Now might be a good time to recall that T.J. Houshmandzadeh was the 204th pick in 2001 and ended up catching the fourth most balls in Bengals history with 507. After leading the Ivy League with 66 catches, Iosivas went 206 on Saturday.
His head coach, Bob Surace, who saw Houshmandzadeh make most of those catches as a Bengals offensive line assistant from 2002-09, says his guy can play in the league.
“Absolutely,” says Surace, an avid and knowledgeable Bengals fan who has to calm his kids down when Cincy plays. “They’ve got some guys in the room right now with unique qualities and he fits that mold that way in that he’s got some rare measurables.
He took so much pride in his blocking. He’s a physical player. He’ll do the little things. Like any rookie, he’s got a lot of growth. But he’s a smart kid. He’s got everything you want in a leader. He was a captain of our team and never made mental mistakes.”
Here’s a guy who pole vaults more than 16 feet and set the NCAA Indoor record for the 60 meters in the heptathlon.
The Princeton track coach, Fred Samara, a decathlete in the 1976 Olympics, told Surace he thought Iosivas could be an Olympian. Surace knows this.
“He knows he’s not going to go in there and beat out Chase and Higgins. But he’ll walk in the room and not look out of place,” he says.
Andrew Johnson, the area scout for Princeton, actually played tight end for Cornell against Surace’s Tigers a decade ago. As an Ivy Leaguer, Johnson knows how demanding the spring and summer had to be for Iosivas.
Until last year, Iosivas only attended meetings during spring football because he was competing in track and his summer internships weren’t on Wall Street or Washington, D.C., as they are for many who play Ivy. Instead, Iosivas’ summer internships were more workouts for football.
“It’s tough no matter how you look at it,” says Johnson, who once interned in the NBA office and was doing workouts at 4 a.m. before going to work. “He’s got the skill set to be able to play multiple positions. He hasn’t done it, but he might be a guy you could try as a kick returner. He’s big and fast.”
Johnson thought Iosivas could go as early as the fourth. Surace, who sat in enough draft rooms to not be sure about anything, thinks Houshmandzadeh and Iosivas have a couple of things in common even though Iosivas hardly ever played the slot for him.
“Andrei shares T.J.’s competitiveness, reliability, and leadership qualities,” Surace says. “And I have no doubt the Bengals would sign up for Andrei to have a career like T.J. He was such a critical player to our offense’s success.”
Andrew Johnson has been all over the Michigan program and has known Robbins for six years. He says he’s an impressive guy and has a hang time to match.
“He’s beloved in Ann Arbor,” Johnson says of how he’s viewed in the building. “He’s a grinder, worker, leader. They have as many good things to say about him as anybody up there.”
Johnson went to the Michigan pro day, which started inside on a chilly, rainy day. When Robbins started banging punts off the ceiling of the facility, the scouts started looking at each other wondering when the thing could be moved outside so they could see where the punts were going. It was soon. Then the Bengals got an even better read a few weeks later when special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons made the drive to work him out privately. By all accounts, it appears they hit it off.
“I really appreciate how he conducts his business, and who he is as a person. I believe he is straightforward. In my personal opinion, I don’t believe he sugarcoats anything,” Robbins said after the pick. “He tells you exactly what he needs, when he needs it and how he needs it. And I feel like that’s how I take coaching the best.
He couldn’t be a better fit for me. Just talking to Coach Simmons throughout the combine, throughout the entire process, throughout the workouts and stuff, I’m just really excited. I think our personalities will mesh well. You know, there’s no one who’s going to take their work as serious as I will.”
Trey Brown thinks this pick is a good example of getting on a player early. Far from a last-round afterthought (a 4.46 40, a 39-inch vertical and a 10-6 broad jump made sure of that), the 6-1, 190-pound Ivey had been very much on the radar.
Brown and Radicevic started watching Ivey two years ago. Then Potts and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo went to the pro day. Then they brought him in for a top 30 visit a few weeks ago.
“We identified him in the fall and thought he could be a potential target for us at some point in the draft,” Brown says. “We had exposure to him in a lot of different ways.
On the field in the last two seasons, at the pro day and the face-to-face interaction when we got comfortable with him at our top 30 visit.
That’s the beauty of the draft. Being able to identify guys early and then coming out with them. I thought it was great execution by all parties. Us in the front office and also the coaches coming together and identifying a guy and ultimately getting the guy you identified.”
Brown, a former Jim Thorpe watchlist UCLA cornerback, has this take on Ivey:
“He’s a strong and athletic corner that can run and cover. He can smother at the line of scrimmage when he gets opportunities. He has a good combination of what we look for in our corners. He’s big, strong, long, and fast and has shown up on both defense and special teams and is a nice option in there late.”
Leave a Reply