Coaches expect more from Carroo, Grant

Last year, in his first season in the NFL, Leonte Carroo caught three passes and scored one touchdown.

“It was a disappointment,” Carroo said last week.

Carroo is looking for major improvement this season, and his coaches think he can do it.

The 6-foot-1, 215-pound receiver has reinvented his body entering his second training camp. He lost weight, dropping to 212 pounds from last year’s playing weight of 221, which he said will make him faster and allow him to run routes more fluidly on the field.

“Last year during training camp, I couldn’t do two plays without breathing heavy and dying,” Carroo said. “This year, I’m able to run four, five or six plays without feeling as tired.”

And while Carroo has made weight loss a primary focus of his offseason, he has also tried to rethink how he approaches his role. According to receivers coach Shawn Jefferson, Carroo has adjusted his mentality, no longer expecting to play the role he did in college as a primary target at Rutgers, when he caught 10 touchdowns with 809 receiving yards through eight games in his final season.

“It’s hard. When you’ve been in college and you’ve been the guy, and then you come here, you have to take a step back,” Jefferson said on Thursday. “Now, he knows how to handle that.”

Carroo said he has a different mindset this year, and is worrying less about trying to make a large impact on the offense and more about self improvement.

“[I’m] just going out there, [I’m] not thinking too much,” Carroo said. “I just have to focus on my craft.”

Offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen has also seen a change in Carroo. He said the receiver has improved each day at camp, and although he still continues to make mistakes, Christensen is expecting Carroo to make a larger impact this season.

“I think he’s gonna take a big step forward this year,” Christensen said. and elusiveness, returning one punt for a touchdown. His coaches said they want to incorporate him into the offense this season, and use his 5-foot-7, 169-pound frame as a weapon.

“I think we can get big plays out of him,” Christensen said.

Christensen added that the biggest thing Grant is learning is how to run routes more smoothly.

“He’s a little guy, a jittery guy and he’s a different speed from your average guy, so he has to be a steady target,” Christensen said. “You have to be smooth.”

And despite Grant’s size, coaches have experimented with Grant in training camp by placing him along the outside as a possible deep threat to compliment Stills and Parker.

“He has a lot of speed,” Jefferson said, “and that speed can stretch a defense.”