Curious as to why you think that.
His issues were not missed assignments or lack of strength, they were things that are unfixable. You cannot make someone more coordinated, agile, or fluid and those are areas he has the biggest problem with. He even look clumsy running the 40 at the combine.
I think people got enamored with those combine results and failed to look at basic movement skills. Great at testing, yet oddly nonathletic, at least concerning football movements.
Tannehill had the same issue, this idea that he was "super athletic" was false. Just watch how he ran and how he moved in the pocket and you can easily why he struggled with pocket movement.
Well I think there are a number of issues where we do not see eye to eye. I'm extremely busy this week so I'll be brief, but quickly:
1. His issues:
Disagree, his issues were an overwhelming playbook and learning it is common and almost universally suffered from rookie TE's in the NFL. His other issues were a new focus on the blocking aspects of the job, which were barely addressed at Penn State, and thinking and reacting rather than instinctively acting. The latter is extremely common as players take on the huge new knowledge of adjusting to the NFL as a TE, and almost every rookie TE goes through that. It is best addressed by comparing the 1st year of all TE's to their 5th years, by which times their production has truly blossomed.
2. Combine results:
Disagree. Look at his tape, you'll see a TE who is consistently pulling away from LB's who simply don't have the game-day play speed to keep up with him … that has nothing to do with being a workout warrior, that is 100% production and creating separation, which as we both know, is THE most important skill a pass catcher should possess. Only a precious few guys like Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin can succeed without creating separation, and they need uncanny precision and accuracy from their QB's to take advantage of that. For the other 99% of the NFL, the most important play ability a pass catcher can possess is the ability to create separation. We saw that consistently from Gesicki, regardless of whether the ball was thrown his way or not. His basic movement skills jump off the film as he creates separation at an elite level from LB's.
Against DB's, it is his length that creates separation. He is 6'6 with a long arms, big hands and a 41.5" vertical … so he has an upper zone and an away zone that are simply out of reach for DB's. This was limited by Tannehill's lack of ability to throw those bucket throws needed to take advantage of that in the red zone, but Gesicki displayed true mismatch size and ability to shield the defender from the ball. Every bit of those combine results showed up on tape, even if our OL didn't allow enough time to run deep seam routes and our QB wasn't good at making the bucket throws in the red zone. Let's not conflate the OL/QB issue with what we saw from Gesicki as a rookie. The only thing holding him back that was of his own making was his struggles to learn the system to where he could play instinctively rather than thinking and reacting. Gesicki looked every bit the part of a mismatch athletically both size wise and speed wise. He isn't a blocking body type aside from his length, and he isn't a short choppy strider with elite change of direction or an elite first step … but he is fast, with a top gear that is excellent, and he is big with elite length and catch zone.
Lastly, when you do a comparison of rookie TE's, please do one for the last 10 or 20 years. By all means go back to the elite TE class that included Rob Gronkowski (also far less productive as a rookie than a veteran) and Jimmy Graham (used as a WR and chronicled many places where Brees, Payton & Co. just had to play sandlot ball with him because he couldn't learn the playbook fast enough). See how many TE's do fantastically. But I urge you to also use equivalent metrics … look at how the 2018 Miami Dolphins offense produced, both with and without Gesicki. You'll see that the surrounding cast was not good, and Gesicki's numbers were muted because the entire offense wasn't very good, not just Gesicki.
Love to discuss this further, but it'll probably have to wait a week before I can get any more time to discuss it. Hope that gets my points across. Reasonable minds may differ, but I always enjoy your insight
@FSU Truth and I look forward to revisiting this throughout the 2019 season.