08-02-2007, 12:11 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Both of them
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 10,225
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Ellison is Bills’ ballhawk
The Buffalo News: Bills & NFL: Ellison is Bills’ ballhawk
Quote:
Buffalo Bills linebacker Keith Ellison made three interceptions in the first two days of training camp, and he would have taken all of them back for touchdowns if the plays came in a real game.
“Guys are asking me if I’m paying off the quarterbacks,” Ellison laughed.
It won’t pay opposing quarterbacks to throw in Ellison’s direction this season if the young linebacker continues his rapid progress.
Ellison was the most surprising young player on the Bills’ team last year. He was drafted in the sixth round out of Oregon State. Yet he wound up playing nine full games due to injuries to Takeo Spikes and Angelo Crowell. He played so well the Bills’ coaches marked him down for a starting outside linebacker job in March after they parted ways with Spikes.
“Boy, he is having a tremendous camp so far,” said Bills defensive coordinator Perry Fewell. “I’ll tell you this, he was a consistent guy last year. He just went out and did his job, and that’s what he’s doing again this year.”
Fewell and head coach Dick Jauron put a high priority on speed on their defense. Ellison brings good quickness and mobility. He was a safety his first two college seasons, and he was surprisingly good dropping into pass coverage as a rookie.
“He has definitely benefited from being a safety,” Fewell said. “I was joking with the linebacker coaches that we were in a man coverage and Keith had coverage on a tight end. I said, ‘Why is Keith playing off the tight end?’ During the season we let him go down and work one-on-one against [Lee] Evans and [Peerless] Price and those kind of guys, and he would press them and he would fare well. I said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to use his talents.’ ”
“Last year was a big surprise to me,” Ellison said. “Coming into camp I was just hoping to make the team. Then after I made the roster for the first game I was just hoping to be on special teams. Then Takeo goes down and they tell me I’m going in and everything got rushed forward. That experience I got last year I wouldn’t trade for anything because it’s going to help me this year.”
Ellison also picked the defense up quickly last year. While he says he’s “no Rhodes scholar,” Ellison is only two classes shy of getting a degree in history. He also scored 36 on the Wonderlic intelligence test before the draft. The smartest quarterbacks typically score 35 to 40. The average score for draftees on the 12-minute, 50- question exam reportedly is 21.
The reason Ellison lasted until the sixth round was lack of bulk. By the end of last season he was only 223 pounds. So his mission this offseason was to get up to 230 pounds without adding any fat. Gaining seven pounds of pure muscle is not easy.
“I hit 230 the first day of camp,” Ellison said. “I give a lot of credit to the strength coaches. They put us on a nutrition plan that worked.”
Ellison ate three meals and three good snacks every day since last season ended.
“I tried eating throughout the day because I’m not good at eating a lot at one sitting,” Ellison said. “I love chicken. I’d make chicken and rice, because it’s so easy to cook and I don’t like to spend a lot of time cooking.”
With a little more bulk and a year’s experience, the Bills think Ellison will be an asset this year.
“I think he is making that jump from Year One to Year Two because the knowledge is there, the knowhow is there, and you’re seeing some of his playmaking abilities show up,” Fewell said.
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Ellison is Bills’ ballhawk
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