How's the Redskins Roster shaping up?

[NeverSurrender]

 

On 5/29/2019 at 1:23 AM, Thinking Skins said:

 

I'm not a fan of merely safeties that can hit, especially not when we've already got Collins, Everett and a bunch of other big physical corners. I want speed and range. Hopefully Apke can learn to read a qb and stuff but I'm not a fan of seeing a 4.5 - 4.6 guy at FS try to cover center field. 

Sean Taylor ran a 4.5.  We talk about game speed a lot.  This guy likes to hit so if he outplayes Apke then Im all for it. 

[Thinking Skins]

39 minutes ago, NeverSurrender said:

 

Sean Taylor ran a 4.5.  We talk about game speed a lot.  This guy likes to hit so if he outplayes Apke then Im all for it. 

Yeah thats a good point. I care about range more than anything. What I'm seeing from a lot of scouting reports (for all of our secondary just about) is this physical hitters thing, but little in the realm of speed. That makes me nervous because I think so much of our bad S play over the last 30 years (not just since ST) has been lack of speed and range at the position. 

[NeverSurrender]

5 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

Yeah thats a good point. I care about range more than anything. What I'm seeing from a lot of scouting reports (for all of our secondary just about) is this physical hitters thing, but little in the realm of speed. That makes me nervous because I think so much of our bad S play over the last 30 years (not just since ST) has been lack of speed and range at the position. 

Thats true but Nicholson has a lot of speed 4.48, 4.43 40.  He also has ELITE closing speed.  I would say his play has been sub par to this point.  I think he can be a lot better.  But the point is that he isnt necessarily a hitter.  That position needs a blend of 4 things in my opinion.  1.) Range (not necessarily speed) 2.) Physicality 3.) Instincts 4.) Ball skills.

Thats why its so hard to find a good one.  Hopefully its an open competition in camp, it should become obvious who the best person is.  Those 4 things are what made ST so amazing.  

[Thinking Skins]

1 minute ago, NeverSurrender said:

Thats true but Nicholson has a lot of speed 4.48, 4.43 40.  He also has ELITE closing speed.  I would say his play has been sub par to this point.  I think he can be a lot better.  But the point is that he isnt necessarily a hitter.  That position needs a blend of 4 things in my opinion.  1.) Range (not necessarily speed) 2.) Physicality 3.) Instincts 4.) Ball skills.

Thats why its so hard to find a good one.  Hopefully its an open competition in camp, it should become obvious who the best person is.  Those 4 things are what made ST so amazing.  

True. I don't know if I'd say his play was sub par, I'd definitely say last year wasn't anything special though, especially before he got benched. But I also wonder about Apke. Manusky was talking about him yesterday as far as knowing the signals and calling stuff from back there. And he did make some plays in preseason last year. He got exposed a bunch too but I would like to see how he does. Funny thing with him is, I'm more worried about his injuries. He supposedly had a minor injury last year that kept him out all year. But honestly if we keep JuJu, I wonder how different he is from the guy we already have. And maybe I'm being too simple minded because Anderson, Kerrigan and Smith don't have the speed of Sweat but they are far from the same player so maybe there's more to consider with the S position that the speed element I've been thinking about.

 

But what fears me about our defense is that we look SLOW as a unit. I think we addressed that a bit this offseason and a FS lineup like Nicholson and Apke can address that element but it may not be a cure all if they don't have those other elements you mention. 

[HTTRDynasty]

Monte can definitely hit.  Sometimes he hits so hard that he knocks himself out.  His problems are his health and his sub-par instincts.  I think we'd be okay in the secondary though if he just stays healthy.

 

We won't be a top 10 defense until we fix the ILB position.  Dallas and Indy showed us last season just how much a stud ILB improves a defense.

[kingdaddy]

On 5/29/2019 at 1:57 PM, Thinking Skins said:

 Really? Mo Harris got us a comp pick and so did Ty Nseke, and they were backups. Doctson is young and has big play potential. He could easily get us a comp pick. 

 

People are just selling him short for whatever reason, but if he leaves we'll get a comp pick (unless it cancels out) 

I'm not selling Doc short, I'm just going off of the fact that the team hasn't committed to him for the 5th year and that he's been a huge question mark for 3 years. I really hope he stays healthy and breaks out this year, our WR corp needs him bad. The catch he made to win the Seattle game and the ball he went up and got vs KC on Monday night, even though he couldn't hold on, show me his athleticism and ability.

2 minutes ago, kingdaddy said:

I'm not selling Doc short, I'm just going off of the fact that the team hasn't committed to him for the 5th year and that he's been a huge question mark for 3 years. I really hope he stays healthy and breaks out this year, our WR corp needs him bad. The catch he made to win the Seattle game and the ball he went up and got vs KC on Monday night, even though he couldn't hold on, show me his athleticism and ability.

And I agree, If Mo Harris can get us a comp pick then Doc should be able to.

[Malapropismic Depository]

2 hours ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

I see a possibility that only 5 WR's make the team.  As you mentioned, there are several guys who are all close in talent.  Key thing to factor in here, our WR group is not talented, we've got a whole lot of guys who could be high quality 3rd options on other teams.  Why keep 6 or 7 WR's at the expense of other positions when the last two are clear dropoffs talent wise from a group that's already got a low ceiling.

 

I might tend to agree with that...except for one thing...one of our PS WR's was taken away last year ; Simmie Cobb.

So, either that's incorrect what you said, and we actually do have about 7 or more NFL-level talent receivers that other teams would want, or the team did a horrible job of

designating such a talented player on PS. Then again, he was UDFA, so the whole rest of the league really passed on him, too.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

4 minutes ago, Malapropismic Depository said:

 

I might tend to agree with that...except for one thing...one of our PS WR's was taken away last year ; Simmie Cobb.

So, either that's incorrect what you said, and we actually do have about 7 or more NFL-level talent receivers that other teams would want, or the team did a horrible job of

designating such a talented player on PS. Then again, he was UDFA, so the whole rest of the league really passed on him, too.

 

I think you're overvaluing end of season roster shuffling that every team does.  They poached Cobb at the last possible time they could, before Week 17.  He played zero snaps and they then stashed him on IR.

[Est.1974]

On 5/12/2019 at 11:22 PM, bakedtater1 said:

Kinda like a turd with all the fixings sticking out .ya know corn, peanuts..the usual

 

 What the **** 

[skinsfan93]

I listened to the NBC podcast and listened to the interview of Doctson. I found his responses to be head scratching. He seemed so nonchalant about not getting the option picked up and heard no fire. And then I read an article in the post about him and I’m worried he will never get to the level we need him to be. 

 

I don’t know if football is in his heart. Kinda reminds me of Ricky Williams and his mindset. He has the most experience on our team as far as wideouts and he seems to be content as just another guy. I see no passion to be the “man”. I’m all for a calm demeanor but Doctson just doesn’t seem into it. 

 

We need our #1 receiver that wants the ball and says to the qb and the coaches get it to me. I’m starting to think he may be a bust. 

[kingdaddy]

1 hour ago, skinsfan93 said:

I listened to the NBC podcast and listened to the interview of Doctson. I found his responses to be head scratching. He seemed so nonchalant about not getting the option picked up and heard no fire. And then I read an article in the post about him and I’m worried he will never get to the level we need him to be. 

 

I don’t know if football is in his heart. Kinda reminds me of Ricky Williams and his mindset. He has the most experience on our team as far as wideouts and he seems to be content as just another guy. I see no passion to be the “man”. I’m all for a calm demeanor but Doctson just doesn’t seem into it. 

 

We need our #1 receiver that wants the ball and says to the qb and the coaches get it to me. I’m starting to think he may be a bust. 

Interesting take on this.....I believe the Skins coaches know what they have in Doc and that's why they didn't exercise his option. 

[volsmet]

Paywall warning

 

[RandyHolt]

15 hours ago, skinsfan93 said:

I listened to the NBC podcast and listened to the interview of Doctson. I found his responses to be head scratching. ...

 
I heard the same - with Julie asking the questions.  He certainly doesn't come off as the typical WR1 alpha male just give me the damn ball type, but I have a hunch he is not a total pushover, either.   Of course he may have been annoyed that Julie asked him about his injuries last season, influencing all his answers. I think he said first year aside, he has only missed one game.

 

We started to see Jay call some slants and let him use his frame. IIRC we also saw a few signs of fire, life, energy whatevs last year, after a few catches in our blowouts.  While I wish he would bulk up and add to his decent frame, at this point he is what he is.  Which for all his flaws is still probably our best WR.  He is not going to beat man D with his moves or speed. It has to be with his hands frame and play on the ball.

 

Alex had to be the worst QB for him. Worse than Kirk, who FINALLY started to throw contested balls to him in his last year here.

 

And Jay's slow play offense may not be good for meeting our expectations of him, either.  A first rounder in a slow play run first offense, where we see any WR getting the ball, ALWAYS just seems so forced and deliberate, he will struggle to meet our James 'Lofty' Lofton expectations. Jay rarely feeds a WR (even in a decent matchup) the ball, over and over.  Its almost hard to watch, for if we see Josh get a catch in the first quarter, its almost like we know he won't see another target until the 2nd half.  5 measly targets a game is not just him not getting open, its reflective of Jay's slow and deliberate almost predictable offense.  

[Anselmheifer]

1 hour ago, RandyHolt said:

 
I heard the same - with Julie asking the questions.  He certainly doesn't come off as the typical WR1 alpha male just give me the damn ball type, but I have a hunch he is not a total pushover, either.   Of course he may have been annoyed that Julie asked him about his injuries last season, influencing all his answers. I think he said first year aside, he has only missed one game.

 

We started to see Jay call some slants and let him use his frame. IIRC we also saw a few signs of fire, life, energy whatevs last year, after a few catches in our blowouts.  While I wish he would bulk up and add to his decent frame, at this point he is what he is.  Which for all his flaws is still probably our best WR.  He is not going to beat man D with his moves or speed. It has to be with his hands frame and play on the ball.

 

Alex had to be the worst QB for him. Worse than Kirk, who FINALLY started to throw contested balls to him in his last year here.

 

And Jay's slow play offense may not be good for meeting our expectations of him, either.  A first rounder in a slow play run first offense, where we see any WR getting the ball, ALWAYS just seems so forced and deliberate, he will struggle to meet our high expectations. Jay rarely feeds a WR (even in a decent matchup) the ball, over and over.  Its almost hard to watch, for if we see Josh get a catch in the first quarter, its almost like we know he won't see another target until the 2nd half.  5 measly targets a game is not just him not getting open, its reflective of Jay's slow and deliberate almost predictable offense.  

 

Jay's offense looked pretty good with Kirk and Desean and Pierre. That is decent, but not great talent. An above average QB and receiving group, but certainly not great. The problem has been that the cupboard has been bare at WR and QB and our OL and TE and RB's are always hurt. It's very difficult to produce without personnel. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

8 minutes ago, Anselmheifer said:

 

Jay's offense looked pretty good with Kirk and Desean and Pierre. That is decent, but not great talent. An above average QB and receiving group, but certainly not great. The problem has been that the cupboard has been bare at WR and QB and our OL and TE and RB's are always hurt. It's very difficult to produce without personnel. 

 

I agree the talent at QB/WR/TE combined was all above average.  But the thing that made it work was how they fit together.  DeSean's speed was a great complement to Reed, Crowder, and Thompson.  Garcon is the "dog" there who muscles DB's well when running intermediate routes.  We had no run game, but the offense meshed well because we had above average to really good receiving talent thriving behind the line of scrimmage, 5-10 yards past the line of scrimmage, in the intermediate area, and vertically down the field.

[RandyHolt]

30 minutes ago, Anselmheifer said:

 

Jay's offense looked pretty good with Kirk and Desean and Pierre. That is decent, but not great talent. An above average QB and receiving group, but certainly not great. The problem has been that the cupboard has been bare at WR and QB and our OL and TE and RB's are always hurt. It's very difficult to produce without personnel. 

 

Agreed.  We had a decent O I think in big part because we had horses at wideout, which I think it has become clear his preferred offense needs.  For the record I think Jay is a good offensive mind but would like him to step outside the box more. Heck even in long slow painful losses with the O being a no show, or even blowouts, he won't go to hurry up. Things like hurry up, while not the key to the bowl, makes the offensive unpredictable. It can gas a D or put them on their heels, kills subs and waves of fresh defenders run blitzing our injury riddled OL on every down, and I contend the first few snaps of hurry up leads the D to do the same play call.  It can also push a D right into prevent.  How often have we seen D confusion presnap, or a burning of a timeout?  We hear on and on about rhythm being a high priority.  HU sure seems like rhythm on roids to me. HU is the foot on the neck of rhythms, leading to defenders gasping for air.  Any team dumb enough to roll a grossly obese nose is begging for HU.

 

Galdi was going over all the draft positions of all the top passing teams WRs, and found having a powerful and explosive passing offense is not about drafting early round WRs.  While QB and OL talent and injuries etc are obvious factors, so is the entire approach on offense.

[Skinsinparadise]

I was just going through PFF's advanced analytics page, still working though it but just some quick observations so far that might pertain to the roster. Some of them are intuitive, some might be a surprise to some. 

 

Mind you this is according to PFF's metrics as opposed to being fact.

 

A. The Redskins O line is a good pass blocking O line but is average at best at run blocking and that's true regardless of the health last season of the starters for the most part.

 

B.  According to the PFF guys, one of the best ways to measure QB tied to supporting cast is their clean pocket stats.  In their mind, that shows what QBs can do when they have good protection.  Keenum was their #11 rated QB last year with a clean pocket.  Alex was towards the bottom of their rankings on that front as to his rating from a clean pocket.  Keenum was the third most pressured QB in the league last year -- the only QBs pressured more were Kirk and Watson.  Alex was one of the least pressured QBs.  

 

C.  We were horrible throwing the ball deep last year.

 

D. In spite of the good pass blocking score, the QBs still got sacked 45 times combined.  So in PFF terms many of those sacks were on the QBs.

 

E.  Doctson's numbers are very good as for completion % with the exception of him going deep -- especially on the left side where he often plays.  He's train wreck level bad catching deep balls on the left.   In short, don't count on Doctson as deep threat but his numbers are good otherwise when he's thrown at.

 

F.  Same point applies to Richardson with his major weaknesses being  intermediate passes up the middle.   The passer rating when targeted was insane 105.9 and had 0 drops.  Small sample though. 

 

G.  Jordan Reed is a horrible pass blocker and an ok but not great run blocker.  Among starting TEs in the league, Reed by PFF's metrics is the worst pass blocker in the NFL.  Vernon Davis is a good pass blocker but bad run blocker.  In his small stint, Matt Flanagan was a good pass and run blocker.   Sprinkle is a so so run blocker and slightly above average pass blocker. 

 

H. Trent and Scherff are more regarded as pass blockers than run blockers.   Very good pass blocking scores.  For their run blocking they are slightly above average but nothing special.   Their best run blocking O lineman last year was Ty Nsekhe

 

I.  Only YAC receiver we had was Crowder who was really good on that front.  In his small sample, Quinn wasn't much of a YAC guy, neither was Doctson or Richardson. 

[Malapropismic Depository]

30 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

I was just going through PFF's advanced analytics page, still working though it but just some quick observations so far that might pertain to the roster. Some of them are intuitive, some might be a surprise to some. 

 

Mind you this is according to PFF's metrics as opposed to being fact.

 

A. The Redskins O line is a good pass blocking O line but is average at best at run blocking and that's true regardless of the health last season of the starters for the most part.

 

B.  According to the PFF guys, one of the best ways to measure QB tied to supporting cast is their clean pocket stats.  In their mind, that shows what QBs can do when they have good protection.  Keenum was their #11 rated QB last year with a clean pocket.  Alex was towards the bottom of their rankings on that front.

 

C.  We were horrible throwing the ball deep last year.

 

D. In spite of the good pass blocking score, the QBs still got sacked 45 times combined.  So in PFF terms many of those sacks were on the QBs.

 

E.  Doctson's numbers are very good as for completion % with the exception of him going deep -- especially on the left side where he often plays.  He's train wreck level bad catching deep balls on the left.   In short, don't count on Doctson as deep threat but his numbers are good otherwise when he's thrown at.

 

F.  Same point applies to Richardson with his major weaknesses being  intermediate passes up the middle. 

 

G.  Jordan Reed is a horrible pass blocker and an ok but not great run blocker.  Vernon Davis is a good pass blocker but bad run blocker.  In his small stint, Matt Flanagan was a good pass and run blocker.   Sprinkle is a so so run blocker and slightly above average pass blocker. \

 

H. Trent and Scherff are more regarded as pass blockers than run blockers.   Very good pass blocking scores.  For their run blocking they are slightly above average but nothing special.   Their best run blocking O lineman last year was Ty Nsekhe

 

Answer to all those blocking woes and weaknesses, I'm telling ya, it's Elijah Wellman.

Guarantee, you hook him up to the PFF Advanced Metric Analytics machine, and test his blocking, the machine will overheat.

[NickyJ]

11 minutes ago, Malapropismic Depository said:

 

Answer to all those blocking woes and weaknesses, I'm telling ya, it's Elijah Wellman.

Guarantee, you hook him up to the PFF Advanced Metric Analytics machine, and test his blocking, the machine will overheat.

It's not even just the blocking. Doctson doing badly on deep passes. Elijah Wellman can fix it. Richardson on intermediate throws? Then don't put Richardson on intermediate routes, put Elijah out there.

 

If Trent Williams gets injured, no way should we be putting Flowers in at OT. Elijah has it covered. Elijah is an offensive weapon. Taysom Hill has a poster above his bed that he looks up at each night, aspiring to be the best at everything he's given. That poster is a life size picture of Elijah Wellman.

[Malapropismic Depository]

1 minute ago, NickyJ said:

Taysom Hill has a poster above his bed that he looks up at each night, aspiring to be the best at everything he's given. That poster is a life size picture of Elijah Wellman.

 

And of course, Chuck Norris does, as well.

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[Fat Stupid Loser]

On 5/30/2019 at 9:19 PM, skinsfan93 said:

I listened to the NBC podcast and listened to the interview of Doctson. I found his responses to be head scratching. He seemed so nonchalant about not getting the option picked up and heard no fire. And then I read an article in the post about him and I’m worried he will never get to the level we need him to be. 

 

I don’t know if football is in his heart. Kinda reminds me of Ricky Williams and his mindset. He has the most experience on our team as far as wideouts and he seems to be content as just another guy. I see no passion to be the “man”. I’m all for a calm demeanor but Doctson just doesn’t seem into it. 

 

We need our #1 receiver that wants the ball and says to the qb and the coaches get it to me. I’m starting to think he may be a bust. 

I thought he was a bust halfway through his second season.

 

[Thinking Skins]

https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/redskins/veteran-minicamp-notes-day-2-case-keenum-steadily-improving-dwayne-haskins-finishes-strong

 

Per the Redskins Talk podcast's Big Man Expert Mitch Tischler,

 Tyler Catalina took the most snaps at left tackle as the offense rotates options with Williams out of town. According to Tischler, Catalina fared better against Montez Sweat and Ryan Andersoncompared to past left tackles.

 

 

I just thought this was interesting considering the Flowers bad news. 

[volsmet]

Losing Foster, & possibly Trent, before mid June ... is ominous.

[RandyHolt]

Pretty ****ing ****tily, that's how.

 

In the spirit of D-Day, tank.

 

It's time for Jay to boldly poll the room, and take a page from Gibbs playbook.  Anyone that doesn't want to be here, let me know now and we will jettison you away as quickly as possible.  Bah nevermind, he will be too busy taking it on the chin at this afternoon's presser, while Bruce and Doug hide behind the curtain.