I don't see why he couldn't be a Boldin-esque type player. He's built like a brick $*%#house.
I said he's a Boldinesque player in a few respects...I said he's got slot/perimeter possession receiver stamped all over him, or as one Packer scout put it, he's a bigger Randall Cobb. Montgomery and Boldin are both built like running backs and are at the high end of the physicality spectrum as WRs go. Why do you think I brought Boldin into the conversation?
But how much "esque" is there in this comparison?
They are quite different in athletic measurables. Montgomery is faster at 4.5 vs Boldin at 4.7. Montgomery's vertical and broad jumps (40 1/2", 10' 1") in combination are exceptional compared to Boldin's mundane (33 1/2", 9'6"). And what do we make of Boldin's slow shuttle and 3-cone numbers? I don't know Boldin's hand size, but Montgomery's are 10 1/4", quite large especially for a 6' 0" man, for whatever that's worth.
As Buddy Ryan famously said of Chris Carter, "all he does is catch touchdowns", we might say of Boldin, "all he does is catch passes". There's a rare, secret sauce at work with this guy with UDFA measurables that cannot be broken down into components; he's slow, can't jump, he's not tall, and he's never presented much of a downfield threat, while yielding 12,502 yds., 71 TDs, and still counting while coming up big in a Super Bowl run.
What are the odds that Montgomery will present such rare secret sauce? Slim to none. But it's not an all-or-nothing proposition...where will he fall on the spectrum?
Then there's that top drawer athleticism. What do we make of that? First, I'd like to see how that vertical jump translates to a 20 yard back shoulder. Not that I'm especially interested in getting 20 yards on one play, though that's always nice. Rather the ability to make that play evidences important things transferable to a variety of throws...body control, catch radius, ball recognition, sideline recognition, reading the defender, physicality off his feet on a contested ball, QB chemistry...a special sauce all it's own. And then there's the question of his ability to catch a ball over his head...in the likely scenario where he will not score high on the Boldin-possesion-special-sauce spectrum, he'll need to pose some kind of deep threat to be the highly productive receiver that fans wish to project.
I liked this draft pick. But at this stage he's still just a draft pick with potential, perhaps playing out of position. I'll reserve judgement until there is more evidence to evaluate. There's a ton more to being an NFL WR than knocking Bobby Wagner off balance, but it is a good indication of the physical element of his game.
