You see the potential and without the end result that's all it is. We have a ton of potential in the secondary but if were ranked 25th against the pass in 2018 I'd be hard pressed to say we have a ton of talent in the secondary. Talent is proven, potential is hope, and thats all we have hope that all our players with high potential reach that potential and it translates it to the field and the win and loss column.
It is quite dangerous to be "Exception Man." When evaluating any player it counterproductive to hone in on the atypical instead of the typical. You can witness this mentality every year on this board when you see a late round undersized linebacker. Just wait - we found the next Zach Thomas. Nope, no we didn't and it is absurd to think we did. Zach Thomas was the one in a million. The most typical result from an undersized linebacker is being a fringe roster spot that has backup/special steams role. In this case, how could we reasonably say to Albert Wilson, "Go be TY Hilton." Hilton is the most atypical for his frame. It is completely reasonable to think that any WR with a Hilton frame will never see the level of success that Hilton has seen. This is exactly what I am talking about when asking too much from your players. Furthermore, look at Hilton's numbers this year. They were by far the worst in his career. Why? He was still the number one receiver on his team, right? Well, the answer is clear, he lost Andrew Luck. Luck is the type of passer that can overcome the smaller windows that smaller WRs have because he has pinpoint accuracy. Now look at our situation. We have Ryan Tannehill. To be completely fair, RT simply does not have pinpoint accuracy. He throws a catchable ball, but no one would say that he can drop dimes like Luck, Rodgers, Brees, Brady, or Wilson. So here we go again, asking players to do more than what they are capable of. We not only need Wilson to play the level of a top 10 WR, but we need our starting QB to suddenly develop pinpoint accuracy. In all honesty, he may never develop that degree of accuracy. Again, I beat the drum of don't ask too much from your players. Despite whatever the results may be, I like the PLAN of drafting Parker and Gesicki. These guys have big bodies and exceptional leaping ability. Instead of asking RT to possibly reach beyond the level of his accuracy skills, we have chosen to give him bigger targets to mitigate his deficiencies in accuracy. If Parker or Gesicki fail to pan out, I still think the PLAN was good. On the other, having a plan for RT to become Aaron Rodgers seems to be a bit of a pipe dream. I strongly believe in the philosophy of knowing your players, knowing what they can and cannot do, and asking what skills they can reasonably develop and to what level. Once you have figured that out, you can build a game plan out of that instead of building a game plan around a fantasy world.
I do not agree that TY is an exception and that speed is and route running is important to play outside if you do not have amazing strength like Steve Smith. Wilson had what is needed to be part of the rule. Also Luck's dime throwing is overrated and TY Hilton bailed many non done throws out. Mostly due to his speed and beating his man so that the corner could not make a good play on the ball. Gase is looking at what recovers do well. One reason he had Landry on a restrictive scout tree.
Let me ask you this, do you think Taylor Gabriel, JJ Nelson, Tavon Austin, and Albert Wilson are all going to become TY Hilton? Because all of these guys have what it takes.
Ok Jakeem Grant. Explain to me how he was mis used. Is that a not enough snaps reference or asked to do the wrong things one or not playing to his strengths one and if so how?
My most two notables are Drake in short yardage/goal line situations. Drake is a pure speed back. He is not a move a pile of guys/ break a tackle in the backfield guy. But do you know who could do that, Damien Williams. It was maddening to see Drake in that situation. Another example is redzone passing situations with a primary focus on fades/pylon throws. It was maddening to see how infrequently Parker was given a chance in these types of situations. This is something Parker should excel at, and it feels like everyone and their brother (who are less equipped to succeed at this) are given these routes.
I don’t think he was misused..I guess I missed something in the convo, my bad.. I just feel Grants skillset is best used on the boundary.
The evidence is overwhelming that Wilson is far more likely to be in this category of players than of the TY Hilton. Just think about this. Andy Reid is about a good of a talent evaluator that there is. Do you think he would let TY Hilton walk for a 3yr/$24 million deal? Nope, he chose to let him walk and give Sammy "I'm perpetually hurt" Watkins a 3yr/$48 million dollar deal. Just let that settle in. He literally paid double for a guy who is always hurt. Furthermore, Albert Wilson's best year is significant worse than Hilton's worst year. There is just no way Wilson is the next Hilton.
Give me three guys that you think Wilson could reasonably turn out to be on the outside. To make things interesting, give me a realistic low, medium, and high.
I’ve always felt we were in a great position with Parker, uber talented guy in a contract year normally bodes well. But I haven’t exactly heard great things thus far, it’s early of course...but if it comes time to choose your 53, I have to think they are wondering if keeping X and getting something for Parker doesn’t make sense. I’d rather we just kept him and he all of a sudden became concerned with his body and his craft over chasing models on Twitter, but not sure that’s who he is.
I don’t know about the Damien Williams. To my eye he left a lot to be desired as a ball carrier. He seemed to be too patient and lacked vision. The vision being the primary problem. Essentially a 3rd down back whose value relied in the passing game and to a lesser extent pass pro. Miami with drake and cutler went to more spread you out type stuff but single back 11 personnel heavy which seems to fit drakes game ideally. We never really had a short yardage goal line back after Ajayi left and that was mostly because he ran thru much contact despite stacked boxes. I do agree though on the Devantae parker usage. Seemed like every time we dialed up an iso it was for the tight end and Julius Thomas and cutler could never get on the same page post snap be it with ball location or post snap release and leverage. Devantae also never got any 3 x 1 looks with him the iso. That frustrated me. He’s a inside breaking route monster be it quick slants or square ins or post routes etc. anything that requires a speed cut especially. It looks like from practice the new red zone fade/pylon iso guy will be gesicki. I definitely think we are leaving plays on the field not utilizing dvp on these concepts to date. But I also think a lot of the timing routes went out the window with cutler and will be back with Tannehill. The back foot hits ball out concepts. Be it from under center rise and fire to 3 step to 5 and even 7. In the tight red zone everything speeds up so you only have time to go thru 1 maybe 2 progressions if you are lucky most the time. It seemed like Devantae was always working a secondary progression. On 3 step you only get one in that condensed a field or the qbs gonna eat it.
Tannehill praised him today with a comment something like, "I love having him out there because you can throw it anywhere and he'll get to the ball and haul it in." Don't quote me on that as being exact...it was pretty close though and it showed that he has people's attention. Also, don't get caught up in the blocking aspect- if he can haul in red zone TD's from the back of the end zone, nobody is going to openly criticize him for not being a better blocker. That's something he can develop over time.
I'd take it one step further. I wouldn't even worry about his blocking. We drafted Smythe as a blocking TE, bring him in for plays that require the heavy lifting. Long term, we should worry about making Gesicki a complete TE, for now, let's just focus in on the conditioning and passing component.
The kid can win on these one on one jump balls with his size and athleticism, should result in scoring. Because of how he moves in other routes I see him being someone who isn’t hard to cover as far as mirroring his route, but maybe that length, reach and jumping ability will win enough times to be the weapon we need
Considering all the areas this off-season that were filled with hopefully quality up grades must say that if to list a concerned area it would probably be LB position. Seems a fragile area with questionable depth at this point. Anthony if solid again helps immeasurably. But seems to be an area put on the back burner this pre-season as far as FA pickup......(not a big Kiko fan and fingers crossed that the top guys stay healthy) WR pretty pretty solid IMO, and speed up the yin yang...Stills, Wilson, Grant, won't need a QB sig. call, but more a starting gun....which Im sure brings a smile to Amendola, and our TE's....even the RB's... Would think another LBr could be on the top of the list for unfinished business.... and if I were GM another top shelf OL (G), would be earth shacking, but that maybe needed to be seen as a next year fix... 4ish days of real football is kind of funny making talent levels of some of these new guys, that is without a recently windex'd crystal ball.....
The reason I'm not as concerned about LB is that I think we'll play base D with three LBs a smaller percentage of the time. I think that was the focus of this off-season (playing more nickel/dime). I see that as the impetus behind drafting Minkah and bringing in a new DB coach, Oden, who specializes in dime. I expect that we'll see three LBs on the field no more than a third of the time. That being said, I do think that the health of Raekwon and Kiko are key. I like Kiko more than you do. IMO he just needs to be used correctly. And forcing him into the MLB role and into coverage is not in our best interest. That's why I want/hope that Raekwon stays healthy. Now according to reports Allen seems to have taken a step up and I think that Galvin was a decent player at Seattle so we may have more behind those two spots than we think. At the third LB spot I like the speed we have in Anthony and Baker. I think Baker may end up excelling at coverage at this level. I don't love Anthony in coverage but in his second year in this defense he should be adequate enough to fill in on those third of the defensive snaps if we need him. I do like Hull and Poling as STs and practice squad LBs. I don't think the cupboard is as bare as some think.
Since I'm leaning in the view of that lack of depth and seeing 3 LB's playing more than your 1/3 of the time feel the need still there for another solid LBr. Sorry to disagree but IMO, Kiko is average at best and if Raekwon goes out were in deep crap. Damn we haven't even see Raekwon in real action yet. Love Fitz even before ever seeing him in one actual NFL play but think he will need time to grow, they all do at just one of the areas we will expect him to thrive. Anthony must step up to the expectations had from early years cause our OL might just have a hard time against the run and 3 solid LB's pretty damn vital in that department. Hey just the way I see it and if what you say is true with the level of Fitz right off the bat a solid Kiko and Baker well I would be happy to be wrong. But Baker also a rookie needs time to gain experience and who's quality in the pros is not yet really known. Don't think its realistic to expect him to jump into fill the hole right off the bat but rather fingers crossed at developing into a quality player with time. Allen, Hull, Poling, Garvin, filling the cupboard but a bit scary having to have to depend on one of them filling in as a starter...even though I do like Allen.... Hey IMO we had a good off season for a team that needs a bunch and to be worried basically just over one more quality starter at LB sure beats the last 2 decades of being overwhelmed with needs....Don't see us there yet but IMO took a nice step this year in getting there.
I think with Parker we're seeing that he's not good enough to go against a #1 CB and win consistently. I think that's what we're hearing from camp where X is dominating him. He's shown he can be productive as a rotation player, but I don't think he'll ever be the starter or the #1 guy we were hoping for when we drafted him.
Huh? What u talking bout Willis? I was simply voicing my displeasure with Austin, especially once McVay came to town. No opinion on average Wr’s mentioned above.
That's a pretty misleading stat though since he didn't catch a lot of passes. He had 57 receptions for 670 yards and one touchdown- not exactly showing how he's smoking the other team's corner with that production.
LOL, if you watch an episode of Very Cavalari (the show about Cutler's wife starting a fashion brand), his biggest goal in life at the moment is getting some goats so he can watch them from his office on a deer cam. He has literally been planning out this highly complex execution for six weeks now. Step 1- Buy goats. Place them inside fenced area. Step 2- Mount deer cam on any fence post. Step 3- Turn on laptop to see goats thru cam. Again, six weeks of planning- no goats yet. That's the guy who was running our offense last year....
Then, can you imagine the person who coaxed and endorsed that washed up QB, who was also coming off of season ending shoulder surgery on his throwing arm, out of retirement? Yikes.
After three days of watching camp, I’m concerned with our conditioning.. Only once in three days did they run, and that one time was for about 10 mins. FWIW, Gase allows his assistants to run the show on field..it’s very hard to find him during a practice.
It depends on how much you can trust your players to do conditioning work when they are away from the coaching staff.
But that’s not how it works in some camps.. I dont believe in easy camps.. He’s babying them the first week..