INDIANAPOLIS — Matt Terpening, the Colts' assistant director of college scouting, discusses what he saw in wide receiver Dezmon Patmon, the Colts' sixth-round (212th-overall) pick in this year's NFL Draft (excerpts from interviews done with local media members, as well as with Colts.com):
Patmon is obviously a sixth-round pick, a big guy with a lot of speed. If it clicks at the NFL level, what will have to happen for him?
Terpening: "So Dezmon went to the East-West Shrine Game, and that's a pretty big all-star game, and he had a really good week. And we saw him during the year, I actually saw him play live against Arizona State, which is probably his best game from this season. But Dezmon's got size, he ran really well at the Combine, he tested well, he's got good makeup and he's smart. And so I think the one thing in college football is that what you'll see is a majority of teams that run the spread it's four wideouts, and not every single college football team runs the same routes that NFL teams run. So that's something that we really look at the athlete, can the athlete learn to run the routes that we want our receivers to learn? So that's going to be probably something that a lot of guys that come out of that offense are going to have to learn to do, but we're excited to get a guy like Dezmon there because he's got the physical traits production, he's smart and he's got size."
How critical was the pre-draft process in further evaluating Patmon's whole body of work?
Terpening: "Dezmon, he had a great week at the East-West Shrine Game, and then he had a great career up at Washington State and he was a guy that performed really well at the Combine. And we spent a lot of time with him at the East-West and at the Combine. And he's got really good makeup and he's got good physical traits. He's got size. He ran well, plays fast on tape. And we like his upside too. We think that there's some things that he can work on, but our coaches are excited that he can get there."
