Merged: Rick Spielman Finishes his Q&A Live! See if he answered one of your Q's... | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Merged: Rick Spielman Finishes his Q&A Live! See if he answered one of your Q's...

ckparrothead

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Rick Spielman Finishes his Q&A Live! See if he answered one of your Q's...

http://www.miamidolphins.com/interactive/qalive/qalive.asp

He answered one of the three questions I sent in...

C K (Tampa) 1/27/2004
QUESTION: Did the Senior Bowl game itself significantly change your opinions regarding any particular player(s) or did the week of practice give you what you needed to know for the draft?

ANSWER: The Senior Bowl is great because we evaluate these guys during the season at their colleges, seeing them play live games and on tape. Now we get an opportunity to watch them practice for a week. Seeing them play in the game solidifies what we saw of them on tape. It does shift some guys around, moving them up or down, but it's not that significant of a shift where a player might have been a second rounder coming out, but because of the Senior Bowl game and he is all of a sudden a seventh rounder. That doesn't happen. We have an idea of where a player is going to go in the draft, not it helps us stack those guys at his position.
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As I was reading his answer I got all excited thinking he was giving a (wink wink) type answer about Phil Rivers...but he said from second to SEVENTH round. Not from second to FIRST round. Oh well. Still at least I know now that the game results itself aren't that important to them.
 
I just read through it. Doesn't seem like much we didn't already know except for a few areas where he seemed to assert his own authority strongly and his preferences as far as GM goes.

Like, his pet peeve is guys doing private workouts instead of the combine...says unless there's a good injury excuse or somethin he automatically assumes the private workout guys are gutless cuz they won't compete with the other guys at the combine. I would guess that the same could be said of the Senior Bowl. Hope those UofM prospects who all skipped the Senior Bowl didn't have any hopes on Miami to draft them...

Also he seemed at one point to ALMOST get a little snippy about Dan Marino's input on personnel. Said Dan knows QBs and WRs but he's going to have to learn the process and learn the way the system of evaluation works. In the very first question, Spiel seemed to minimize the effect of Dan's input merely saying it will be "interesting" to hear what Dan has to say.

Also Spielman prefers to look mostly at what a guy did on the football field, only looking at the physical combine stuff as a kind of perspective on it, maybe an explanation etc but either way it comes down to looking at guys on film and seeing them standout. No wonder he loved Boldin so much.

Taylor Whitley he said will compete for a starter job THIS season. Said Eddie Moore was having an "outstanding" camp before going down with foot injury in preseason game #1.
 
I thought it was a very good Q & A considering the circumstances. Speilman is a pretty good speaker. And he was about as honest as a personnel guy could be in late January. Lots of interesting stuff in there.

Not only did he say that Whitley will compete this year, but he preceded that with "Taylor Whitley will eventually be a starting guard for us ".

He's got the size, power, and nastiness. Hopefully a year's refinement will be enough to get him in there.
 
Also Spielman prefers to look mostly at what a guy did on the football field, only looking at the physical combine stuff as a kind of perspective on it, maybe an explanation etc but either way it comes down to looking at guys on film and seeing them standout. No wonder he loved Boldin so much.
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Good news for Rivers...... Rick is smart enough to realize that the real evaluations come on the field, not from a stopwatch and a scale.
 
I found the Taylor Whitley comment the most interesting as well since all the other comments were guarded. Of course, they said he would compete for a starting role after he was drafted as well

this one at least confirms what we all expect:

john@bestcablesupply.com 1/26/2004
Q. Due to restrictions with the cap, would we have to loose 1 or 2 defensive starters to be able to significantly upgrade the offense?
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A. We will have to make some tough calls on defense, either through restructuring or cutting guys to free up cap room to get some players on offense.
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Originally posted by dolphan39
I found the Taylor Whitley comment the most interesting as well since all the other comments were guarded. Of course, they said he would compete for a starting role after he was drafted as well

this one at least confirms what we all expect:
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I dont think that means we wont be looking for a new RG in either FA or Draft, do you?
 
He answered my question....

Hi Rick, Could you give us an update on the progress of last years picks...EDDIE MOORE, TAYLOR WHITELY, JR TOLVER...as far as physical health and if you feel those guys will have a serious chance at cracking the starting lineup or making some sort of impact in 2004?


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I think all three will make a major impact for us in 2004. A lot of times when you have a veteran ball club, rookies can take a year to learn. Eddie Moore is coming along great after his foot surgery. It was a shame that he went down in the first preseason game because he was having an outstanding training camp. J.R. Tolver is a guy who caught 120-plus balls during his senior year in college. He had to learn the nuisances of the game as far as route running and the different types of coverages. He really progressed during the season. Taylor Whitley will eventually be a starting guard for us and will compete for a starting position next year.
 
you think he meant nuances, instead of nuisances? Or maybe J.R. is learning to be a nuisance
 
Originally posted by Dolphins17-0
you think he meant nuances, instead of nuisances? Or maybe J.R. is learning to be a nuisance
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:lol:

maybe he needs to be more of a nuisance to DBs
 
Originally posted by Dolphins17-0
you think he meant nuances, instead of nuisances? Or maybe J.R. is learning to be a nuisance
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I doubt very seriously that Rick was the one doing the typing. Blame the transcriptionist for the mispell (armando :judge: ).

The good news is that J.R. did make some progress in learning the game at this level...hopefully, we get to see it.
 
Why did Taylor Whitley not play last season but competing this year?

This is a mystery up there with Bigfoot and UFO's.

Anybody know?

Spielman says he WILL compete for a starting job.

He was inactive for every single game this season. What was his problem?
 
Lack of upper body strength. Athletic, good puller, stays with his blocks. Had some niggling injuries, and needed to add weight. He is a solid looking prospect at the G spot.
 
Do you think spiel woul really say, nah...they're all busts and I think we made big mistakes by drafting them?

Of xourse not, the only thing he told was he doesn't like Dan around and how he feels about those that skip the combine.
 
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