I did not mean from the previous post that I have concluded there is no chance Vlad will work out. Not by any means. But I do agree with the assessments that the odds of that are substantially diminished from where they should be, and that he is not anywhere near where a second round pick should be by now. And that is something it is not unreasonable to begin questioning the FO about.
....he's doing what Vernon Gholston couldn't sack the QB lol But as 3rd and 2nd place winner of king ugly I like big vlad and hope the best for him
In any event while I do not mean to discourage the argument here, we will no doubt see soon enough what the Jet organization thinks of Vlad. Moves will either be made or not. He will make the travel team, be put on the taxi squad, or cut. He will play more pre-season games most probably, and we will see development, or not.
Valid point, but Hunter was useful for the Jets from the day Callahan got here as an extra TE (essentially a 6th lineman on the plays he was in). Slauson was able to start and be effective his second year in the league. Ducasse is a bigger project than these guys obviously (Hunter had experience in the league, Slauson was coached by Callahan) but this much bigger? He's obviously just as, if not more, physically gifted than those guys yet he hasn't shown any progression at all in his pass blocking. Run blocking sure, he's a big strong dude but as good as he is in that department he's an absolute liability out there in pass pro. We'll see, but with Turner's injury that probably won't land him on the IR we're basically gonna be using 2 roster spots on nothing for the beginning of the season because Ducasse isn't ready to play right now. Maybe he'll make substantial progress by the end of TC.
It's not hindsight at all. I'm asking is an o-line project who's going to take at least two year to develop worth a second? In my book if a lineman's that much of a project then you shouldn't draft him in the second, period. EDIT: Also, he's not going to the practice squad folks. They have to cut him and take cap hits (about 250k this year, 500k next year), and expose him to the rest of the league, to put him on the practice squad.
I hate the shortened offseason because we're essentially left with the same Vlad we closed out the season with. I'm going to wait until the 4th preseason game to really judge, but I sure wouldn't blame the FO for bringing someone else in ahead of that point. I'd love to say that if he gets fixed at the RT position he finally starts developing, but none of us really know if that's true.
I think this is the stance most people here are taking. I hate the pick simply because it was a 2nd rounder that hasn't produced anything and most likely will not until 3rd year and that too being optimistic, but I don't want them to cut him. I wanna see what he brings to table, why he was drafted so high. If he's a raw talent and got a 2nd round grade on him, AND wasn't meant to produce anything for the first couple of years, I'd would expect him to eventually become an excellent RT, or LG or whatever position he'll be playing, for a long time. You don't develop a guy for years just so that he can become a great backup. Extremists might make u laugh, but its the Brandon Moore comparisons that crack me up.
If he's the starting RT for the Jets this year, he becomes the weakest link on that OL. That makes our OL very weak and we'd need at least a couple of good QBs behind Sanchez. Maybe he'll miraculously improve over the next three weeks, but Im not gonna be that optimistic.
Turner needs replacing in any event, so a move in that direction in and of itself will not say what the FO and CS think of Vlad. But let's just say someone is brought in and plays and Vlad does not. That will speak volumes. ALmost as much as if he's cut. Which is not to say I am predicting that... We don't really know what the CS thinks of Vlad, how well they think he does in practice, that sort of thing. It's entirely possible as some have alluded to here that they see enough reason for optimism to overcome the more negative assessments drawn here about his performance last night. We'll see what happens the next few weeks, and at that point the answer should be clear.
Good point about the practice squad, although I don't know right now that exposing him to the league would cause many to lose sleep.
Do you take Kellen Clemens knowing he was going to get cut after 5 seasons? He was a 2nd rounder. Its still hindsight. Like Iggy said above, the lockout gave us the same Vlad from last season, so his progression was frozen from where it was last year. The only thing he improved on was his strength, from what I've read, from working out with teammates during the lockout. So if a 2nd round pick that should have made more strides in a normal offseason is still behind his progression due to a lockout offseason, we all need to be more patient.
I'm not talking about the interior replacement for Turner. I'm talking about if the FO starts looking at tackles right now.
I think they'll look for someone who can play both. That's a rare backup to find. But they need a T/G tweener... The funny part about that is that Damien Woody could play all 5 positions on the OL.
Hindsight's 20/20 of course but I think the FO/CS had to have taken a potential lockout into consideration...especially since we only had like 5 picks going into the 2010 draft. He's further behind than they'd hope he be.
As far as holding a standard he can't hit in his second preseason, my expectation was that he would hopefully be a decent backup this year. After seeing Slausson run away with the competition last year, I knew Vlad would not be a starter in year two, with Hunter and Turner in front of him. That's not an unfair expectation for any second year player regardless of draft status, but he still let me down. He has much more than pre-snap assignments to work on, lets be serious. And when a QB calls out a new protection at the line, in an pre-season game with an empty stadium, I expect everyone on the line to hear it and adjust. Maybe he should JJ Watts cock out of his ear so he can hear what's going on. I know I never said to "Cut him right now" and don't think anyone else did either. The guy isn't what anyone expected. He's not a capable backup as a second year guy. I don't think this is a case of unrealistic expectations, or fans jumping the gun looking for a scapegoat. He has underperformed, and does not look good even as a project. If he doesn't let up any more sacks this pre-season, maybe the "Darksiders" will feel a little better about his role as our 6th lineman. Until he can do that, there is really nothing to show fans that he's going to be OK, other than faith in our great OL coach. We all held out hope that Rex would turn VG into a player, but he just couldn't.
Your example uses hindsight (do you pick a guy who we all know sucks); mine (would you spend a second on a project at o-line who probably doesn't start until year three at the earliest) is not-it's a hypothetical about what strategies a team should use in general. For example, I wouldn't mind using a second round pick on a QB who would take two or three years to get ready, because QB is just that valuable. Now you seem to be saying Ducasse is an ok pick because we always knew he'd be a project and I'm calling bullshit; maybe Tanny thought he was raw but I can't believe Tanny thought that Ducasse would take until 2012 or 2013 to be ready. I think Tanny just blew it and got a player who is much, much further from the NFL than he had hoped.
