I continue to be mystified by this debate. I definitely get the strong belief that some people have that some players are just not as good catching the ball. In fact, I'd call that fact. Not everyone has big soft hands with great hand-eye coordination like the Jarvis Landry, Rob Gronkowski and Anquan Boldin types of the world. But, every player is a mix of certain physical gifts and their development of their skills.
Catching is part a physical thing and part a mental thing, and as such, is extremely trainable and improvable. Is his ceiling the same as Landry's at the physical act of catching the ball? Maybe not, but IMHO his ceiling is higher than the typical catch % of punts in the NFL, and if he's anywhere close to average in that ability, it frees us up to use his natural ability as a lethal weapon.
Personally, I think Jakeem Grant is THE quickest laterally of any player in the NFL. He is beyond the Allen Iverson lateral quickness and closing in on the Barry Sanders lateral quickness. His start-stop and instant acceleration creates opportunities to gain chunk yardage and score that are simply unparalleled by anyone else in the NFL, let alone our roster. People used to say Sanders wasn't great because he couldn't consistently get 3 yards. But Barry Sanders was great because he had so many explosive plays.
Put Grant on a successful team like Green Bay, New England or Dallas and the media would be tripping over their own Richard Anderson's to praise him (reference to the great Dolphins Safety whose name gets word-filtered). Grant isn't about consistently getting a solid average amount of yards. His game is about making the most of those few opportunities per game to be explosive. He is a guy that makes our special teams an aspect of the game that can win close games. We saw him score 2 TD's last year, one of which was called back, and we saw him scare the opposing coaches every time he stepped onto the field. They kicked AWAY from Grant because Drake, while possessing great speed, simply wasn't as scary to take it to the house every time he touched the ball. Drake depends on players making lanes ... Grant can sometimes do that without lanes.
IMHO, Jakeem Grant has as much potential as any player on our offense. Will he drop some punts and passes ... yes. But when a coach like Gase sees a player with the ability to destroy an entire defense single-handedly ... I'd be shocked if he gave up on him quickly.
IMHO, Jakeem Grant's speed is special, but his stop-start agility and acceleration are far more devastating a weapon.
