Geiscki was a beast today. The only thing that stopped him was the Dolphins play calling. But, fandom aside, we've got to be honest about what Geiscki is. He's really scarcely a tight end. He can't block the position. He's a slot receiver that is slow and spends several games in a row being a non-factor because he just can't separate. But, his catch radius is magnificent, and he plays with an energy that can't be understated when trying to find offensive energy.
Gesicki is going to earn a lot of money in free agency, not necessarily because of the numbers he produces at the end of the year when compared with the position he really plays, which is slot receiver. But there's a lot of offenses in the league that can regularly provide their receiver's space who are gonna look at a guy like that and imagine the thing's he'll do in their offense. He reminds me a bit of Jimmy Graham, who was one of the dominant players in the league in New Orleans (the right offensive environment) but just didn't really impact the game that much when on other teams (even though Seattle was far from a pushover offensively, either). Somebody out there will pay Gesicki money to be their Jimmy Graham, and unless Gesicki is foolish or sentimental, he wouldn't settle for a huge hometown discount (not that we've ever heard of one being offered to begin with).
He reminds me a lot of Charles Clay - Clay was a homegrown TE made good. I remembered when we drafted him being talked about more of as a fullback, but we only saw a sprinkling of plays here and there, including a season ending injury I believe his second year. But after that horrific injury to Keller he was unexpectedly thrust into a starting TE role, and he thrived, succeeding with a natural feel for finding open space and just being a lumbering giant when it came to YAC. When it came time for FA the money there for him was just far more than what he was worth. We wanted to keep him, but not at frontline money because he had limitations. And he really didn't play into his contract, which became an albatross for the Bills. Gesicki is a better player, but is still a limited player who will get overpaid.
In another thread I mentioned that the Dolphins biggest problem hasn't necessarily been that we have drafted well in the last twenty years, part of it is that we haven't retained and built around the guys who have become players when we've drafted then. It got me thinking about players like Jarvis Landry and Olivier Vernon - these guys were good players, not do all players, but good players. When it was time to talk about a second contract for these guys it was all about what they couldn't do. Hey, maybe neither one of these guys, or any other player we've let go, have lived up to what they signed that second contract for, but at the end of the day, we told these home grown Dolphins they weren't good enough for our money - and then we went out and spent the same amount of money on mediocre or over the hill players at the same position. We signed Mario Williams, who didn't even make it to the end of his first season with the Dolphins, after Vernon, in addition to other mediocre guys I can't even remember - suffice to say they didn't last too long either. Jarvis was too expensive, but we were more than happy to spend money on Amendola (lol), Albert Wilson (less catches his entire Dolphins career than a single Jarvis season) Kenny Stills (a guy whose specialty was making you feel like you had 0 receivers in games he was playing) etc.
Not necessarily at the same position, but how many dollars in dead money are we spending on bad or mediocre players right now? Guys who aren't even on the team? Yeah, we may waste a ton of money on Gesicki, but we've waste so much money on players that have done such a minimal amount of things for the actual Dolphins. Maybe, instead of seeing Gesicki join the list of Dolphin draftees that could play in this league, but weren't long-term members of the team, we could actually waste money on one of our own.
Gesicki is going to earn a lot of money in free agency, not necessarily because of the numbers he produces at the end of the year when compared with the position he really plays, which is slot receiver. But there's a lot of offenses in the league that can regularly provide their receiver's space who are gonna look at a guy like that and imagine the thing's he'll do in their offense. He reminds me a bit of Jimmy Graham, who was one of the dominant players in the league in New Orleans (the right offensive environment) but just didn't really impact the game that much when on other teams (even though Seattle was far from a pushover offensively, either). Somebody out there will pay Gesicki money to be their Jimmy Graham, and unless Gesicki is foolish or sentimental, he wouldn't settle for a huge hometown discount (not that we've ever heard of one being offered to begin with).
He reminds me a lot of Charles Clay - Clay was a homegrown TE made good. I remembered when we drafted him being talked about more of as a fullback, but we only saw a sprinkling of plays here and there, including a season ending injury I believe his second year. But after that horrific injury to Keller he was unexpectedly thrust into a starting TE role, and he thrived, succeeding with a natural feel for finding open space and just being a lumbering giant when it came to YAC. When it came time for FA the money there for him was just far more than what he was worth. We wanted to keep him, but not at frontline money because he had limitations. And he really didn't play into his contract, which became an albatross for the Bills. Gesicki is a better player, but is still a limited player who will get overpaid.
In another thread I mentioned that the Dolphins biggest problem hasn't necessarily been that we have drafted well in the last twenty years, part of it is that we haven't retained and built around the guys who have become players when we've drafted then. It got me thinking about players like Jarvis Landry and Olivier Vernon - these guys were good players, not do all players, but good players. When it was time to talk about a second contract for these guys it was all about what they couldn't do. Hey, maybe neither one of these guys, or any other player we've let go, have lived up to what they signed that second contract for, but at the end of the day, we told these home grown Dolphins they weren't good enough for our money - and then we went out and spent the same amount of money on mediocre or over the hill players at the same position. We signed Mario Williams, who didn't even make it to the end of his first season with the Dolphins, after Vernon, in addition to other mediocre guys I can't even remember - suffice to say they didn't last too long either. Jarvis was too expensive, but we were more than happy to spend money on Amendola (lol), Albert Wilson (less catches his entire Dolphins career than a single Jarvis season) Kenny Stills (a guy whose specialty was making you feel like you had 0 receivers in games he was playing) etc.
Not necessarily at the same position, but how many dollars in dead money are we spending on bad or mediocre players right now? Guys who aren't even on the team? Yeah, we may waste a ton of money on Gesicki, but we've waste so much money on players that have done such a minimal amount of things for the actual Dolphins. Maybe, instead of seeing Gesicki join the list of Dolphin draftees that could play in this league, but weren't long-term members of the team, we could actually waste money on one of our own.
