The difference between Chad Bumphis and other training camp heroes of the past to me is that we've already seen Bumphis perform.
With other guys in the past like Chris Hogan, you kept hearing about him and you kept seeing him on Hard Knocks, and all you wanted to happen in preseason was to see this guy get some balls thrown his direction, get some opportunities, and then SEE what he does. You want to SEE if he capitalizes on those opportunities. But it usually never happens, or when it does it's pretty milquetoast. Chris Hogan made like ONE play in preseason that was worthy of any kind of note. Hell, Michael Egnew could do that even as a rookie. And when I looked at Roberto Wallace's catches, what I saw were catches...but not play making. I saw the defense giving up space freely and the quarterback doing a good job dropping the ball in there.
Chad Bumphis on the other hand has already gotten opportunities, already been fed the ball, and already made plays. He made the plays too, nobody else did. It wasn't necessarily the defense giving up the plays, or the quarterback making it easy for him.
I think he has quite literally made something above-normal happen every time the ball has been thrown to him, except one time...the play where he popped it up and there was a defender waiting to grab it out of the air.
The other play he had deep that was a near interception, he actually did good on that play. The corner had deep leverage on the play and the quarterback needed to throw it back shoulder, but he didn't. He threw the fade instead. Chad Bumphis could not hope to get position on the ball, but he fought and scrapped and used his hands to get whatever position or leverage he possibly could on the ball, and that's the reason the corner could not come down with the ball with both feet inbounds. So many receivers out there would be thrown that ball and just run out the route and watch as the defender came down with it. There was a desperation in Bumphis' physicality and hand work on the play that made it too difficult for the corner to stay in bounds and come down with it.
Then on the catches, he's created 3 missed tackles already, which currently leads the NFL amongst wide receivers in preseason. That's what I mean by the guy creating plays and not just accepting plays that have already been made for him. Did he get that 1st down on 4th down? No he missed it by inches. But he was HAMMERED immediately after catching that ball, and he held on. That's what I mean by above-normal. Against the Jaguars he was only in for 5 pass snaps but was targeted twice and made a really great grab over the seam for a 23 yard catch and run, and then on a 3rd & 2 he caught a ball that was placed way too high to where he had to jump, the defender got on him and by all means it looked like he might be tackled short of the 1st down because of the bad ball placement, but he planted his feet, swiveled and lunged for that extra yard to make it a 3 yard catch and a 1st down. That's above-normal. That 45 yard play in the first game, that was above-normal.
So that's really the difference between this guy and guys you've seen in the past that have drawn the rave reviews in camp but either never got the opportunities in preseason or just didn't make anything great looking happen when they did.
