Charlie Gantt Impresses at the NFL Combine

 

Charlie Gantt had NFL teams smiling today after his performance at the NFL combine. Photo courtesy of Starr Portice.

 

Spartan Charlie Gantt was one of four from the MSU program invited to the 2011 NFL Combine in preparation for the NFL Draft. I will be giving you some of the results on how he did, and this year I will be reporting some additional information.

 

As regular readers of Spartan Nation know, each year with the help of my friends in the NFL I put out a mock draft. This year a few of them who are in Indianapolis for the combine agreed to text me some quick thoughts on how they think the MSU guys did.

 

As you can imagine I will not use their names. If I did they couldn’t help us.

 

Gantt measured at 6’4” and weighed 252 pounds. He ran the forty according to NFL Network at 4.89 and 4.92. One person who works for an NFL team that I know who has interest in Gantt had his best time on their stop watch at 4.84.

 

 

I had three friends who work for the NFL or NFL teams say this to me about Charlie:

 

#1 He has great hips and we love his commitment to blocking. He sticks, and once he engages a defender, he doesn’t release until he wants to were our thoughts coming into today. We were really impressed with his hands. MSU didn’t really use him a lot downfield so we thought they were covering a weakness, but we didn’t see it. Love his transition in and out and his ability to locate.

 

#2 I think Gantt was underutilized at Michigan State based on what we saw. Probably no fair on our part, but he has better hands down the field and the tape didn’t show that more based on reps than drops. Super hips and an acceptable punch.

 

#3 Charles did some things we haven’t seen him do. He showed he can finish and accelerate. We liked him, but had questions with his ability out of medium and long range and we are not as concerned now. Love that he can be coached up and likes it. Really liked to see his ability to locate and make the catch.

 

Gantt ran a 12.2 in the 60 yd shuffle and had a vertical jump of 30.5” and a broad jump of 9’4” to finish off the big four for TEs.

 

At Spartan Nation we have been very vocal all season that we felt MSU needed to better utilize the TE in their game plan as downfield receivers and it is nice that it looks like NFL people agree. It is also nice that Charlie got a chance at the Combine to dispel any misconceptions. 

 

Gantt will be on Spartan Nation Radio next week to talk about his experiences at the Combine. Multiple NFL teams will interview him especially after today’s performance.

 

Spartan WR Mark Dell will work out on Sunday followed by LB Greg Jones on Monday and DB Chris L. Rucker on Tuesday.