Glad to see you're open minded about Mike Gesicki.I have nothing against the kid.
But I basically saw an athlete with very little football ability as a rookie. Changing my opinion is very easy in this situation . . . .look like you belong on the field.
Me putting him as the #2 TE is more than fair, and its solely because of upside as a receiving threat.
And I am always here and I don’t remember “everybody” writing off Xavian Howard. He was hurt most of his rookie season but he definitely flashed and then came of age towards the latter half of his sophomore season. You are making it sound like we treated him like Ryan Tannehill after 7 seasons and u were the guy sticking with him and he proved everybody wrong in season 8.
As a guy who was on the X. Howard train before we drafted him and stalwart supporter ever since, I probably saw a lot more of the backlash because people were specifically disagreeing with me as I kept saying to give him more time. I explained how certain positions like press-man CB's (and it's the same with TE's today) take a year or so to get their feet under them. He was injured as a rookie so his progress was slowed. But after a good year and a half he was hitting on all cylinders. During that year and a half, there were a lot of naysayers. I see the same thing today with Gesicki. I'm preaching the same thing, and seeing the same sort of lashback … although it may be from completely different people, but it still seems the same to me with the far too premature claims of bust. The talent is there, the production in college is there, but the position in the pros demands a lot more work than in college, so those positions just doo poorly for a year or so until they find that groove.
It used to be the same way with WR's taking 3 years to develop, but the passing game has become way more sophisticated and kids are getting great experience as early as high school these days and are coming in as rookies and making impacts like RB's always have. But with certain positions, and I believe TE's are definitely one of them, it takes longer.