Commanders Post at The Warpath - Redskins signing rookie class of 2009

[quote=SmootSmack;562771]All good points, and actually I think the WR who can do (has shown he can do) the special teams "dirty work" like Thrash to me is Devin Thomas. I thought he had some nice glimpses on teams in games last year. But of course the hope (not yours of course since you hate DT :) ) is that Thomas will be the #2 or #3.

Of course, we'll need 5 WRs when my boy Chase is running the spread offense!

I think Hagans might just make the team[/quote]I think, using DT on special teams, at least this year, would be using our personnel in a way where everyone could succeed. Of course, we'll just use Thomas to block Kelly when running 3 WR sets. In essence, that's the problem with drafting a guy that high: even if his play doesn't warrant it, he's going to get a chance.

Of course, based purely on the field product from last year, Kelly doesn't deserve anything either, but you know I've long held the belief that: if you have to wait until you have the player on the team to know where he stands, you're already behind in the NFL game. Which was really my whole beef with the Thomas pick. It's also why I said, after the Kelly pick (tongue-in-cheek) that we "were already admitting a mistake" to paraphrase myself. My whole issue was that we were going to take him, immediately and continually overrate him because we took him, and our offense would suffer because of it.

Of course, things are never as black and white as my edgy writing style would make them seem. There ARE ways we can develop Thomas. There ARE things that Devin Thomas can do to help this team win ball games (see his misdirection TD run). He can be a role player for us. But NFL teams [not just the Redskins] don't often behave in a way that would make me think it's likely that we do anything but try to fit him into a mold that he's simply not good enough to handle, and thusly we just waste a bunch of plays in games with him. A lot of my draft projections make the assumption that a NFL team will use a player a certain way, regardless of how his skill set suggests he should be used.

We took Devin Thomas in the second round, and we're trying to move him along at the speed of a second round receiver, which seems like just complicating the original mistake of badly over-drafting. I think the team would be prudent to take your advice, make him the next James Thrash, let him taste NFL success first, and THEN if he starts to light up his teammates in practice, use him on offense accordingly. Let him perfect a small section of the route tree, and he can come off the bench and help us with our big plays.

Unfortunately, no, this is not going to happen. Smaller chance than Hagans actually making the team :)

BTW, when did you 180 on Chase?