Is Marvin McNutt The Early Leader For The Na Brown Award?

For those of you not familiar with the illustrious Na Brown award, it is an honor we give every year to an unheralded new Eagle that makes a big splash at Lehigh. Its namesake was just such a player. Na Brown caught everything thrown to him at camp, made play after play and generally created a lot of excitement around himself. He never really went on to do much in the NFL though.

This is not to say that the winner of the Na Brown award is only a camp wonder that will never do anything in the NFL. We really can't know what his career will bring. Previous winners include Hank Baskett, who had himself a modest NFL career. There's also guys like Lorenzo Booker, who didn't so much...

This year, the early leader appears to be one that's having a chance to shine thanks to another previous Na winner. 6th round rookie WR Marvin McNutt has taken the spot of the injured Riley Cooper and has been turning heads.

If you've been reading Eliot's practice notes from the weekend, and you should have, you would have seen that he's been highlighting McNutt in both because the rookie has made plays. Perhaps even more importantly for Na consideration, the fans are noticing that he's making plays and they're getting excited.

McNutt is reaching near training camp legend status after a good showing yesterday, and the fans let him know it. Besides Michael Vick and LeSean McCoy, fans yelled at Marvin McNutt the most on Sunday.

For his part, McNutt comes off as a nice and humble guy. As a guy without blazing speed, he said that his WR coach at Iowa would actually show him tapes of Jason Avant, as an example of crisp route running and great technique can make up for a lack of top end wheels.

"[Avant] was one of the first films I watched," said McNutt. "His one-on-one tapes and red zone one-on-ones and watching him and how he worked his techniques and his hands."

He says he's tried to emulate what he's seen from Avant on film.

"Of course. With my big frame and he is a different type of bigger frame, I was able to see how he used his feet and hands and still use his techniques like [Iowa WR coach Eric Campbell] told me. He was not one of the fastest guys but he definitely is one of the hardest workers and continues to work every day."

McNutt says he feels lucky to have ended up on the same team as Avant in the NFL.

"I think it is a blessing in disguise to have someone like Jason who is willing to help and put in the extra effort for the younger guys. It helps us with our games."