The Real Rudy! Lets go!

Can heart, desire and intelligence be enough to make it in the NFL?

 

Well I think even the most pessimistic among us are even pulling for this guy to succeed. Could be one of the rare wins for us.

 

Honestly in the NFL I can see his ability to adjust and fight for balls making him a great threat down the field with more accurate NFL caliber QB's throwing at him.

 

Have to see what his field speed looks like, Hartline did not have a great 40 time coming out, he is fine for us..now if they could have given him a balance and trip and fall drill :lol:

TBH, he reminds me a bit of Michael Irvin ppl forget he had a couple knee injuries early in his career and was not a pure speed deep threat kind of Wr

Odd nugget, isn't he the highest we've drafted a Wr since Ted Ginn? Prior to that it may very well have been Chris Chambers?

 

I was just about to ask you if your overall outlook and evaluation on this guy is changing.

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If Landry had Hartline numbers there wouldn't be much of a question on whether he could be good in the NFL.

His numbers are really bad.

 

Did we draft the black Hartline? Is that what we needed? I think in the 2nd Jordan Matthews would've been a better pick.

 

I figure the work ethic he is showing would have you fap fapping all over the place.

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Friggin STOKED about this kid. His work ethic seems top of the charts. His hands are All-Pro worthy. A Guy like RT will and already does love having a receiver he knows he can put the ball anywhere and he'll catch it. Look how Henne/Moore/Pennington leaned on Bess.

This guy will be a fan fave by week 3. Hell he may be by Preason week 3.

Also side note, I know it's cool Landy is working with Tannehill....but it gets my toes tingling knowing RT is working his *** off and trying to get better and better. Kid see's no light at the end of the tunnel and is still busting his ***.

 

Jarvis Landry may be the next Hines Ward type. He's just tough and willing to scrap at a position where you just don't get a lot of that. I like that he is willing to mix it up and recognizes the value of building a rapport with his QB. I really hope he is what I think he is. Also don't judge Landry on 40 time as I believe I recall CK saying he had a hammy tweak before he ran

 

I respect the fact that you realize you could be wrong, DJ. Seriously. A lot of people lack that quality. :up:

As far as Landry and the 15-yard separation issue goes, I think Landry will be exactly what you pointed out. Our clutch 3rd down guy who always seems to get open, makes the catch, and moves the chains. He'll probably make the occasional play down the field, but I don't expect his role to be anything more than a possession guy. At least, in his first year.

Also, I want to point out that Landry doesn't just bring the off-the-charts intangibles. He also has deceptive quickness and incredibly strong hands. His ability to adjust his body to make the catch when the ball is in the air is severely underrated. He has physical tools, too.

 

No Landry doesbt fall when the wind blows.

 

I think all the offseason hype around this kid is absolutely legit. People forget he was a 5-star recruit out of high school and was considered by some scout sites to be the #4WR in his class, and maxpreps had him #1. That counts for something. That says prolonged excellence and production in the sport, a kid that has been committed to playing his position at a high level for a long time. The year he was being recruited he was considered the third-best prospect in all of Louisiana. LSU leaned on him in big situations more than they did Beckham, and opted to play Landry in the slot probably because he reads defenses better. He also has massive hands, 10 1/4, tied with giant Kelvin Benjamin for biggest in the draft class. His intangibles were stellar at LSU, and everything we're hearing now speaks the same. Determined, physical, tough as nails. We need this kind of football player on and off the field. The battle for the slot role is going to be tight, but I think Landry starts earning a lot of snaps after the bye week.

 

It was during his run at the Combine. However he followed up healthy at his pro day and ran in the 4.6's.

His tape speed is in the 4.6's.

 

Jarvis Landry is certainly creating a buzz for himself. He's saying all the right things, doing all the right things. The problem is I'm not sure any of that was ever in dispute. Some people are already trying to pretend his battle has been fought and won and that anyone who doesn't admit as much is being stubborn and is being the type of person that never admits to being wrong. But the reality is HIS battle hasn't even begun yet. His battle will be fought in real games when he will need to win man coverage matchups against real corners, which is something he had the luxury of almost never doing in college.

The question from my end is, given that we have heard of him catching a lot of passes in practice and already having a rapport with Ryan Tannehill, are padless practices the kind of area where he is MORE likely to succeed, or LESS likely to succeed, given his strength/weakness profile. It's not an easy question to answer. There are arguments both ways. Padless practices with less hitting are more likely to favor speed guys who might be weak to the physicality of the game. Then again padless practices are also likely to favor zone players who are able to be found more consistently by quarterbacks dealing with a practice pocket rather than a game pocket. In reality I think padless practices probably just favor receivers period.

What I'm expecting from Jarvis Landry is Davone Bess with better hands but worse run after catch.

 

That's one issue. The other big issue is what happens when an actual NFL caliber corner (as opposed to a college dime safety) lines up on him and covers him man to man?

That's the bigger issue to me. We're not even at the point where you can defend by saying well all of these receivers just got open against college corners. He didn't play against corners. From what I saw he most often got open against linebackers and safeties.

But in the NFL he's not going to jump ahead of Brian Hartline or Mike Wallace. He's not going to be in 2-WR personnel with him lining up on the inside (slot) because the offense is in a Twins formation.

He's going to be in on 3-WR personnel which means the defense is going to have their nickel (usually 3-CB) defense on the field, and that means he's going to face a slot corner. He's going to face guys like Nickell Robey, Kyle Wilson and Kyle Arrington...or maybe even Brandon Browner, based on NE's plans for using Browner. He's going to face Chris Harris Jr. in the Denver game, Carlos Rogers in the Oakland game and now he'll face Brandon Flowers in the San Diego game. He'll face Captain Munnerlyn of Minnesota, Dwight Bentley of Detroit, Tramon Williams of Green Bay and Kyle Fuller of Chicago. He'll also face Lardarius Webb against Baltimore. I'm really not sure who he'll face against KC and Jacksonville.

Again, it's not just a matter of these guys being better than college CORNERS. That's not really the comparison. The problem is he got open against a lot of safeties and dime player even at the college level.

I'm not saying he can't get open against those corners, I'm saying we just don't know yet. It's an unknown.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Davone's hands weren't as good as commonly credited. He did have I think 32 drops from 2008 to 2012, and in 2012 his drop rate ranked him #59 of 82 qualifying receivers.

I expect Jarvis Landry's drop rate to be unusually low even at the NFL level, and I also expect him to finish some pretty tough catches that wouldn't have been drops even if he hadn't caught them.

 

same.

 

It was with Zach...

 

The favored a Twins look when they were in 2-WR personnel which means that Jarvis Landry was in the slot against zone coverage. Most of the rest of the time they were in 2-WR or 1-WR, it was a run play. And in 3-WR personnel he faced a lot of zone. College defenses don't necessarily play against personnel packages the way you think of them in the NFL. I'd suggest just watching the games for yourself. There's not much tape of him facing college corners in man coverage and almost none of him doing it on the outside. He ran a lot against some pretty conservative off coverage and zone. A lot of air space.

 

I think Donald Driver and Jason Avant might be better comparisons than a guy like Bess. Or Brandon Gibson, if you prefer a Dolphin. Not as good at getting open but better at using strength and body position to make himself a target.

 

I like the kid, so far everything we have heard about him makes me think he will make it at this level. I see a Davone Bess type player (whom I loved) with better hands, without the quickness. But my reason for hating the pick is that even if he is what we hope he can become, it wasn't a need. Gibson may have been our best WR last year when he got hurt, and then Mathews came in and was also very good. Now we have two very good slot WRs and we decide to use our 2nd rd pick on a 3rd slot WR. To me the pick just didn't make sense.

What we needed at the WR spot was a tall redzone threat, or a quick punt return, mismatch type. Landry is neither of those things. I believe Landry will be good by the 3 week of the season, but never get a lot better for the rest of his career. He is very mature but his ceiling is what it is, and it isn't very high.

What we needed in the 2 rd was a LB, or even a RB or maybe even another OLman, but what we didn't need is another WR that doesn't upgrade our WR core. Again even if he is as good as we think he can be, will he really be much better than what we already had in Gibson or Mathews? To me I just don't think so. I will be shocked if Gibson is 100% that he isn't starting wk 1. Landry will get snaps but I just don't see game changer in him. I don't see him doing anything Gibson or Mathews can't do.

 

We shouldn't even be having this conversation about a 2nd round WR in this draft. This draft was one of the best WR drafts in years and we ended up with Landry and Hazel. Typical Dolphins draft.

Bills trade up to take Watkins.
Saints trade up to get Cooks.
Eagles trade up to get Matthews.
Jags take Lee and Robinson.
Broncos take Latimer that has #1 abilities when they already are loaded at WR.
Colts take Moncrief in round 3 to add to Wayne and TY.
Bucs get Evans and ASJ
Giants get Beckham
Packers got D Adams
Panthers got Benjamin
Steelers get Bryant in round 4 and Archer in 3
Niners get Ellington in round 4
Lions get Ebron
Jets get Amaro and Saunders after already trading for CJ and Decker.

I think all of those teams did a better job drafting a WR/TE that fit what they needed. How did we do improving our weapons compared to other teams? Not very well actually. Do we ever??

The WR subject always brings me to a bad place. But anyway................All of this being said, Landry should be much better than Bess. I see Landry as a legit #2 WR. He probably does not have #1 upside (WHICH IS WHAT WE NEEDED!!!!!!!!) but his ceiling is probably higher than every other WR on the team not named Wallace. There are a lot of WRs I would have rather had. I wanted Cooks/Matthews/Robinson so bad that it hurt. But having Landry won't hurt the team. Fans will probably love him like an OJ McDuffie.

He's not the player that we needed but he should at least be an upgrade to our #3 WR position as soon as this season.

 

Jason Avant is probably a good comparison. It's interesting that Avant fell out of favor up in Philadelphia this year to the point where he recently stated that by Week 4 he knew this would be his last season in Philly.

 

In my experience a player can have a singular athletic skill that compensates for other athletic deficiencies. Some times that skill is obvious or at least one that's easy to believe in. For example, I loved Boldin coming out b/c I believed his ability to catch contested passes would compensate for his lack of speed and limited ability to separate. While I really like Landry's hands and body control I'm not convinced that it will be enough against NFL corners. Now Landry does seem to have great intangibles (intelligence and the right personality to maximize his skills) and that makes him easy to root for. In the end, my guess is that his ceiling is a Hines Ward type, but I think he's a little less dynamic. I think his most likely production level is about what we got from Davone Bess. That's nothing to sneeze at and frankly Bess was one of my favorite players while he was here. But If he's used correctly Landry can be even more productive than Bess was. I don't believe Bess was used optimally here. I think a great coach can take a good but limited player with a few great skills (hands, quickness and football intelligence) and make him produce at great player levels. Much like Belichek did with Welker. Maybe Lazor can utilize Landry's great hands, body control and football intelligence and wring out great production?

 

As a for instnace, it will be really, really hard for Watkins to live up to what they "paid" for him. Huge cost.

 

No where near the same type of players. Driver was a 4.4 guy and Avant a 4.52 guy, both with much better leaping ability. Driver could get deep easily and I personally just can't see Landry as that type of player at this level. Landry couldn't gain seperation in college after he made his break. Landry will be great vs zone coverage and on quick timing routes where the ball is on him as he comes out of his break. Landry runs very good routes and get his defender leaning the wrong way but two or three steps after his break he will have lost most of his seperation. Hartline is a better comparison than Driver. Landry will be a slower stronger version of Hartline with more ability to break a tackle.

 

I do like the Bess comparison b/c I don't believe that Bess was quicker on the field (maybe the pro day numbers disagree with me, I haven't checked?). I do believe that Bess was a bit more dynamic after the catch, but I think Landry has stronger hands and is probably better than Bess at making the contested catch.

And while Landry was not my choice (there were other WRs and other positions I preferred) I don't hate the pick. IMO Matthews has the potential to be more than just a slot. I think he's actually better suited outside. I think Matthews can potentially be a quicker Boldin. The question on him is more related to the intangible side. I think Matthews plays the slot in the short-term, but can potentially be a replacement for a Hartline or even Wallace down the line. So I don't see as much of a glut at the slot position. I think we had an injured Gibson and not much else as the designated slot-only guys.

 

Wallace? :shifty: