I don't understand why Bowles is wasting all these 1st team reps on Winters and Colon. It's so painfully obvious that Aboushi is by far the better player with the most upside.
He's behind Colon, Winters AND Qvale in the competition. It's clearly not 'painfully obvious' that he's better than his competition. He's not very good in any facet, is not position flexible, and is on the roster fringe at this point. He's going to have to step it up.
I believe the definitive problem is QB, RT, and TE.. the interior of the oline has Carpenter, Mangold, and Colon, which is at least experienced and serviceable. and there is always the possibility one of the young G's can unseat Colon. conversely, Breno is a big liability at RT, and there is no one pushing him for the job. in fact, there isn't even a capable backup in the event of injury. at TE, Cumberland is a dreadful option, and i'm not much of an Amaro believer at this point. neither can run block, or pass protect should Breno need help (and he will). edge blocking will be a problem which opponents can easily exploit.
Nobody is behind anybody. They will all get their shot, Bowles is giving all of them a good look to see how they do. He hasn't seen Winters or Colon suck the past couple years, he hasn't seen Aboushi play well last year. They all start out fresh. As for the rest, I completely disagree. He was a tackle, he can play both Guard spots. And he's a very good technician with quick feet, very good blocker at the second level. I'm not sure why you'd talk him down for no apparent reason. There weren't any situations so far in the offseason were guys could have impressed Bowles at anything related to what they do on the field. This is the first football we're seeing this offseason, nobody wins starting jobs during walk through practices in May and Winters as well as Colon and Qvale are first in line. In a couple of days it should be Aboushi, Harrison, Dozier. Whatever Bowles plans to do. And we'll go from there.
Aboushi was a T? so was Winters and Dozier. not anymore. Aboushi was about as bad as you can be in his shot at NFL T. plug was quickly pulled on that, and rightfully so. i'm not so sure at this point he can play RG either. he's never done it, and still hasn't. i agree he'll get a chance, as the other options aren't great, and could even play themselves out of the role. but it is kind of telling he still is not even getting 2nd team reps at RG. you are vastly overrating this guy by saying he's the painfully obvious choice. not very good at pass pro, and not at all physical with the run. he's going to have to step it up, AND prove some position versatility. Same can be said regarding Winters and Dozier. they are all on the fringe right now, and 2 will likely be cut out of the 3.
Why do you keep going back to what he did as a rookie in his first few snaps at tackle in the preseason? And why do you keep saying he was complete garbage? I watched him play, he looked good. He looked pretty good at tackle against the Eagles when he started, they have (had) a really good D-Line with some decent pass rushers, he held his ground, had a key block to the rushing touchdown in the redzone, picked up edge rushers pretty well, showed good quickness. I mean he was a late round rookie, of course he wasn't going to get any playing time unless somebody got hurt. When Winters went down we needed a Guard, he stepped in and immediately the O-Line improved, a lot. Even before that everybody (at least I did) was wondering why Rex once again would stick with Winters in camp and preseason. From everything we've seen/heard in camp Aboushi outplayed him. You saw Winters play I hope, he was arguably the worst Guard in football when he started for us. The line was terrible. He almost single handedly destroyed Brick and Mangold. He couldn't do anything by himself, he almost dragged those two down with him, a Hall Of Fame Center in his prime mind you and one of the better tackles in the game. And here you are "defending" him and putting Aboushi down who allowed those two to focus on their own job, which improved the entire O-Line again and who held his own without any help? I don't get it. For a late round pick to step in like that in the middle of the season and perform at the level he did that was top notch. Even PFF had him rated as the best LG in our division. He can play tackle. He can play both guard spots. There's no difference between left or right guard. Now why Bowles picked the rotation the way he did I don't know, but it can't possibly performance related. Otherwise Winters would be dead last. And there's nothing any of the guys could have done in the offseason for Bowles to come up with a rotation where whoever performed best at lifting weights gets the first crack. I don't think the rotation has any meaning right now. Right now it's Winters, Colon, Qvale. You can't mix them up after every snap. He's trying to give them some time with the starters to adjust so they can play consistent and give them a fair shot. I fully expect him to do the same in a few days with the other group (Aboushi, Harrison, Dozier). That doesn't mean one is ahead of the other. Ronald Talley lined up with the starters when Mo was out, that doesn't mean he was ahead of Douzable or even Leonard Williams. They're rotating guys everywhere. Once the regular season starts we'll get a clear picture of what the depth chart looks like. There's no way Winters or Colon are going to end up starting for us, that's all I know. Qvale is a wild card, I haven't seen/heard anything from him but if he's better than Aboushi that's great. But those other two have got to go, they are not good enough. Winters has been starting for 2 years and he gets worse the more he plays. Colon is getting older, he's not getting any better. Qvale, Aboushi, Harrison (probably too early) and Dozier should duke it out and I'm 90% sure Aboushi ends up being the starter there. In the end the cream always rises to the top. If Aboushi gets cut you can be sure he will be picked up and start for somebody else and probably develop into a quality starter. There's zero chance of that happening with Colon and Winters.
Completely agree with you, maybe he wasn't above average but when Winters got hurt Aboushi had to step in and he did a decent job, at least a far better one than Winters', the O-line improved after that. Between the two of them I'd pick Aboushi over Winters any day of the week.
There's also some interesting stuff out there about Qvale. He was not on my radar last year, despite having made the practice squad, since speaking I think for many here we hoped Colon would hold down RG, and it was then a hope that Winters would show improvement enough at LG to keep that job, if not Aboushi would step in. Which except for the Winters showing improvement part, which didn't happen, is what happened. But Aboushi is not very good. Meanwhile reports are that Qvale shows steady development. Maybe not enough to be the starter, though. If I had to bet now, I would pick Colon as most likely to end up on top at least for Opening Day.
Day five reports also are rather discouraging on the Qb situation. Sounds like Smith as expected is showing "improvement" over his very low baseline, and if we're really lucky might improve to mediocre from downright awful. This is progress? I guess so. But I am more disappointed that Fitzpatrick is not doing more to take the job and take it to a higher level. Maybe it's his leg, maybe he's just not at a point of his career where he can get it done to beat out someone as bad as Smith. But the concerns we had that him being the best available option on the Qb market are now coming back. If Fitz can't take the job away, and with still several other issues at OL, TE and the lack of up and comers on second and third string, it's hard to be optimistic about the coming season.
Back to Smith, and I suppose Fitz as well... I had to laugh hearing a report on tv this morning about how Smith had his first turnover taking five days of camp, as if that is an achievement. But if you drill down, both Smith and Fitz have had the defense drop SEVERAL of their passes by now (which I suppose is an issue as well). Both have been lucky if you want to call it that. In other words, sounds like we have two Qb's neither of whom should be starting in the NFL.
It's a bit early to be calling it... on anything. We're reading notes and tidbits, but it's a far cry from seeing a product on the field. I think it'll hard to be optimistic or pessimistic until at least after the 2nd or 3rd preseason game, our natural tendencies aside...
Normally I would agree with you, but I think if there was some hope that either of those two would show up after this off season and show solid and significant improvement over what we had last year, we probably would have to have seen at least an inkling of that by now. We have not. No doubt practice and pre-season games will help Smith and Fitz. Just like they do for all the other teams and players in the NFL. The point is if we were hoping to see significant improvement coming out of the off season, we can say neither is showing that. How likely will either be a quality NFL Qb by the regular season? Not very. The focus on the horse race between Smith and Fitz is understandable, but who beats the other out must be seen in context - neither is playing well.
Again, it's still early. I'm not particularly optimistic in general on these two, but nothing is gained from jumping the gun. The team will rise or fall with whomever holds the job. Hoping for over-achievement, but we'll get what we get.
It's pretty easy to mask a deficient tightend when you have good receivers all over the field like we should have. Just make sure they're not the primary read and keep the old horse (Kellen Davis) in there to run block as painfully obvious as it might be. I don't think Breno is good or worth the money he makes (I believe $5 million a year) but I also don't believe he's as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He's the pinnacle of average which so far isn't the worst thing in the world. We do not want Colon starting. His best attribute is that he holds when he's beat so he doesn't get the quarterback killed. That's not a positive by any means.
This is a very random note and I don't know where to put it, but the Jets are going to wear their white jerseys at home for their first 3 home games (Browns, Eagles, Redskins). Since they're also slotted to wear white in every road game, they won't wear green until their 8th game, week 9 at home vs the Jaguars. Just a tidbit but I thought it was weird. Hope you guys like the all whites, you won't see green until November 8th.
Ahh, interesting. Maybe Miami will wear white in London or the Raiders will wear white at home. Seems odd not to wear green jerseys til November. No big deal though. I like the white on white look.
I also don't think the blocking TE is nearly as important in Gailey's system, as we will see more spread formations. The Ground and Pound philosophy has left for Buffalo.
