JGMcD2

It has nothing to do with the production of the individual players and everything to do with the defense having to game plan around another receiving threat. Open things up is a pretty vague statement, it doesn’t necessarily mean increase his counting stats. His numbers may ultimately decline because there’s an additional target for JA. I didn’t realize having more weapons was a negative... pretty impressive how you framed it that way.

Also an FYI... Notre Dame fans stormed the field after they beat Clemson a few weeks back... they didn’t have their first positive test until 5 days ago. Only 1 of 191 players and it wasn’t related to the storming of the field which was much more egregious and put players in a far more compromising position than what we saw today. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.tmz.com/2020/11/09/notre-dame-football-clemson-storm-field-ban-testing-students-fighting-irish/

Yeah that’s not really the point, like I said dumb on the players part without a doubt. For Gelber it’s likely going to burn bridges with guys in the locker room, for a beat writer that’s not a good place to be at all. If Gelber was smart he’d stay out of it and let they players dig their own graves, rather than pile on when he knows it’s likely going to be seen in another form anyway as you said.

Yeah I mean that’s reckless on the part of those 1-2 players, and whoever else may have done it. It’s not like the players were stationary the entire time and resting in a crowd of people. Their interactions with an individual person were less than 2-3 seconds, the likelihood of anything catastrophic happening has to be pretty low. Still not great, would prefer the highest level of caution possible. I would also like to add the players are clowns for posting these things of social media, but Bradley Gelber is also a clown with ZERO feel by screen recording them all and posting them in a more accessible way on Twitter.

I’m all for doing things the safest way possible and erring on the side of caution, players should have kept windows rolled up. With that being said based on the protocols the NFL put in place, players did absolutely nothing wrong.

This aged really well... what do you say now?

12 minutes from now.

Wilkinson is a friend of a friend... supposedly he’s semi-decent at guard but has been to putrid at T dating back to college.

This is literally agreeing with me in my entire premise which you laughed at and tried to pick apart... Now it’s up to you to decipher if he’s actually good or benefiting from a lacking receiving corps... I will use another example... was Robert Foster good or did he benefit from a lacking receiving corps? The Robert Foster #1 receiver argument was the same thing... it was dumb then and it’s dumb now. He was lucky that there was literally nobody else to throw to and the second actual upgrades arrived in the form of John Brown and Cole Beasley he went nearly unused and was rendered useless upon the arrival of Diggs and Davis. Perfect example of a player on a bad team putting up decent numbers solely because the team is bad, not because they’re a NFL starting caliber player. It’s the same concept. Got it. Only a month in 2016... so it’s just 2 seasons.

Brandon McManus will be OUT on Saturday. Taylor Russolino from the Broncos PS will replace him. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.9news.com/amp/article/sports/nfl/denver-broncos/mike-klis/brandon-mcmanus-not-expected-to-clear-covid-protocols-taylor-russolino-likely-broncos-kicker-bills/73-4a6d48d6-53e2-4cf9-98d6-51e65e27cb0c

I’m not disregarding the earlier parts of your posts they’re just so well written, I don’t really much to say other than great job. I mentioned it late in my previous post... Josh just doesn’t target his tight ends a lot. He’s comfortable going to his WR. I’m honestly curious how many targets his TE get in the RZ because it feels like that’s where he goes after them the most. Could it also be that our offense isn’t set up to feed the ball to a TE? I know we often like to link Daboll to NE a little bit but their TE usage didn’t really ramp up until around 2006 with Ben Watson. Prior to that it was WR heavy with TE getting 23, 40 and 63 targets in the years prior. Obviously we remember the Gronk and Hernandez offenses the most, but TE wasn’t always a major emphasis there either. Idk... now I’m just blabbering with no real direction.

I didn’t repeat it, I put a note at the end of my post as an edit. I didn’t repeat it... I acknowledged my mistake. I mean he was in the Buffalo organization for 3 years, the obvious correction to him not being in Detroit for more than two days was to recognize he moved to Buffalo for the remainder of 2016 (Practice squad) and the 2017 and 2018 on the active roster. I mean you can laugh all you want or you can try and learn something. I’ve worked in scouting... I’ve spent time in pro baseball and a cup of coffee in pro football all before turning 24. This is all stuff I’ve learned from scouting directors and general managers... I didn’t make it up on my own, it’s from folks who have been doing it much longer than I have. It’s taken into account whether a guy is starting and producing because he’s actually good or just benefitting from being a decent player on a bad team and getting more opportunities than he would on a good team. Of course bad teams want good players, all I am telling you is when you’re trying to grade players against each other and you’re looking at production you have to factor in the circumstances. That all weighs heavily in the evaluation in professional scouting. So at the end you ultimately acknowledge my overall point after arguing with me about it prior? You did this earlier with other people... kind of confusing.

Yes. Dawson Knox is a traits-based prospect who could be developed into a nice up-the-seam target and red-zone threat. While he's not as athletic as the other top tight ends in the class, he's fast enough to be a problem for defenses and has developmental upside. Dawson Knox is a challenging study because he has all of the needed tools to be a great TE prospect, but his conditions at the college level were as unenviable as you'll find. Knox was a non-priority in the passing game and runs a pretty vanilla set of routes in addition to being a high variance blocker in both pass game and run game alike. Knox will require patience, he isn't a player that will step into a contributing role immediately in the NFL. A high school quarterback, Knox transitioned to tight end at Ole Miss but never became a prominent component of the passing game. With that said, there have been exciting flashes as a receiver although they are few and far between. There is considerable work needed as a route runner for Knox to find success catching the football at the next level, not to mention so inconsistency with his hands to clean up. As a blocker, Knox is more developed and has upside both on the move and in-line. Knox is a project, but he can be a worthy one to invest in. He has the ceiling of a quality TE2 and potential starter in time but patience is required. All of the traits are there to be a no. 1 tight end for a team in the NFL, but the only area Knox really improved in this past season was blocking, and his skill set as a receiver still needs considerable work. Knox's landing spot is critical to his pro outlook as he has only spent two seasons at the tight end position, and in the pre-draft timeframe, trust will be a big part of the evaluation. A la George Kittle, Knox has the tangible and intangible traits you take a risk on developing in the 40-70 range of the draft despite his lack of usage as a receiver in college.

I mean, I can point out instances where Dawson has made mistakes and Josh goes right back to him the next play, next drive, later in the game. Miami earlier this season, Arizona, just recently against Pittsburgh. It’s probably a mix of everything you said above... I’d rather throw to Diggs, Beasley, Brown and Davis before I look to hit Knox. But... in terms of actually measuring the development of a player, in-game targets is an absolutely silly way of showing a player’s progress. The whole Logan Thomas/Knox comparison is evidence of that. “Oh Knox doesn’t have a lot of targets but look at Thomas, he does. He’s obviously developed. Should have kept him.” Well, Thomas is one of the primary targets in DC because they lack offensive talent. I think we’d all be pretty pissed if Dawson Knox was getting more targets than Diggs, Brown, Beasley, and Davis. Josh just doesn’t use tight ends because right now he has 4 better options... it’s not like he was peppering Kroft when he was active either.

Yes, I corrected myself on Thomas already. So what you’re explaining to me is that in the 439 snaps Logan Thomas took in his two years in Buffalo, you watched all of them closely enough to determine at the end of 2017 and 2018 that he was going to be a productive tight end in the National Football League? If you have evidence of this, I’ll eat crow. Otherwise you’re capitalizing on him having a productive season. That isn’t even really a great determination of if he’s a good player or not. In the scouting world guys are graded based on whether they’d be a consistent starter on a perennial playoff team. Now I understand Washington is leading their division (6-7) but they don’t actually fit that category. Do you really think Thomas is starting on a serious contender? This wasn’t an obvious error. The guy played TE in the organization for 3 years and didn’t show enough on two anemic offenses to warrant being brought back. Thomas’ production is a convenient intersection of lack of competition at his position, lack of weapons in Washington and being on a below average team. He’s the 3rd highest targeted player on the Redskins roster behind McLaurin and McKissic. He’s benefiting from getting ~20% of the target share in Washington. He’s not even that great now,

Thomas was a 26 year old converted tight end they signed off of a practice squad and Knox was a 3rd round pick a year ago. The level of experience, age, investment all factor in to that. It’s not quite apples to apples. Two teams spent two years with Logan Thomas as a TE (BUF & DET) and neither felt it necessary to keep him. I would guess he’s settled into the position a bit more by now and the lack of receiving threats in WSH have given him more opportunities. Knox is like the 6-7th option right now in Buffalo. If anything your point (although flawed) about giving up on Thomas too soon is reason to continue to stick with Knox and not give up on him too soon. Right, coaching staffs screw up often while being around these players 24/7 and studying them non-stop. Which makes it much more likely a guy who’s never seen Logan Thomas practice, has watched him in person less than, let’s say 5 times and has probably seen him less than 10 times knows more than a coaching staff and front office. EDIT: I acknowledge my error in Thomas’ history at the position with Detroit in 2016.

Considering he started playing TE in 2016 the year we signed him off the Lions practice squad and then couldn’t get reps over the dearth of offensive talent we had in 2017-2018... I’m going to go with “Highly Unlikely for $2000, Alex” But what IS highly likely, is that Mr. WEO knows more about where Logan Thomas was in his development process after two years at the age of 28 as a converted Tight End more so than the coaches who watched him every day during that time period 🥴

Development only happens in games and with targets? Practice doesn’t matter? Off-season work doesn’t matter? The majority of development happens in the off-season... in terms of actually getting better at the position. There’s not enough time to make significant corrections to movement patterns and deficiencies during the season. So the guy gets 1 real NFL off-season (his rookie year nonetheless) to improve as a NFL tight end, after that it’s not worth continuing to work with them. Really glad we decided to go that route with Josh! It’s probably the fact that Thomas has spent almost 4 years practicing at the professional level as a TE, with game experience on top of that and now things are finally falling into place for him this season ? You’re equating development to targets...

I’m not sure how many folks have an Athletic Subscription, but this was a cool article into the Saints process of drafting what many believe is one of the best drafts classes ever in the 2017 Draft. Found it relevant to put here because the author uses PFR approximate value to illustrate the success of the Saints 2017 Draft Class. https://theathletic.com/2263882/2020/12/17/nfl-draft-2017-saints-best-class/?source=user_shared_article

If we win, that gets us to 11 wins. The best Miami can do is 11 wins if they win out. In that scenario we’d win on the “Best Win Percentage in Common Games Tiebreaker.” 1) H2H Record (Dolphins winning out would make us 1-1 on the season. 2) Record in the Division (Dolphins winning out and us winning against DEN makes us both 4-2) We could win on this tiebreaker in the even we lose to DEN and MIA but beat NE. We’d be 5-1 and they’d be 4-2. 3) W% in Common Games Tiebreaker (This is what it would come down to in the event we beat Denver and lose to MIA + NE while MIA wins their last 3)

Bills clinch the AFCE with a win OR Dolphins loss. Either event cinches the division.

This whole exchange has been hysterical, Doc. Keep out smarting our great savants! Sorry folks, but most of you look at player development as binary. They’re either a 1 (immediately successful) or a 0 (cut them immediately and replace them). Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Every player comes from different backgrounds and certain skills/positions take longer to develop. The kid is raw at a position that takes awhile to develop anyway. Does he every figure it out? Idk maybe not, but making a judgement call on any player by looking at their box score is just irresponsible or a handful of plays a game where he makes a mistake. Am I overly thrilled with Knox? No. I don’t think any reasonable person is. Am I calling him a bust? No. Because I recognized when he was drafted that his development path was going to be much more lengthy than your typical college player. I think the first step is having realistic expectations for a player based on their profile... not based on what you think a 3rd round pick should look like and how they should produce and when they should produce. It does not work that way... if these guys were robots or video game characters, sure. They’re not, they’re people. He’s extremely gifted but needs to learn. Deal with the growing pains.

Edmunds is special? This can’t be right. I believe some folks took up a vote on the board to cut him this off-season. Teams don’t cut special players - Tremaine is obviously not special!

Well, I can’t wait for Tre to see this. He’s going to bait Lock into a pick.

Apparently player development doesn’t exist... improvement is a myth. Any improvement that happens only happens during a player’s rookie season and they’re not allowed to improve after that. So when they don’t improve, get rid of them immediately! So glad that we followed those rules with Josh!