Huard: What stands out with Seahawks preseason star Jake Bobo
Aug 13, 2023, 8:23 AM | Updated: 8:50 pm
Jake Bobo of the Seattle Seahawks scores a touchdown on Aug. 10, 2023. (Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
(Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
The Seattle Seahawks had many standouts from their preseason win over the Minnesota Vikings, but perhaps no one shined quite as bright at Jake Bobo.
Rost: Observations from Seattle Seahawks’ preseason-opening win
Bobo, an undrafted rookie free agent out of UCLA, has reportedly performed well in practices this offseason, and that carried over to Thursday when he caught three passes for 55 yards and a touchdown.
Jake Bobo. Welcome to the NFL!#MINvsSEA on KING 5 | NFLN pic.twitter.com/6iEmEKw7o7
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) August 11, 2023
During Friday’s Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports, former NFL quarterback Brock Huard shared his impressions from Bobo’s performance against the Vikings.
First off, Huard turned to a quote from legendary UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma.
“He would say about basketball players, ‘The great ones, really good ones understand that basketball is not a game of how to, it’s a game of when to,'” Huard said. “And if you think about that and how that crosses over most sports, we all get focused on how to shoot, how to pass, how to fundamentally do things and you have to have the how-to fundamental level. But then you must get to the when to, when to use it, when to do it.”
Bobo has good size at 6 foot 4 and 200-plus pounds, but he’s far from a burner as he ran just a 4.99-second 40-yard dash at his UCLA pro day during the pre-draft process.
“Bobo doesn’t have a lot of fundamental how-tos. He doesn’t have a 4.4 40. He doesn’t have some of the things that most of his peers have,” Huard said. “But the dude understands when to. When to get in that hole, when to run that double move, when to move my feet, when to set up that DB, when to attack the defense that way, when to play it and give my QB the option on the other end.”
While Bobo isn’t the fastest guy, he does have one trait that Huard says stands out.
“So I was a 4.95 flat guy in my prime. But I was, I think, one of the top-five agility guys on my Husky team when it came to plyo boxes and ladders and just the different things in a short area that I could do over and over and over and over and work that. And Jake Bobo’s feet, his double-move on his touchdown, you see almost no 4.9 40 guys do that to a defensive back,” Huard said. ” … He did it at Duke, he did it at UCLA, he’s done it this offseason, he did in preseason game No. 1 and his quarterback loved it.”
His quarterback, Seahawks backup Drew Lock, did indeed love what he saw from Bobo, as he told reporters after the game.
“He’s been a fan favorite in the locker room for sure. ‘More Bobo’ is the thing that we’d like to say in the locker room. ‘Get Bobo the ball,'” Lock said. “He does everything right, man. He works really really hard. I know when you throw a rookie out there and you get zero (mental errors) in practices — and I’m not saying he’s gonna do zero the whole time — but he does the right thing, he’s in the right spots, he knows his job and knows his assignment and that’s really all I can ask for him because he has the physical ability to take care of everything else.”
Huard’s takeaways on notable Seattle Seahawks preseason performers
