Alabama’s MOBILE — A player who receives an invitation to the Senior Bowl and is considering the NFL draft has multiple opportunities to make progress over the week.
A player can showcase his skills to scouts, meet teams, and possibly pick up a few tricks at this job fair. He can also gain some insight into what teams will be looking for from him as he moves on to the next phase of his career.
However, not just players receive those opportunities during the week here. Many young coaches who are selected for Senior Bowl assignments feel the same way.
Consider Logan Kilgore, the quality control coach for the Broncos, who is instructing the team’s returners in addition to National team tight ends Theo Johnson (Penn State), Brevyn Spann-Ford (Minnesota), and A.J. Barner (Michigan) this week.
He gets to see the tough trio of tight ends from the Big Ten up close as well as a variety of wide receivers, all while learning and having a great time.
Kilgore told The Post that the experience had been wonderful. “Even just meeting other coaches in the league and having a week to work together on a cooperative deal has been fantastic.” It’s been entertaining to watch these guys enter the offensive line; they’re so eager to get into the NFL after college; it’s a very fantastic deal.
It all comes together really quickly. After a few days of planning before traveling to Alabama, coaches get right to work trying to provide athletes the best opportunity to demonstrate their abilities to evaluators while also making progress along the way.
Kilgore was joined in the planning process by fellow Denver quality control coach Zach Grossi, who oversaw the American team’s tight ends. “We had about a week of planning and (New York Giants QB coach) Shea Tierney, our offensive coordinator, did a great job of getting everybody on the same page,” Kilgore said. “My job has been pretty easy because I have physical, intelligent Big Ten tight ends.”
Kilgore, who was hired in December 2022 to teach tight ends at Arkansas State, is no stranger to the position; he departed after a few months to take a job with Sean Payton’s staff in Denver. Prior to that, he served as the offensive coordinator at Louisiana’s Isidore Newman High School for quarterback Arch Manning, Peyton Manning’s nephew.
Kilgore and Payton have a longer history together. Following his time at Middle Tennessee State, Kilgore was a collegiate free agency quarterback for the 2014 offseason under the head coach of the Saints. Instead, Kilgore became a coach after spending six years as a player in the Canadian Football League.
This week’s students said he’s also skilled at it.
“I had no idea what to anticipate or how the coaching experience would be here in such a short amount of time,” said Johnson, a 6′ 6 and 257-pound wide receiver with 34 receptions for 341 yards and seven touchdowns for the 2023 Nittany Lions. “He’s performed incredibly well with guys who aren’t familiar with NFL lingo and other related terms.” He’s done an amazing job instructing us. At the conclusion of practice, I genuinely just said, “Hey, I really appreciate how you’ve been this week for us.”
“I believe he did an extremely fantastic job.”
“I believe he did an extremely fantastic job.”
Barner has had a busy few weeks after leading Jim Harbaugh’s team with strong blocking and collecting 22 passes for 249 yards and a touchdown at Michigan, where he recently won a national title.
“(Kilgore) has performed incredibly well,” remarked Barner. “We are grateful that he came out to us and completed this task. He’s been quite helpful in getting the playbook down. It’s a new offensive when you get here, and he’s done an incredible job with it. Additionally, it’s fun to be with him.
Naturally, Kilgore, like all the other guests, had to assess the three tight ends.
Kilgore stated, “It’s a huge opportunity for them to show that they can pick up an NFL system and put it on tape in a matter of days.” “We all understand that the format presents challenges for the players in terms of meeting schedules and other related issues, and I believe each of the three has performed admirably for themselves.”
Along with Florida’s Ricky Pearsall, Michigan’s Roman Wilson, Rice’s Luke McCaffrey, Arizona’s Jacob Cowing (who suffered an injury on Thursday), and Western Michigan’s Malachi Corley, he also worked with the team’s set of returners.
“I had the honor of coaching Marvin Mims this season for us in Denver at returner,” he remarked. I believe these guys valued the knowledge I was able to provide them because I was able to apply some of the lessons I had acquired from Ben Kotwica and Mike Westhoff.
“Having a good returner is ultimately what it takes to be a good returns coach. So far, this is really cool.
