what happened that made this once great OLB with upside into a sack of below average,un wanted wasted matter.. in the NFL ? the man had a great college career... but really NO SACKS... EVER ?? if i played i would atleast get pushed into a QB once and maybe hit his legs and break those bitches or somethin.. but are you kidding me.. no sacks ? how many yards in tackles for a losses gholston ? -2.. like your IQ you big dumb clown. really what went wrong ?
great college career? you sure about that? he did have 14.5 sacks in his junior year, but it's more of a 'feast-or-famine' type of scenario - he had a few multiple sack games, then went mute on most. that's not how you spell productive LB material. Gholston didn't even break 100 tackle total in 2 year span - which DeMarcus Ware did in flying fashion, for instance. He was nothing but a work out warrior that saw his stock shoot up the board after the combine.
He was chosen for his raw ability. Everyone in the NFL has raw ability or they wouldn't be in the NFL. His technique sucked and he was a crappy learner. Good players have good technique and learn well. It's pretty easy to understand why Gholston was a bust.
He had one move, run right at you and hope to push you backwards and bullrush to the quarterback. He seemed to have little football instincts or passion for the game. Strange to see just a complete washout like that though.
Gholston was a terrific athlete, but a horrible football player. He could just out power players at the collegiate level, but on an NFL field where everybody is just as athletic as him, he failed miserably. Gholston was absolutely lost. While playing on the Jets, he looked like he had never stepped on a football field before. He was slow to react, had no vision, and lacked any pass rushing moves besides a bull rush.
To sum it up in two words or less, he sucks. Now can we move this thread, with all the Tebow threads, in the abyss ):
August 24, 2011 NEW YORK (WFAN/AP) – Rex Ryan called former Jets bust Vernon Gholston a “phony” in his recent book. After Monday night’s preseason Giants-Bears game, it was Gholston’s turn to bite back. “Being a first-round pick, you would have hoped for more,” Gholston said. “Rex made a comment to me when he first came in that he thought I wasn’t liked by the guys on the team, then once he got there he saw that wasn’t the case. Those perceptions kind of determine the outcome, and it’s sad to say.” Ryan was left “confused” by the comments made by his former defensive, now with Chicago. “I’m confused, because I think I’m fair,” Ryan said on Tuesday. “I think I’m more than fair and I think I give plenty of opportunities. But if it wasn’t viewed that way, then that’s it. Again, I’m comfortable with being who I am.” Gholston told reporters he didn’t think he necessarily got a fair shot and had “no stability” with the Jets in three seasons — which included no sacks — after being the No. 6 overall pick. “I don’t agree with him on that,” Ryan said. “My job isn’t to make one player better or to feature one player. When I came here, I thought my job was to build the best defense we could possibly build. When you look at it statistically, it’s hard to argue that we weren’t successful in building this defense for the betterment of the NY Jets, not just one player.” Gholston was cut by the Jets before the lockout, and said he thought Ryan had preconceived ideas of what kind of player he was before he became coach — something Ryan didn’t dispute. “I heard how he was perceiving me before the draft, before he knew me, and I was the same way,” said Gholston. “I wasn’t hoping for him to be (my) first coach of the Jets when I was there, either.” “That could be accurate that I prejudged him,” Ryan said. “But trust me, when I came here, I was his coach. He was one of us. I became a Jet. Obviously, I evaluated Vernon when he came out of college. I wasn’t as high on him as maybe others were. When I got here, we were all in. I wanted Vernon to be successful. And I still want him to be successful.”
Vernon's failure is actually a really good example of why teams (and amateur draft gurus) need to dig deep when evaluating college prospects. Vernon put up some nice numbers in junior year but if we dig deeper, we'd notice that nearly all his production was from bull rushing. That doesn't guarantee that he's an NFL bust but alarm bells should be going off that he needs further evaluation. After all, there's plenty of JAGs in today's game capable of consistently dominating college lines through just bull rushing. Also, now that we look back on Tanny's career, we can see that he was really swayed by those combines & "potential" & Gholston looked pretty damn good in his combines. How good was Gholston's combine? http://www.nfl.com/combine/profiles/Dion-Jordan?id=2539288 http://www.nfl.com/combine/profiles/vernon-gholston?id=756 Check out those links. Look how close Dion Jordan (this year's draft darling) and Vernon Gholston are in measurables. Also, pay attention to how Gholston is already 10 pounds heavier. btw, this does NOT mean I consider Dion Jordan a useless Vernon Gholston bust. Simply making a NFL combines comparison. ============== During this year's NFL combines, Tanny was being interviewed and he made some comments that really surprised me. Stated he was really influenced by old Giants GM, George Young & learned to use those early round picks on good players from established schools and not ask them to do things they didn't have to do in college. However, if Tanny had followed Young's advice he wouldn't have drafted Vernon Gholston so high with the intentions of putting him @ line backer. He also wouldn't have drafted Hill or Vlad that high.
so is there a where are they now? or is it too early? my money is on driving a school bus in the south somewhere.