players who successfully transitioned from college quarterback to NFL receiver.
“Without being foolish, he has the talent and the skills of a receiver that could be a one or a two,” Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said. “Certainly he has the speed and the quickness and the size and the work ethic. It would be foolish to project him as to one or two, but he certainly has that and that’s one of the reasons we’re excited about him. We hope he could develop like that.”
At 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, Stanback has the physical skills to play the part. And his track record shows he has the athleticism to play just about any part, on any field.
As a freshman at Washington, he caught 10 passes for 143 yards. The next three years he was the Huskies starting quarterback. The Baltimore Orioles selected him as a center fielder in the 45th round of the 2006 baseball amateur draft, even though he hadn’t played baseball since he was in high school.
“Think about little league baseball — What do they do? They put the best player at shortstop,” said former Cowboys scouting director Gil Brandt about the transitioning of quarterbacks to receivers. “It’s the same thing: The idea is to get as many former shortstops or quarterbacks as you can and move them to different positions.”
Such thinking led the Pittsburgh Steelers to draft former Indiana quarterback Antwaan Randle El and move him to receiver. They had already done it once with former Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart.
Former Arkansas quarterback Matt Jones, Georgia quarterback Hines Ward, Missouri quarterback Brad Smith and North Carolina quarterback Donald Curry have all made homes in the NFL as receivers. So has Cowboys third receiver Patrick Crayton, who played at NE Oklahoma.
Not that Stanback has followed the careers of the aforementioned players. He admits he hasn’t. But Stanback knew this transition was coming.
“Really (I knew it) my whole career,” Stanback said. “I’ve always preferred to play quarterback, but everybody always said I would be a receiver. Any time you have someone tall and fast and at my height and can run fast, that was always a possibility.”
The biggest knock on Stanback is his foot. He suffered a badly sprained right foot in a game on Oct. 4. The injury ended his season, and he was in a protective boot for more than a month. He said the doctors believe he will be fully recovered by June.
As to when he will be an accomplished receiver?
“We’re going to find out,” Stanback said. “I’m a fast learner.”
Monday, April 30th 2007 at 8:20 am
Patrick Crayton played at NW Oklahoma or Northwestern Oklahoma State University instead of NE Oklahoma.
Monday, April 30th 2007 at 10:47 pm
Not only that, but they called Ronald Curry of the Raiders Donald Curry. This sloppy journalism is killing me. What’s the point of even reading a story if you feel you have to doublecheck any fact they give you that you don’t already know out of hand. The story loses all validity.