On The Field For OTAs – Justin Tryon Coming Along
Posted by Matt Terl on June 3, 2009 – 2:56 pm
It was during yesterday’s session, actually, that second-year cornerback Justin Tryon caught my attention. He got position on the receiver, broke on the pass, and nearly intercepted it in the process of breaking it up. Fred Smoot responded by screaming, “Catch that! You did all that work, now CATCH the ball,” and Tryon nodded and jogged back to the huddle.
Still, I figured, good play, and I mentioned it to Tryon when I saw him much later in the afternoon. He shook his head, said, “Nah. What sticks out for me is the coverage I blew a little later in practice. I’m learning, trying not to make the same mistakes every day, had that good one earlier, but ….”
Sometimes, you want people to focus on the positives. This was not one of those times, and it was good to see Tryon being realistic and introspective about his development as a player. So I paid some more attention to him today, and saw a guy moving on the ball, making plays, disrupting passes. He looked like a completely different player than the undersized, possibly overmatched guy he seemed to be during last preseason.
“Everybody knows he’s got great speed, great quickness, great toughness,” fellow cornerback DeAngelo Hall said afterward. “We’re just trying to help him find the ball in the air. And I think out there a couple of times, he’s been able to find it. And that’s really how you can separate good corners from great corners: the ability to find the ball in the air and make a play on it. We’re all trying to get better on that — me and Tryon have been talking about trying to get the ball at the highest point rather than waiting for it to come down, when the receiver has more of an advantage.”
Which is something Tryon has to do, given that his listed height is 5-9. So I asked second-year wide receiver Malcolm Kelly — who, at 6-4, stands more than half a foot taller than Tryon — if the corner would be able to cover receivers of his size.
“Absolutely,” he said. “A lot of receivers are tall, but you have to know how to meet the ball in the air. There’s plenty of receivers who are 6-3, but they play like they’re 5-10. Tryon leaps and goes off his feet for the ball, and that makes up for his height.”
Antwaan Randle El focused on another improvement Tryon has made. “Going into the system your second year,” he told me, “you’re more confident. It’s like, you know where to be. It’s not like you’re guessing. You’ve seen certain plays before, so you know much more of what to expect. I think a lot of it has to do with our defensive team. You have to come out and play with confidence and be ready to go, because if not, you’re going to fall by the wayside.”
At some points last preseason it may have looked like that’s exactly what was going to happen to Tryon. But — based on what I’ve seen in the brief workouts so far this year — maybe not.
Hall certainly doesn’t think so. “Just to see guys work on things that you’re talking about in the film room to try to get better, it lets you know where their focus is. And the way he’s going right now, he’ll be in there no problem.”
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