Training Camp - Day 9 (ish) Monday The 6th

[Kdawg954]

*if the players are liked its Grier and/or Gase doing the picking. If they suck then its all Tannenbaum.

This in a nutshell until somebody can prove who does what.

 

[nick1]

This in a nutshell until somebody can prove who does what.

Well i think Tannebaum is let go after this season so then you can judge much easier

 

[Spiff]

It's so early in the process right now, expecting anything even remotely like a regular season rhythm is expecting too much, IMHO.

Let's take a look at these new pieces from general perspective:

Returning starters in this offense: Tannehill, Drake, Tunsil, Davis, James, Stills, Parker

Returning contributors in this offense: Larsen, Grey, Grant

New veteran starters/contributors: Sitton, Kilgore, Amendola/Wilson

Rookie starters/contributors: Gesicki, Smythe, Ballage

I'm fully expecting all of the returning players to resume the beat of 2016 with Tannehill at the helm … they're just not going all out yet, because they're getting in football shape and making sure they don't get injured.

The new veterans are likely doing similar things, although there will be a learning curve, especially for Kilgore (needs to call the OL) and Wilson (being used all across the formation). So those two may take a bit to get fully up to speed, I'll give you that. But Sitton played for Gase in Chicago and excelled, and he's playing the same role here, so I am expecting a plug and play. Amendola already appears to be on the same page with Tannehill and runs great routes. He's moved around before and been instantly-successful in the precision based Belichik/Brady offense, so I'm expecting him to be ready.

That really leaves us with the rookies. While Ballage doesn't seem to be an ideal 1st and 2nd down RB, he does seem tailor-made for the 3rd down role, and even if he suffers rookie mistakes (inevitable), he is likely to be an improvement on Damien Williams and Jay Ajayi in pass protection and receiving out of the backfield. I think Gase will focus on that and get the best out of him in those roles. So, I am expecting production from him, albeit over a limited amount of snaps.

The one area that will be very interesting and very 'wait-and-see' is the rookie TE's. Traditionally, rookie TE's have little effect. The speed of play, complexity of the offenses and sheer amount of things they get asked to do that are above and beyond what was asked of them in college, tends to make those guys play very hesitantly as rookies. The physical requirements in terms of strength, size, speed, and playing in space as blockers against the NFL's dominant edge athletes tends to make rookie TE's look just plain silly. They tend to be the poster-child for being posterized … and that's not particularly fun.

So yes, we'll definitely have some issues with our rookie TE's. But consider this … Gesicki is so insanely superior to the shells of players we got with Jordan Cameron or Julius Thomas, that even his flashes look to be a very sizable upgrade. Superior red zone threat and that will translate almost immediately. Superior seam threat, and while that may not prove super-productive initially, it will still scare the heck out of safeties, opening up run lanes and underneath passing routes. Smythe's role will be more limited, but we didn't really have particularly good TE play in 2016, so I'm not sure how much of a dropoff it will actually be.

All in all, are we seeing a team that is behind the curve, or are we just seeing a team that is pacing themselves for the regular season? Call me an optimist, but I'm thinking it's the latter.

Our best preseasons have often come before some very unimpressive regular seasons. Some of our worst preseasons have come before some of our best regular seasons. I'm not ready to predict team cohesiveness just yet, but even if I were, it's often hard to tell until the regular season starts.

I like this post because it's well thought out and I generally like positive opinions. I just disagree to a certain extent, esspecially with the bolded part. I know it's training camp and I don't expect any rookie to be a world beater from the start but I don't want to hear the excuse that it takes time to learn the system, to play together, to gel, to whatever. You guys remember Chad Pennington? He came in and played well. No need to get familiar with the system for half a year, he hooked up with the receivers seemingly instantly. Take Peyton Manning (I know I know, he's a HOF QB but I will still use him to get my point across). He's going to Denver after sitting out a full season and tosses 37 TD with players he mostly never played with before.

I don't want to accept it any longer. We've been using this pre-season excuse for years now but nothing has changed in the regular season. I'm talking about pre-snap penalties, missing assignments, missed tackles, dropped passes, poor pass protection, all those things. Every year we hope that these things get cleaned up once the regular season starts but they still exist. After all these years. Yes, I do believe that the pre-season is an indication of what will happen in the regular season. Not in terms of wins and lossses but in terms of how your team plays. There is no magic button, no going from vanilla defense to a dominant one, if the team sucks in the pre-season it will most probably also suck in the regular season. And that's what my concern is.

 

[Digital]

I like this post because it's well thought out and I generally like positive opinions. I just disagree to a certain extent, esspecially with the bolded part. I know it's training camp and I don't expect any rookie to be a world beater from the start but I don't want to hear the excuse that it takes time to learn the system, to play together, to gel, to whatever. You guys remember Chad Pennington? He came in and played well. No need to get familiar with the system for half a year, he hooked up with the receivers seemingly instantly. Take Peyton Manning (I know I know, he's a HOF QB but I will still use him to get my point across). He's going to Denver after sitting out a full season and tosses 37 TD with players he mostly never played with before.

I don't want to accept it any longer. We've been using this pre-season excuse for years now but nothing has changed in the regular season. I'm talking about pre-snap penalties, missing assignments, missed tackles, dropped passes, poor pass protection, all those things. Every year we hope that these things get cleaned up once the regular season starts but they still exist. After all these years. Yes, I do believe that the pre-season is an indication of what will happen in the regular season. Not in terms of wins and lossses but in terms of how your team plays. There is no magic button, no going from vanilla defense to a dominant one, if the team sucks in the pre-season it will most probably also suck in the regular season. And that's what my concern is.

I hear ya. If it's any consolation, I don't think we'll see too much excuse-wise on offense. Sure, the rookies and maybe Kilgore will have growing pains, but just about everybody else on offense really has no excuse. If Tunsil doesn't up his play, I'll be surprised and very disappointed. All in all, I think we will see a much improved offense. Preseason seems to have little to no correlation with how well we play the regular season. So all I'm saying is that I'm not putting much stock in how we play in pre-season, regardless of whether it is highly successful or highly unsuccessful.