I'm Calling It Early. Rico Gathers Can Be Kellen Winslow Sr. Good

timb2 said:
He really is impressing me. I consider Kellen Winslow Sr. who is in the HOF the best TE I have ever seen. Gathers has that type of ability. Gathers can be great if used right
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He looks to be a beast once he gets his entire game down. He has great hands as we see he catches everything thrown his way, except the pass that was too low.
Bt can he run the correct routes, when it really counts, and handle the blocking assignments consistent. I do not study the films, so can't say. It looks like he dies, or at least getting better.

But I won't compare him to any TE's at this point. He still has a long way to go according to Jason. But then again he says that about most players not named Witten.
 
As I mentioned in another thread, spending another year under JWit's wing and learning the ropes from him will do wonders from him. Rice has the best teacher he could ask for. He has improved so much in the last year it is exciting to think here he could be by next year.
 
jrumann59 said:
Question is, is his blocking on par with Wittens this early in his career. Remember Witten came out as a receiving type TE not known for blocking.
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Tough to tell the assignments for a TE because of the nature of the position. He's way ahead of Escobar as a blocker because he's far bigger and stronger and is actually willing to get nasty and block. As long as he's not missing too many assignments that I don't know about, his blocking isn't really an issue more than blocking would be an issue for somebody like Eric Ebron, Gronk or Antonio Gates.

He still needs some work on finding the soft spots in the zone as well as how to feel the defender and use leverage to get open on his routes. He probably won't have to do a lot of that this year because he will have Witten running more of those routes and he will likely be designated as a more of a potential matchup issue (i.e. get him being covered by a linebacker) and running deeper routes.

Let’s say we go with 12 personnel with Rico and Witten at the TE spots and Dez and T-Will at the receiver spots. This would be a run oriented personnel. A defense could go with their base defense, but they would have to protect against Dez and Williams over the top. They may bracket Dez with their FS and cover T-Will one on one. That leaves either Witten or Dez or EE (coming out of the backfield) to be covered by a linebacker. You could also run a PA bootleg and make the defense conscious about the run, but also the bootleg in the opposite direction. This creates more 10 vs. 10 situations on running plays and makes us more dangerous against the pass.


A better way to stop the pass in this 12 personnel would be to go to a nickel coverage, possibly with 3 safeties. But now you’re trying to stop the run with 3 safeties instead of 3 linebackers. A 3-4 scheme may work better, but you’re still leaving a larger linebacker responsible for cover Rico or Witten or EE.





YR
 
I always thought the guy looked very stiff in his movements, the last two games he looks like a different person to me. I see no reason why this guy should not be used in the redzone...It will put a lot of strain on the defense. This team needs to get him on the field and I don't care if he is not 100% ready.
 
He(Rico) is interesting at this point in time. I remember going through the same thought processes with Martellus Bennett in his second year down in San Antonio. If his talent can translate into real season advantages we are going to be a handful for defenses.
 
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