Lee Smith at the Senior Bowl, Day 3

Notes from yesterdays Senior Bowl practice mentioning Lee Smith:

It's not a good tight end class so there are a lot of opportunities this year for an under-the-radar guy to move up over the next few months and come off the board higher than anticipated as opposed to a year with a deeper tight end class. Don't be surprised if Marshall TE Lee Smith emerges as one of those guys. In a class that features many undersized H-back/WR types, Smith, at 6-5 7/8 and 269 pounds, has prototypical NFL tight end size. He does an average to good job of blocking. He can improve his footwork, but when he locks on he's strong enough to sustain the block. Tennessee's Luke Stocker is the best blocking tight end, but Smith isn't far behind.

The biggest problem with Smith's game is that he doesn't have the top-end speed to stretch the field and he's not explosive enough getting in and out of breaks. But I do think he has enough quickness and body control to separate as a short-to-intermediate target in the passing game. The thing that jumped out to me more than anything this week is that he has such good hands. He can adjust to the ball below his waist, which a lot of big tight ends struggle to do. We saw him catch the ball over his head and also adjust to poorly thrown balls away from his frame. Most importantly for the position, he has strong hands in traffic.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/draft2011/notebook?page=seniorbowl0126&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnfl%2fdraft2011%2fnotebook%3fpage%3dseniorbowl0126

TE Lee Smith, Marshall: We knew he’d be a blocker. He also showed the same good hands in the short game that was there on film. But Smith doesn’t do anything after the catch. Although bigger and stronger than a recent draft pick like Dennis Pitta, he is much like the Ravens rookie because he doesn’t do much after the catch.

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/senior-bowl-day-3-risers-fallers-and-steady-as-they-go/