The more I watch D'Wayne Eskridge the more I get an appreciation for what a dog he is on the football field. There are guys who run their routes, run the offense, do their job, catch the football, very business-like. Then there are guys who look at the opponent in the eyes and do everything they can to steal their will. The more I look, Eskridge is very much the latter. Ultra competitive.
You see it in his blocking. I rarely, if ever, see the guy he's blocking head-on end up making the play on the football, even if the ball comes right to him.
You also see it in Eskridge's hands. He's got really good, really quick hands. Great coordination. He can break fingers, and he does it frequently. He'll do it at the line of scrimmage to get off press, and he does it when a corner tries to come up to him and lock on for leverage during a run play.
He didn't do a whole lot of running the football from sweeps or end-arounds and the like, but when he did, he looked great doing it, and he's got all the instincts with the football in his hands for making guys miss that you'd hope for his type. Just because he didn't do it much, doesn't mean it isn't there. He was a dangerous return man this year, and equally dangerous on end-arounds.
But D'Wayne's experience on the outside and getting off press, in particular, have to make him more attractive than some players. That's when you start thinking DeSean Jackson, and not just Curtis Samuel.
The thing you'd wish would stop happening with Eskridge is the lapses in concentration that see him drop the easy ones. I've watched him high-stab the ball above his head on the run without leaving his feet, which is actually really challenging as most receivers will prefer to leave their feet in order to quiet their eye and see the ball coming in. I've also seen him go up and pluck the ball from inside a crowd. So you know he's got ability. But I'll be damned if I haven't seen like 6 or 7 drops in just four games or so. And I've read something about drops plaguing him early on in his career at Western Michigan.
He had 8 catches for 295 yards and 5 touchdowns on 8 catchable slant routes this year. That's insanity. He was 1st in the NCAA with 18.8 yards per target versus Man coverage. He averaged 32.5 yards per catch versus Man. Equally insane.
We're still in the process of information gathering I think, and so I get the feeling this will be a bit neck and neck, but for now with what he laid on the table in Mobile, I think I will have to have Eskridge above Atwell, and also the #2 senior WR in the class. I really like Tutu Atwell a lot but I'm also a believer in resume and Eskridge is the guy who showed up to Mobile, got measured which is a pretty big thing since there seems to be some disagreement as to Atwell's body mass, and D'Wayne also went out and faced guys like Keith Taylor, Cameron Bynum, and Benjamin St. Juste all week, and straight up dominated them. Et tu, Tutu?