Mickalino's Most Overrated Redskins.

[GSF]

Cooley showed a lot of potential, and a lot of poise for a rookie. He's great at finding the open spot in the middle, he catches everything, and he fights for tough yards. He's going to be an important part of the offense in '05. He did struggle a little with run blocking, but they'll work with him. Definitely not overrated IMO.

[Walking Deadman]

Originally posted by Beaudry

Fine, I concede that Cooley is a top 5 H-back.... about 5 teams use H-backs, right?

H-back/TE is roughly the same thing, and for comparison sake, you have to lump them together because only a few teams use H-backs.

Lots of guys come to work, play hard and don't cause trouble. That doesn't make them a good player. Brandon Noble and Ryan Clark don't get much attention, and they do the same thing.

I think the Winslow/Taylor 1st pick theory is probably correct. Still, just because Cooley did better than expected doesn't mean that he's going to be a great football player.

Heck,

I'm on the Ryan Clark, Andre Lott, Walt Harris, Ron Warner and Evans bandwagon.......

Noble has a great back story (overcoming a potentially career-ending injury- why it isn't a national story, I don't know?). What about Joe S? Or Clemons or Randy Thomas?

Cooley got into the endzone 6 times (yes 6!) . That's equal to the # of rushing TD's that Portis/Betts combined for in 2004. That's also equal to the # of WR TD's caught by Gardner/Coles combined.

Cooley was that guy that most people saw on the news in the highlight tape-- b/c he was in the endzone. He is clearly our best Red Zone threat (or at least proven threat) going into 2005.

Again, just another reason why so many people are high on Cooley.

[Beaudry]

I think the "overrated" label hits Cooley because of the attention he gets for having a good, but not spectacular, rookie year.

How many people have Cooley in their sig pic? How many have Griffith, Springs, or Washington? All 3 of those guys had much better seasons.

I, too, am a Ron Warner pimp. The most underrated aspect of our team was the backup DLineman.

[KDawg]

Originally posted by Beaudry

I think the "overrated" label hits Cooley because of the attention he gets for having a good, but not spectacular, rookie year.

How many people have Cooley in their sig pic? How many have Griffith, Springs, or Washington? All 3 of those guys had much better seasons.

I, too, am a Ron Warner pimp. The most underrated aspect of our team was the backup DLineman.

Who's Griffith?

[Major Harris]

Originally posted by Beaudry

I think the "overrated" label hits Cooley because of the attention he gets for having a good, but not spectacular, rookie year.

How many people have Cooley in their sig pic? How many have Griffith, Springs, or Washington? All 3 of those guys had much better seasons.

I, too, am a Ron Warner pimp. The most underrated aspect of our team was the backup DLineman.

fans almost always favor offensive players. sig pics don't make one overrated.

i do agree with you about our dline.

[rteich17]

cooley is legit as for the other ones i have to agree with you. i wouldn't mind seeing cooley pay TE

[Leonard Washington]

i think cooley is overrated also. good hands, aparently smart, but i wouldn't consider him a playmaker or future HOF.

[jrockster21]

Originally posted by scruffylookin

We selected Cooley in the 3rd round, but didn't we have to trade a 2nd round pick (2004) in order to acquire the 3rd round pick to select him?

I believe we traded our fourth round pick in 2004 and our 2nd round pick in this year's draft. Maybe I misread your post....I read it pretty fast

[jrockster21]

Originally posted by Beaudry

The attacks on Mick in this thread are just not called for. Some of you are such big homers that you can't see the forest through the trees.

Cooley is an average NFL tight end. That's not a bad start for a rookie, but it is what it is. He's got NFL hands, for sure. He seems to move well enough, not Tony Gonzalez, but he'll do enough.

Chris Cooley can't block. Being a TE who can't block in a Joe Gibbs offense hurts the team. Cooley gets blown up at the line way to often. He definately can't man-up a DE and he regularly had problems with linebackers. I can't remember ever seeing Cooley get a push in run blocking.

Fans here seem to think Cooley is a top #5 TE in the league. He's not. He's an average NFL TE who is good in the passing game and a bad blocker. Luckily he is young and may improve his blocking.

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I don't think anybody overrates Rock anymore. I think most of us realize he's just a special teamer. For a while, though, he was king of the roost among the fans.

This McCune fascination is 95% non-football related. He's not even the best linebacker we drafted this year.

Jacobs is pure potential with no production. We have a hole at WR and fans need to fill it.

Brown hasn't done enough for me to even have a real opinion on him.

Good thing he didn't play very much TE at all last year, if he even played a down! He was mostly playing the H-back roll, and I remember that he blocked rather well. Remember, the running game stalled a lot last year because of the center position and because of CP's impatience with the counter-trey. When the switch was made to more zone-blocking schemes, he excelled. So Cooley (or whoever was in there) must have been doing something right.

Remember, there is a difference between TE and HB......review some old game film if you don't believe me. Some of the plays he made last year showed the determination and heart that he has. If every player on our roster had that, we'd be 19-0 every season.

[Jay Master Jay]

Now we bashing our own players? This is very interesting you might as well put our beloved coach on there too?? Our entire team just needs to improve and make us proud but we dont have to call them overrated. At some point every player and coach either plays or performs our expectations. It's all opinion but as long as they play hard what more can we asked for?? (A playoff berth would be nice)

[jrockster21]

Originally posted by Beaudry

Fine, I concede that Cooley is a top 5 H-back.... about 5 teams use H-backs, right?

H-back/TE is roughly the same thing, and for comparison sake, you have to lump them together because only a few teams use H-backs.

Lots of guys come to work, play hard and don't cause trouble. That doesn't make them a good player. Brandon Noble and Ryan Clark don't get much attention, and they do the same thing.

I think the Winslow/Taylor 1st pick theory is probably correct. Still, just because Cooley did better than expected doesn't mean that he's going to be a great football player.

Dude.....you need to freshen up on your NFL knowledge. TE and H-back are only slightly similar. The H-back is all over the field (lines up everywhere) where the TE pretty much stays in the same spot.

And FYI, almost every team in the NFL uses at least a couple sets with an H-back. Look it up if you don't believe me.

[jrockster21]

Originally posted by GSF

But McCune's muscles are so humongus. He's going to be the best LB in the NFL with those big muscles!

GSF -- you forgot the [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags.....

[Beaudry]

Originally posted by jrockster77

Dude.....you need to freshen up on your NFL knowledge. TE and H-back are only slightly similar. The H-back is all over the field (lines up everywhere) where the TE pretty much stays in the same spot.

And FYI, almost every team in the NFL uses at least a couple sets with an H-back. Look it up if you don't believe me.

You've posted 4 of the 5 last responses to this thread. Gather your thoughts.

I'm tired of reading the muddled thoughts of idiots. The homers on this board can write the most ridiculous garbage. Every negative news is denied and the messenger is shot before he has time to blink.

TE and Hback are essentially the same thing, especially in this offense. Hbacks lineup off the ball by a yard or so. They never receive handoffs like a fullback. They both go in motion. Theoretically, a Gibbs TE should be the better in-line blocker, while the H-back is the better receiver.

Just call him a damn TE and get over it. This is not an apples to oranges. This is a Granny Smith to a Fuji.

[Larry]

Originally posted by Mickalino

Nah man. You got it backwards.

The people I am addressing, who continually worship these players, THOSE are the people who need to come up with the evidence to back up their claims that these guys are super-stars.

1) I haven't even seen Blondie refer to Rock as a "superstar". And I'm probably his #2 fan on here, and I know I haven't.

What she (and I) have said is that he's a very good short-yardage back. (On a team that really needs a short-yardage offense.) And isn't bad in some other areas, either.

2) Evidence:

Rock is five-for five on fourth and short. Yes, it's only five first downs, but it's certainly not his fault. He can't get ten first downs in five touches.

He is, (going from memory) 11 of 13 on third-and-short. If I remember reading a stat from another thread, the NFL average when running on third-and-one is about 55% conversion.

Both of these stats were produced while running behind a Steve Spurrier O-Line that led the NFL in sacks surrendered. (And, it seemed to me, in three-and-outs). Can't exactly claim it was "the system" that moved those chains.

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Now, I don't think Joe Gibbs is bad at evaluating talent. So Rock's lack of attempts last year is a piece of evidence in itself, when it comes to evaluating him. It seems reasonable to assume that Coach sees something that he thinks is lacking.

OTOH, when you're evaluating talent, and one side of the balance has somebody's opinions, and the other side is actual preformance in actual games against actual defenses, well, maybe Joe Gibbs' opinion can tilt that balance, but there aren't too many others that can.