I would love to be optimistic about Ducasse, but so far he's shown nothing other than being a first day pick. That's hardly a guarantee of success - as evidenced most painfully by Ghoulston. I'm not saying he's definitely a bust. Hardly. I just think there's nothing I can recall that would suggest he's going to be the starting RT on opening day.
I think there's a difference between "instincts" and "performing your assignment." To me instincts are knowing what to do in an unusual situation without thinking about it-jumping on a loose ball or making a quick tackle after a turnover or if the play breaks down just knowing to hit the crap out of somebody. You can be pretty good about instinctive and still blow your assignments. Ducasse may or may not have good instincts and he may or may not learn his assignments, but they're two different things.
^ Gholston knows his assignments, but has shitty instincts because mentally he can't play this game. That's why they're linked. If you have great instincts but don't know what defense you're looking at, your instincts can take over and save you, because you understand football and can use what you know to help you. If someone is dumb as dirt but they have a great football IQ- its because they have the instincts to play this game. Cromartie comes to mind. They're synonymous.
The guy played at UMass........really, what did you expect? First year starter on a potential super bowl contender?
I'll start this post by saying, I am not writing this guy off at all. I don't know if he's going to be Terrible, Average, or Great but when a player doesn't show you anything after a full year, plus playoffs, I don't have much hope for greatness. There are plenty of players in the NFL who started off slow, and made an impact later, but think back to our own rookies over the past few years. Dewayne, Hobson, Vilma, D. Strait, Cotch, E Coleman, J Miller, Nugent, Rhodes, Brick, Mangold, Clemens, Schlegal, E Smith, Leon, B Smith, Revis, Harris, Stucky, Gholston, Keller, Lowry, D. Coleman, Sanchez, Green, Slauson. There are plenty more, but look at all of those guys and ask yourself, how did they played in their rookie years? The good players were good early- the bums were bums early. Even the average guys like Lowry, Coleman and Stucky showed you early potential. Now, considering the rookie years that Vlad, Wilson and McKnight have all had, it's hard to feel good about these guys. Vlad worries me the worst out of everyone we drafted this year.
Considering those 3 had good games against buffalo in week 17 and were responsible for blowing them out, I think they can do okay in the NFL at worst.
Two main players I forgot about were Pouha, and Cactus. I guess those are two guys who started slow, and in years 5 and 6, they became average to good players. Pouha is good, Cactus is average. I have no idea how either of them made it to that 5th year without being cut, but it looks like it worked out. This doesn't change my argument, because I really don't want Vlad to follow that same type of career path. I may not have a choice.
How about Slauson, who was clearly not a NFL starter until the end of the preseason this year? It takes guys 3 years to become accustomed to the NFL. Just relax and have patience. This wasn't a draft for starters, this was a depth draft.
so very true. We have been very spoiled in recent draft history with finding immediate impact players. But plenty of guys learned and came to be pretty solid players in their time, Sione Pouha, Eric Smith and Slauson are just three examples of guys you listed who never played their rookie season or in Smiths case were horrible when they got PT. In a year, maybe 2 when all 4 of our dp's are starting (or in Mcknights case, splitting with Greene) it will become clear why we drafted them, and how excited we should be to have them on our team.
Yes he was an all american at Massachusetts just like Ihedigbo was. He'll develop into a very good player just like Digs has. Its great news that he is being groomed to take over as RT b/c that is where he should be playing as a starter for the Jets in the near future.
When exactly was Vlad supposed to show something this year? Offensive lineman don't leave the field unless the are hurt so it's not like you could have been expecting to see him rotate in like you would expect from a rookie on the defensive side of the ball or at certain offensive positions. The only game action he got was in the Buffalo game week 17 and he did just fine. Putting a ton of stock into that game based on the circumstances would be silly but that is really the only time he had the opportunity to show anything after the preseason ended. He was also drafted as a known project because of his lack of experience and lack of competition and top level coaching in D-2. He was expected to struggle early and he did. He had all the stuff that couldn't be taught coming in, now he just needs to keep learning the teachable stuff and he will be just fine.
Some people need to realize A. this doesn't necessarily mean he's being handed the starting RT job, he still has to compete for it and B. he's not any less promising than Slauson was a year ago.
I hope you are right. But guys like Eric Smith, Pouha, Bryan Thomas and even Pace were garbage until they played under a different system. It's not the typical progression that you look for when you draft a guy. I don't want Vlad to be good 5 years from now-- I want him to be good by year two. Slauson was talked up a good deal in his first year, and I was comfortable with the idea of him as a starter last season. I don't think I'm going to feel that warm and fuzzy about Vlad, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised. I really hope Calahan is as good as advertised. Let's hope we resign my new favorite lineman-- Wayne Hunter.
I hear you, but come on-- a 2nd round pick should have been able to at least challenge a player like Slauson for the starting job. The "competition" at LG was over about 2 days into camp, and Slauson was terrible early in this season, so that doesn't help Vlads case. You are 100% right though-- there isn't much to go on here. If you go back to my original post, it's really about looking at those former rookies, and making comparasons. For the most part, the good ones were good early. the bad ones were bad early. The ones like Smith, Pouha, and Cactus all sucked for years until they had a system change. Personally, I'm not expecting him to ever be a starter, or at least, not a quality starter. I think that a high pick should show you something substantial in his first year, and in my opinion, Vlad didn't come close to doing this. hopefully I'm wrong.
I just don't get the comparison you are making with a lot of the other guys. It would be unfair to compare him to Brick or Mangold since they were expected to be able to play from day one when they were drafted. Once you move past offensive lineman it wouldn't be fair to compare him to a LB or DB who didn't perform their rookie year since those guys would be expected to get into games as part of a rotation if they weren't ready to play full time. Offensive lineman can either play full time or they don't play at all. I wouldn't be worried that he couldn't beat out Slauson because he was pretty far behind on the learning curve when he came in. I can understand you being skeptical of Vlad becoming a stud like Brick or Mangold but I don't see why you would be so concerned about him not being able to be a starter on the line this coming season or in the worst case in 2012. He has all the physical tools to be an effective lineman so unless he is too dumb to pick up the scheme, which I doubt, he will play sooner or later.
He didn't challenged Slauson also because -like many mentioned in here since the day he was drafted- the idea arguably was to give the LG job to Slauson and move Vlad to RT. The only way that Vlad would have had a chance to play at LG was if Slauson really sucked at that, which thank god he didn't. So it's unfair to say he was no challenge to Slauson (not to mention that he was brought here as a project and nobody -except a couple of fans- expected him to start in his first season). Vlad didn't play in his rookie season... if we're gonna compare him to other players that didn't do anything at all his first year, I'll choose Aaron Rodgers; that didn't turn out too bad.
There's nothing to show because he's played an entirely different position since he's been in the NFL. If I'm not mistaken, Ducasse was a tackle in college right? That would be his natural position and Callahan is widely regarded as an excellent offensive line coach. I know you're not calling him a bust but I'm sure there was a reason why he was drafted so high.
Pouha, Eric Smith, and Drew Coleman are examples of how little we the fans actually know about these guys' abilities. Pouha did jackshit until 08, Smith's coverage liabilities overshadowed his great play in run support, and we all know the story with DC. Yet these guys never got cut after several underwhelming seasons and turned out to contribute big down the stretch. If Vlad doesn't win the starting job at RT, I'm sure some people will be calling him a waste. But as others have said, some guys take longer than others to develope. This kind of patience should be applied to Kyle Wilson as well. I'm comfortable with the winner of a Hunter/Ducasse TC battle starting at RT for us. Hunter showed he is capable, as long as he's not tipping plays he'll be fine imo.
