Jonas Gray

I thought he was out for the year with an ACL?

I don't know much about him except a couple of guys (I think CK was one, not sure) liked him. Pretty much a hammer in short yard situations if I recall. Pretty does what DT does. Maybe better...

 

Gray has been on the PUP list.

 

come on guys....be fans...be informed about your team

 

CK loves him. He put up some good vids and nice facts in the Club.

 

Wondering if anyone else ignorantly read the thread title and thought "oh, we should totally trade for him!"


Just me, huh?

 

If he is HALF what CK seemed to think he could be based on Notre Dame goal line carries (after his 'awakening') then Gray is ten times the goal line threat Thomas is.

But I doubt this regime plays him. Guys like Lamar Miller can't get a carry and they were here for all of training camp, preseason and six games and a bye week.

 

Lmeister, Jeff wants to see you in his office. Bring your play book. You've been traded to Finheaven for a packet of old crisps Boomer left over there.

You may call Vontae Davis' grandma afterwards.

 

I think each team can declare one player for the 6 week IR, but they must do it at the time the player goes on IR. They are not then also obligated to take him off IR after the 6 weeks though, if he is not healthy. That's how I took it anyway.

 

Gray has been on the PUP list, not IR. He has a 3 week window in order for the Fins to activate him or he has to either be cut or placed on the IR. He suffered an ACL late in the college year, IIRC. At any rate, I don't think that Philbin/Sherman are all too enamored with their RBs, so it makes sense they'd look at other options... Bush is up and down, but when he's up, he's done pretty well. Thomas has had good streaks in games but can't stay healthy. Miller is still learning the blocking part of his responsibilities, something he didn't have to do in college and Lane is doing relatively well also, but Gray has the makings of a guy that fits the WCO RB criteria... My guess is that if healthy, he hits the roster. The only thing that is odd to me is that they waited until during the bye week to activate him to practice ??

 

Technically he's been on the NFI (Non Football Injury) reserve list but that list's restrictions and limitations are pretty much the same as PUP.

 

I think the issues are intelligence and opportunity. This offense requires quick decisions and no mistakes. They don't want to put players in before they're level of understanding in the offense is high enough unless they have no choice. IMO they had no choice with RT and Martin and they are both very high intelligence players. With guys like Miller, Egnew, Matthews and Gaffney, you either have lower intelligence and/or less need to force them in, in the mind of the coaches. I think these coaches really emphasize putting players in position to succeed. They don't subscribe to the oft mentioned fan idea of "let's put them in and see what happens".

 

[video=youtube;8MJOq1SdBcc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MJOq1SdBcc[/video]
[video=youtube;83wet2qcq4E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83wet2qcq4E[/video]

What I like about him:

1. Talent wise is he's obviously a quality size/speed/agility/burst type of guy, which he's been since High School where I believe he was a pretty high recruit.

2. He's 5'10" and 225 lbs and built like a rock, but has really good ability to sit and burst out of his cutbacks. He reminds me of Shonn Greene that way.

3. He has a knack for using his blockers especially in more open field situations. I think his vision overall is actually pretty good.

4. He's powerful and gets yards after contact, sometimes by breaking tackles but often by just leaning forward for that extra yard which can be pretty impactful if the guy does it on pretty much every run.

5. There's a will factor in his running that I like. I think it shows up near the goal line where he took 12 carries inside the opponent 10 yard line and produced 9 touchdowns as a senior (producing 3 more touchdowns on carries outside the 10 yard line). I think when you look at the big run he had against Pitt, he really should have been caught given his overall speed factor (which I'm not going to pretend is in the 4.4's), but he wasn't going to be caught because he just ran that hard. I've really only seen I think of maybe 2 times when he was close enough to paydirt to smell it, and he didn't manage to will it into happening. One was a longer run where he stretched forward but his knee touched with the ball maybe half a yard shy of the goal, and then I think there was a goal line type carry somewhere in there where he maybe could've gotten in but he got stopped. Otherwise he made the touchdowns happen, and he also made things happen to get the 1st down. There's a 3rd & 17 play in there that he converted and I thought he just showed a fantastic will to convert the down on that play.


A few things I don't like:

1. In 2011 he got tripped up by the shoelaces a little more often than you'd love. He averaged over 7 yards per carry on 110 carries after that disastrous initial showing against South Florida in the first game of the year (which was a soul searching turning point for him), so it's tough to really complain about getting tripped up by the shoelaces, but if he were able to break through that better he could be that much even better than he is. He's relatively inexperienced though and it could be something he gets as he grows up, so to speak.

2. He shows a tendency to get sideways into contact. Again, with how many yards after contact he produced (I tallied it up once and it was impressive), it's tough to complain heavily on this front. However, the fact of the matter is, he could be better. He does it because his instinct is to spin out of contact, which works for him sometimes to great effect but also can result in bad things. Getting sideways into heavy contact can reduce the impact of a tackle, but it can also put your knee out there to be destroyed as happened in the Boston College game. You can see it clearly on the play, instead of showing an instinct to square up and get low into the tackle attempt by that low-diving defensive back, he got sideways into the contact, leaving his knee exposed to the dive.

3. He's really only an average receiver out of the backfield, without much experience in that regard, and he's also only average (for a college back, which is poor by NFL standards) in blocking duties. I try not to ding average blockers much at that position because I've seen way too many guys that were poor at it in college simply because they were untaught and inexperienced, then they come to the pros and are actually good at it. At 5'10" and 225 lbs with his explosive qualities, the only things that would prevent him being an excellent blocker would be grasp of the playbook, and/or aggressive physical mentality. I've not noticed or heard about deficiencies in either area.

4. He sat the bench for a long time, and it's important to find out why. Some of it I know was because he tried to be a big back that didn't play big, and you still see remnants of that sometimes when he's more focused on spinning out of contact than squaring up and getting low. Jerome Bettis (ND alum) had a talk with him once and told him buddy you're 5'10" and 225-230 lbs, you're a big back so be a big back, quit dancing and get north-south. I think in his senior year he obviously started to get better at that. But I've also heard whispers that he used to be something of a class clown type of player that the coaches were disappointed in. That's interesting because I know he comes from a good family...but it could just have been a maturation process. Things like that have a way of showing up again.

 

And that may change as the offense's margin for error increases as Tannehill improves with experience. But right now, with a rookie QB, the margin for error is small, and you don't want that error to come from players who miss assignments, for example.

I'd say if Lamar Miller is having trouble getting in there, it's doubtful Jonas Gray will.

 

That big long touchdown run against Pitt is special for a number of reasons.

For one thing, he hit the right hole. That's not really special but it is nice, he knew where to get to and he used his blocker well.

For another thing, he broke an open field tackle by a safety on the play. And at 5'10" and 225-230 lbs, he didn't even necessarily break that tackle physically with power. He broke that defensive back's ankles and forced him to lunge at air. At that size, you show the ability to do that in the open field, that's uncommon.

Then from a pure speed standpoint, forgetting that he juked a defensive back with agility, he actually outran defensive backs on the play. Any time you're as big and stocky as he is and you can show the ability to outrun defensive backs on pure speed, that's pretty special. It's uncommon.

And finally, the most impressive aspect of the play, is tying it all together. Those of you out there that are athletes must know that it is really difficult to reach top gear and run that hard after you've already made a couple of moves. There's only so much you have in the gas tank. He plants and cuts off the outside shoulder of the right guard in order to burst through the hole, he makes a HARD cut to the right in order to make a safety eat sh~t, absorbing contact on his legs that slows him down, and then he gets BACK to top speed well enough to outrun everyone on the field. That's special to me, on a 5'10" and 225 lbs guy. I just know that it's really tough to run your eyeballs out after you've had to cut a couple of times, lose your speed, and then re-accelerate.

Go check out Vincent Jackson's 95 yard catch from this weekend some time. Vincent Jackson runs in the 4.3's. But after making the moves he needed to make to get clear of the corner and safety and catch the ball, he tries to re-accelerate and run for the touchdown, and he couldn't make it. Pure and simple. In pure straight lines, Jackson had 219 feet to travel to get to the end zone after the catch, and Malcolm Jenkins (who runs about a 4.50) had 237 feet to travel to meet him at the goal line. Jackson is the faster player, without question. But in the time it took Jackson to cross 200 feet, Jenkins had crossed 220 feet, and when Jenkins came on Jackson the difference in speed at collision made Jackson look like he was practically standing still.

Sometimes the human body's just not built to de-accelerate and then re-accelerate like that...but Jonas Gray did it. And when he sensed contact on coming as he neared the end, he high stepped to try and avoid the shoe string tackle. Showed a lot of energy and will on the play. It was an attention grabber.

 

I can't support it with anything other than my own wild biases but I'm suspicious of any runningback under 220 pounds and it's nice to see the Dolphins pick up a guy like this.

 

What I think is special about that play is how he keeps his afterburners on all the way to the end zone and doesn't get caught from behind, and in fact is starting to pull away from the chasing pack before the end zone comes into view.

If that were Ronnie Brown making the play he'd have been caught/run out of bounds after making 40 or 50 yards.

Just goes to show it's more than just having the physical talent.