Can't understand why people would have an issue with Gaffney. He's about as good a fill-in as you could ask for. He's reliable and he's productive at a level beyond what you would generally expect or get from a guy available now. I don't care if he's cockblocking a young wide receiver, I'm much more concerned if bad receivers are going to hinder Ryan Tannehill's development.
So? He can run routes, get open and catch the football. He's never been in a system or with a quarterback (other than Brady) that allows him to gain that kind of yards.
So what? The developmental value of snaps for a young player with upside is what 2012 should be about, this is the same old Dolphins type of move, this move will just mean we merely forestall a young player going through the same process in 2013, and the same old "oh, it takes yrs to develop a..fill in the blank" Better to start that process now.
No it's not. I don't understand how you've taken that view of this potential move. Getting open and catching the football is pretty important, by the way.
Or, the young Wr comes through, there is that, the organization should have more confidence in developing players rather then applying yet another patch, like developing a Qb, you have to develop Wr's and the only way to do that is play them. If there is one thing we should have learned over the last 9 yrs is practice is highly overrated, only games count, and performance can only happen if a young player is put out onto the field. Naanee was a beast in practice, not so good when the lights come on, there is a huge lesson in there.
Playmakers Alen, that is what the NFL is now about, Gaffney is not one, we need to develop some, why waste time acting as if we don't have to do so? Offense has to create Td's, if you do not have Wr's who do score Td's you have to create them from scratch, not play 20 yd line to 20 yd line football at best.
You also need players like Gaffney to move the chains. I would love the signing. But would like him to replace Naanee
Padre, we are days away from the regular season. If you're looking for a playmaker right now, you're not getting one no matter what. You take what you're given and right now, you're being given Jabar Gaffney, who is a solid receiver. You're right, the offense does have to score touchdowns. I can tell you the chances of you scoring a touchdown with Rishard Mathews or whoever else running routes and Jabar Gaffney are significantly different. And the difference is a significant advantage to the latter. This isn't soccer, you can't heave a ball and pray it takes the right bounce so you can score. This is football, where you have to put plays together that complement each other and use a set of players that can make plays for you on a consistent basis -- that's what Gaffney can do. If he catches 10 passes at 10 yards a piece on every drive as we move down the field, I'll take it.
I think the issue at hand is that Gaffney could help develop the potential playmaker that is Tannehill better than a potential wr. Why is developing a playmaker at WR more important than developing a playmaker at QB?
Elite? You're kidding right? Elite receivers don't just get released from teams and then picked up off of waivers.
We do not really know what we have in Matthews, in that sense it would be better to play him to see what we have then to bring in a Wr who simply does not produce Td's, this way in 2013 THill has at least one young Wr who he can grow with, instead we have a vet Wr who THill can play catch with, but 4 yrs from now?
He can be, for all we know he is Brandon Lloyd, I happened to watch the Redskins in 2010 and McNabb used him extensively deep down the field with great results, AA was injured in 2011, and they drafted young Wr's, his time was up in DC. Shanahan for his flaws knows you have to develop young Wr's at the same time you do a young Qb.
I would not be surprised if he goes to the PS alen, and we go with: Bess/Hartline/AA/Gaffney/Naanee Not an awful Wr corps, BLine and AA can get downfield, Gaffney and Bess can work the underneath and seam stuff, Naanee's hypnotic power will keep him on the roster for some odd reason.
I don't think finding young, unheralded players comes from just randomly cycling the bottom of your roster on to the field and hoping a light comes on. It's possible we've got a quality young contributor we don't really know about just yet, but there isn't enough depth or talent to keep them off the field. Also, I don't know if you've really got to be lighting a candle for Legedu Naanee or Marlon Moore's career prospects.
This. I also believe at some point, one of those 4 QBs is going to have to come off the roster. Just looking at the depth on defense, yikes! If one guy goes down, it's not exactly like you can plug that whole with someone entirely serviceable except for maybe on the D-Line, and even then, pickings are slim.
Just throwing rookies in a game to see what ya got is not an ideal way to develop them. I am all for dropping Naanee or one of the QBs not named Tannehill or Moore for Gaffney. Gaffney doesn't make this team a contender but he will make them better.
Thatg is an interesting point. How long do we carry 4 QBs in the hopes of making a deal? Just bite the bullet and move on before week 1's game.
I said elite vertical threat. Never said he was elite WR. Hes far from that. But AA is very good at going deep. He is basically what everyone wanted Gates to become.
Difference being Gates could return kicks, which saves a roster slot, AA does bring some things to the table but he is not optimal from a roster pov. Other reality we should consider is Hartline probably won't stay healthy all season.
You just preached play making ability as a reason to not sign Gaffney. When we bring in a legit HR hitter, albeit thats it, you bring up kick returns as a reason to discount that? Gates wasn't some out of this world kick returner or something
He did handle that role though, and could possibly have handled punts and been the #4 Wr Alas, we will never know now.
I'm not sure there was much to recommend Gates as a kick returner besides being fast. He didn't really do much in that regard last year.
I think it was telling that he had no role at all in that regard in the preseason, which makes me think the new coaching staff took a look at the tape of him from last year and decided to move in another direction without even taking a look at him in-person themselves.
Actually Gates did better as the season rolled along, and his return v the browns should have won the game. Think he was just not polished enough at Wr for them to bother with him as a returner.
One reason I think the signing of Gaffney would most likely mean the cutting of Naanee is the thing about vested veterans being on the week 1 roster means their contracts are guaranteed for the season. If you cut Moore or Matthews, then you have both Gaffney and Naanee on the week 1 roster and being guaranteed contracts for the season. It would also make more sense to me to replace one with the other rather than keeping both, since adding Gaffney and a healthy Hartline would make Naanee the 4th WR at best anyway. Perhaps the 5th depending how fast AA picks up the system, and that he offers the uniqueness of being the one proven deep threat, based on 2010 anyway.
What about putting value in the development of our 1st round QB instead of the development of a 7th round WR? I just can't understand why people keep ignoring this fact. The odds of Matthews ever developing into anything valuable are not very high. The odds of Tannehill succeeding goes down (it's debatable how much) if he's throwing to WRs who can't get open his entire rookie year. I would love for them to get Gaffney and at the same time keep Matthews. But if I had to choose one it would be Gaffney, no questions asked.
i completely agree. people are acting like developing our no name wrs is more important than developing the #8 overall pick, and the first time we used a 1st round pick to get a qb since marino, ryan tannehill. these current wrs will stunt tannehills growth and that more important than stunting the growth of wrs that wouldnt start on any other team except ours. we need someone like gaffney.
we wont have any of these wrs other than bess and hartline after our next draft when we get new wrs. if they are gone then, why keep them now instead of replacing them with vets that will help us win this season until we get younger and better through the next draft?
I have a really good feeling about Matthews though. The only 2 WRs I don't want to see replaced by Gaffney are he and Bess.
Oh I know, he also covers kicks etc. Can probably split out wide as well as in the slot. As for "gosh, bring in old vet to help poor rook Qb" Fellas, get used to it, I'd take Gaffney over Naanee (coin toss more or less) reality is, you need young Wr's to grow with your Qb, if we are to suck..err.."develop" this yr, you need both. FWIW expect THill to throw lots of high percentage stuff at first, hope AA and Bline can hit some down the field stuff
