Feature: Who Is Martrez Milner?
Last week, the Jets picked up former Falcons TE Martrez Milner on waivers from the Giants. Here’s some more detail about who he is…
Career Arc: In the 2007 NFL draft, the former Georgia Bulldog Milner was drafted in the fourth round by the Atlanta Falcons. He played in eight games and caught nine passes for 50 yards, including one 15 yard gain and even made two starts for the Falcons, as well as contributing on special teams. In 2008, he was slow to recover from leg and ankle injuries and did not really fit into Atlanta’s scheme because they had asked him to become more of a blocker. He was therefore cut and ended up spending the year on the Giants’ practice squad. The Jets picked him up last week after the Giants – who had seven tight ends on their roster, including Kevin Boss, a key contributor in the 2007 Superbowl run and Travis Beckum, the 100th pick in the 2009 draft and a guy with possible first round talent, but coming off a horrific leg injury.
Measurables: Standing 6′4″ and weighing 260 pounds, Milner is considerably bigger than Dustin Keller and will be able to use his bigger size to his advantage when blocking, even though this is an area which still requires work (see below). However, he is an athlete first and foremost with a 4.62 forty time at his Pro Day and a 34 inch vertical and 19 bench press reps at the Combine. He played both TE and DE in high school and also played basketball.
Injuries: Other than the injuries which contributed to him losing his job in Atlanta, Milner has also had the following issues: Turf Toe (2005), Right Wrist Fracture (2005), Back Spasms (2004).
Blocking ability: As always, opinion is divided on how good or bad he is as a blocker. Pick an opinion:
- “He does a good job blocking” (UGa OC/OL Coach Nick Callaway, 2006).
- “As a blocker, he needs to learn to use his size and agility to get more movement at the point of attack” (Rivals, 2006)
- “He is not a great blocker at this point and will have to improve in this area.” (Footballsfuture.com, 2007)
- “[He] is a poor blocker.” (Comcast Fantasy Sports, 2008)
Hands: Here’s the major issue with Milner. At Georgia, he would make the most incredible leaping, diving, falling, athletic one-handed catch with two men draped all over him and then two plays later, drop a ball right at him when wide open (and then on the play after that, drop the next one too). Whether it was concentration, technique or discipline that caused these errors, you would hope that the highlight reel grabs he made would indicate that this could be corrected (and maybe already has, with a couple of years of NFL coaching). If there was a Martrez Milner highlight reel on youtube two years ago, you’d have all known about him – alas, I looked and couldn’t find one.
Miscellaneous: His agent is Bus “Favre’s agent” Cook…He played a lot of special teams at UGa, so may have a shot to contribute there…He was benched in 2006 due to dropped passes, injuries and penalties.
Finally, here are some exclusive scouting notes I took on Milner during the 2006 season:
- 9/1 v Western Kentucky: Dropped a pass in the endzone in blowout win
- 9/23 v Colorado: Beat his man on a post route for 20 yard game winning TD catch in fourth quarter … Finished with 4 catches for 63 yards, including a key first down catch, a low grab and a first down grab down the sideline … Fumbled once, but recovered it himself … Mental error after TD (ran off the field, leaving ten men) meant team had to waste timeout on PAT while still trailing
- 10/14 v Vanderbilt: 22 yard TD catch on post-corner route … Finished with 6 catches for 67 yards including a diving catch downfield as QB rolled out, a strong grab turning upfield for extra yards and good concentration on a tipped pass for 15 on a curl route … Badly dropped a diving catch in the endzone … Shaken up in the fourth … Georgia lost by two in upset
- 10/28 v Florida: Had missed previous game with toe injury … Called for a hold … Made a third down catch downfield … 16 yard catch on the run … Tried to catch floating pass one-handed and dropped it … Dropped a pass over the middle in the fourth and then another one two plays later … Georgia lost by 7
- 11/11 v Auburn: Third down conversion on well-timed out pattern … Short diving grab … Leaping grab on touch pass downfield … Finished with 41 yards on 3 catches
- 11/24 v Georgia Tech: 3 catches for 33 yards including low grab as he just got hands under the ball and replay confirmed the catch … Also caught pass on quick out and carried DB to marker for a first down.
Filed under: Main Page
He can take the ball bag from the bus to the practice field. Are you kidding me? He didn’t fit into Atlanta’s scheme, because they asked him to block more? He is a tackling dummy.
Nice report, Bent, thanks!
Ummm, that size of 6′4″ and 260 lbs. — give him to Mangini. He’ll move him to OLB, too.
One highlight here is backward progress: Milner’s gone from a tepid “a good job blocking” in 2006 to “a poor blocker” in 2008. Nope, that’s not a good resume builder there.
It reads like he catches more balls thrown at his shoes than right at him. Make sure he’s wearing those old black high-tops to give our young QBs a good target.
So overall, we’ve got a young man here who can’t block and drops half of what’s thrown his way. Hell, that sounds like me. I could do that much.
OK…Considering that the Jets have a “receiving” TE already and are in dire need of a blocking TE with decent to good hands to help keep defenses honest, I fear we may have a problem here.
And this is all Tanny could come up with? This is all he could beat out of the bushes? Geeeesh!
Tanny may have learned contracts from Parcells, but it seems he learned his football from Budway.
I guess he was good in college, but poor by pro standards? I don’t think he’s gone backwards. I would just characterize him as “more of a pass catcher than a blocker”.
If only we had a QB that threw inaccurate passes all the time – that would be a match made in heaven. Maybe they should’ve kept Brett.
Harvlis – I don’t think that was the only reason and it was more of a personnel thing. They went from using TEs primarily as pass catchers to primarily as blockers, so instead of maybe one all round TE, one whose strength was as a pass catcher (MM) and one blocker, they probably went to two, zero and one. Especially when coupled with the injury. He’s a better blocker than Keller, for example, just no use on a team that already has Hartsock for the blocking TE role.
Of course, you are probably right and he’ll be cut within days, but you have to give me credit for throwing a post together at short notice on a slow news day!
Get used to it. The Jets will be bringing guys in at every cut down deadline throughout the summer and probably into the season as well.
The importance of a “blocking” TE has taken on almost mythic proportions on this blog. Antonio Gates’ blocking makes me giggle. It hasn’t exactly affected LT’s HOF career. Tony Gonzalez’s blocking is close to non-existent, but Larry Johnson and, before him, Priest Holmes were always league leaders. Fact is that a guy like Keller will occupy an LB because of his pass-catching ability. That’s how Gonzo and Gates “take out” LBs. If the Jets need an extra blocker at the goal line, bring in an extra lineman. Also, in the Schotty era, the Jets’ TE (whether Keller or Baker) has been primarily a pass-catcher running WR-like routes. So, the Jets probably should get a “blocking” TE, but it’s not critical, esp. since the Jets have T-Rich at FB.
ALL PROPS TO BENT FOR GIVING US SOMETHING TO READ (and yak about) ON A SLOW SATURDAY AFTERNOON!!
Kudos to you, sir. Thanks.
Brett said he liked Keller. Then, it sounds like he’d LOVE Milner. Yogi and others have been bad ball hitters — could Milner be a bad ball catcher? :-)
SackDancer99 — actually, I believe Shotty said they’d like to have a “blocking” TE more for disguising packages, rather than for a person’s particular pass catching abilities. Having the tackle lined up there makes it pretty obvious what they’re going to do. This way the D can’t sit on a run. Even with a stiff like Anthony Becht there’s always the chance that he might slip out this time and catch something other than a cold. So, they can read run, but have to cheat a bit to guard against the pass. That’s all he was saying.
jvsvn — spot on.
The door will be swinging in Florham Park faster than a kitchen door in a highway Diner after the bars all close…
and again i ask who is martrez milner???
head_coach,
Besides what Bent has described above, he is a guy the Jets are looking at to see if he can help the team. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sackdance99,
Those mythic proportins are not just limited to “blocking TE’s” they also apply to the “tall WR” on this blog.
SD99’s insightful comments illustrate something more important than the importance of having a solid blocking TE. He highlights a severe problem that has limited the Jets’ success of late.
Good coaches, develop their schemes based on the players they have. If you have good slot WR and a TE who can get down the field, but you lack a solid TE who can block, rather than constantly pound the square peg into a round hole (or look for the square peg that doesn’t really do the job), the smart coaches figure out how to get what they want with who they have.
SD99 points out two teams who have accomplished that.
The problem is not that we lack a run blocking TE. IF WE HAVE a problem, and this season will reveal all, it will be that our OC lacks the ability to use the talent he has.
harlan
Thank you Bent.
Off topic- Anyone remember seeing these hints at a complex, moving-parts offense during pre-season? I remember thinking as I watched our line pop up and out while rotating blocking assignments, “Wow, this is gonna be hard to defend when it comes up in the regular season.” Only problem….I never saw it in the regular season. I only hope Schotty is looking to run a confusing offense, much like Rex and Mike P. will run a confusing defense. I don’t believe we need a lot of these pieces people think we do (although I wouldn’t argue with a big name WR or second tier LB/DE). I believe that we are going to have our own brand of Football and our guys will have it drilled into their heads and it will shine on Sundays. Our main objective has to be getting to the QB within 4 secs of the snap on Defense, and on offense, sustain 6-8 min drives. Sounds like a tall task, but last year when we controlled the clock and didn’t make silly mistakes, we did this at will. Anyone saying that Defenses won’t respect the pass like they did with Favre….We have upgraded our running game and the whole point of our offense as Rex has stated is to run well when the other guys know you’re gonna run. Favre (God Bless that crazy redneck) is gone along with all those veteran mistakes, and half-hearted…..empty-hearted rallying speeches. What we have now are two guys that will make mistakes, but probably not as many, and are MOTIVATED! KC has to think about getting signed by another team to support his growing family (Congrats) and Mark….well I don’t have to tell you about Mark’s motivation. We read about it daily. I’m a pretty optimistic guy and I always shoot for the Superbowl no matter how reckless a claim it may be. All I know is this year should be one of the most unpredictable (hopefully in a good way) we’ve had in recent memory…..Man I hate the Off-season…..Here’s to ‘09 and hopefully into ‘10. J-E-T-S.
I disagree that this is not that important. It’s very important. We will have a run-first team playing with a very inexperienced QB (whoever it turns out to be). Anything that impacts the play of the OL (including the TE) is critical to our season. We don’t need anything spectacular, but we do need someone who can reliably get the job done in the trenches and be a solid counterpoint to Dustin Keller. Let’s face it, we need someone with the skill set of Chris Baker. The problem with Baker was that he had delusions of grandour and didn’t want to play the role we had for him. The team was right to let him go. But let’s not kid ourselves. We now have a hole at TE that still needs to be filled. As I said above, I expect the team will be bringing guys in throughout the summer to see if they can find someone. If no one pans out, I woundn’t be surprised to see a late August trade for next year’s 5th round pick (or something like that) for a solid TE. While I hope it doesn’t come to that, the play of the OL is simply too important to be winging it.
Another example of the lack of depth put together by Tanny.