What do you think about Richardson, Milliner, D'Brick, Mangold et al? [You could add Revis and Harris to the mix if you so cared.] I never said you must get a day 1 starter. Read it again. [That would help a lot but you can't hit every lottery ticket either.] What I said was day 1 contributor. Which Hill, Vlad, Ghost were hardly of. The stark difference between the above group and the below group is that, the below group guys didn't even have their respective fundamentals down at the time of the draft. They all were flagged as [raw, high-risk/high-reward type project.] (Ok... Ghost wasn't even that - he shot up the board through combine and he was nothing spectacular before OR after the combine. But I stand corrected.) So how do you spot a day 1 contributor? In the VERY least, you need to draft players with sound fundamentals. Do you like to spend the next three to four years just teaching the kid how to take the correct stance? Ok - College football ain't nothing like the NFL. I get it. That does not mean sound fundamental techniques do not transfer over. Hardly the case. If you have to start teaching the ABCs all over again - Oh Lord. That's what LOW ROUND PROSPECTS are for. No comment - you are confused on this issue. Not me. Read what I said above if you still don't get it. They are called depth players. They shouldn't have been starting - but they did with the Jets. Fantastic, eh? And you are wrong on this too. It is the coaching staff's job to figure out how to maximize the talent they have - as long as they are ready to perform. LT didn't become what he was by following any means imaginable. Parcells found a way to use him effectively; i.e. LT would blow his coverage more than half the time of the snaps - but that still didn't turn out as a disaster that it should have been. Parcells allowed LT to play instinctively - yet kept the entire defensive system still intact. To LT's credit, he could 1. chase down the runner and QBs and 2. when he got to them, he could maul them to the ground mercilessly, without fail. His coverage skill may not have been the best of the bunch, but Parcells made sure it didn't matter in the long run. Now, can you say the same with Hill? Hell. He can't even fucking catch when the ball squarely hits him in the numbers.
According to nyjetscap.com we would save over 300k on the cap if we cut him this year. http://www.overthecap.com/cap.php?Name=Stephen Hill&Position=WR&Team=Jets If he doesn't look like a top 3 receiver in preseason I think he's cut since he doesn't play special teams. Hopefully we have 3 receivers who are better than Stephen Hill going into the preseason.
I've always had a soft spot for Hill, I'm not 100% sure why. I remember at the beginning of training camp he was making a lot more hand catches and I figured he had maybe taken that step. But by midseason he was back to his old ways. He's gonna need a lot of training, but hopefully by next season he'll learn. If not, he'll probably be gone.
I do too and I know one of the reasons why. I've never seen someone so genuinely happy and thankful for getting drafted by the Jets. The kid was just beaming and I remember thinking tall, fast, raw, maybe he can be developed but that attitude about the Jets, the way he was just beaming really stuck with me. Looked like the opposite of a diva draft pick or WR. _
How can you evaluate Hill, given Sparano the year he was drafted...and Geno getting his rookie year underway. And.. Some WR's take 3 years to really get it.
Cut him and draft a receiver that doesn't get raped off the line and has at least decent hands. That would already be an upgrade over this scrub.
The Jets could do worse with the last WR spot than a guy who can run block on the outside and has the speed to open up the field. To be fair, they can probably do better, too.
Everyone knew Hill would be a project the guy had 49 receptions in college and was strictly an athlete. He deserves a roster spot but should definitely be down the depth chart this year.
He may still work out this year, but it was a bad pick in my opinion. He was a project pick in the 2nd round. You don't pick projects in the 2nd round. You pick projects in the 4th round or later. I think Ducasse was also a 2nd round project pick. That's why Tennenbaum is gone, b/c of poor risk taking. There are intelligent risks and poor risks and Tennenbaum took a lot of poor risks.
We'll see what Hill's got during training camp. His drop% went down last year(around 10% to 2%) , but he still barely got targeted. I don't know how much is Smith missing him open and how much is on Hill for not being open. I saw plenty of both last year. It really seemed like he was never on the same page as Geno Smith with the timing. With Sanchez, they seemed to be on the same page at times, but Hill just dropped it. The kid is still young and barely counts toward the cap. Cutting him is silly. You have to at least give him training camp to prove he can help the team. Of course the Jets should still draft an early WR and sign one (or renegotiate Holmes), but keeping him on the roster through training camp is smart, even if he's just that #5 guy. I mean he's better than Gates & Schillens, IMO. Only cut him if we legitimately find 5 better WRs, like if our unit becomes Maclin/Sanders/Kerley/1st rounder/Holmes.
Yea that must be it. Also I remember he wore a suit when meeting with the Jets because he wanted to treat it like an interview or something. And also there was a game I think against the dolphins where he did something that stuck out to me. We were down several touchdowns and he made a catch and carried 3 or 4 people to get an extra few yards until he was pushed out of bounds. We were losing big time and he was still fighting for every yard. Of course just because he's likeable doesn't mean he deserves to be on the team if he isn't a good football player. That being said I'm really rooting for the guy and hope he makes strides this year.
No number two wideout can survive on a team without a number one. Or anything ever close to a number one wideout. Or number 3 qb.
How does that explain David Nelson, undrafted in 2010, coming in off the street and out producing Hill?
He was drafted to be a starter down the road, or a project pick. Jets were hoping they could turn his freak athleticism into a good football player after 3 or 4 years. It can be argued that perhaps you shouldn't use a second round pick on a guy who is going to take three or four years to fully develop, but that is a different argument for a different day. Cutting him after two years would be a mistake IMO. He was drafted to produce after a few years, so releasing him now is a bit short sighted. If he doesn't improve at all next year, than let him go. Giving up on a project after two seasons is a mistake IMO. He's not a big burden on the salary cap either.
He would cost a roster spot though, so that's an additional thing to consider if he's not productive.
Is there anyone at the end of the roster that would do much better than Hill though? I think the possibility that Hill can develop is worth a roster spot. Do you really believe that guys like Ryan Spadola and Vidal Hazleton have more potential than Hill?
