Meet Rico Gathers, the Best Bet to Be the NFL's Next Antonio Gates

[SilverStarCowboy]

Rico Gathers was picked 18 choices after Tom Brady, somebody liked him!

 

[Westcoasthabsfan]

how about the guy plays at least a NFL snap before we annoint him the next best thing...lol

 

[Westcoasthabsfan]

For this year he'll be a red zone target and backup. I'm not expecting much more than that.

really he has done squat and you are calling him to be the backup TE?

 

[TheDuke]

really he has done squat and you are calling him to be the backup TE?

I said he will be A backup not THE backup.

 

[Tristan]

Let's tap the brakes on this guy and wait till we see it on the field.

NO! Petal to the metal!

 

[Bleu Star]

Who is reading the extreme into anything? People are actually suggesting an UDFA who hasn't cracked the active roster and hasn't taken a snap in a regular season game is going to be the next Antonio Gates. There is no need to read extreme into anything. Its already there.....

Antonio Gates was undrafted. Just saying. So Rico is already better than him in one category. Lol...

 

[JBell]

So reports say he routinely gives Byron Jones that work in practice. Byron has one of the highest verts in the league (44.5") and decent height for a safety @ 6'1".... but he's got point guard size trying to defend a lob vs. a 6'8" power foward.

Gonna be a fun off-season.

 

[Bleu Star]

one or two people saying he is Antonio Gates compared to much more of us saying he could be the next Antonio Gates is a large gap to crossover. People did the same with Tony Romo and got shot down.
"Usually" people who say "put away the anointing oil" are just stating the known truth and trying to pull it off as there own, trying to look good because they know that odds are they will come out right in the end and look better for it. but to me it is being a coward. Some are willing to say ahead of time how they perceive a player based on a number of factors, and if they end up being wrong then there wrong but atleast they took stood against the house and played their cards the way they saw them.
Not a knock on your post, it was an easy response, but IMO an unnecessary one

BRAVO!

 

[xwalker]

I love the perspective. Rico has become my next pet cat. I've seen many a pet cat graduate from cat to lion. Guy like.... Doug Free, Terrell Owens, Orlando Scandrick, Cole Beasley. All not given proper chances by the Cowboys faithful and all beat those odds to excel.

Then there's also my boy Tashard Choice but we won't go there.. lol

Love,

Bleu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SEAN TOMLINSON
APRIL 22, 2016


When you ask Rico Gathers to choose his first love between basketball and football, the answer is instant. It comes without a beat of hesitation.

"Football."

Then when you ask him about the last football game he played, the details flow from a memory that’s etched deep.

"My last game was the junior high championship game," he told Bleacher Report. "It started out with me scoring four straight touchdowns in the first half. They basically all came on the same play. We just kept going to it, and then suddenly it was 28-0."

This is when you stop, and do a double or triple take if you know little about Gathers. Something doesn’t quite add up with that timeline.

And maybe you don’t know much about him. Maybe you’re only a casual college basketball follower.

Let’s have Gathers introduce himself a little more then.

"I’ve studied as much film of Antonio Gates, Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski and Tony Gonzalez as I can," he said. "I studied them all because I feel like I fit the same frame."

That’s just a peek into Gathers’ mindset as he prepares to take his own unique journey down a well-worn path, but one still filled with career quicksand.

The former Baylor power forward is trying to shimmy through the basketball-to-football tight end pipeline, a trail blazed long ago by future Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez. The San Diego Chargers’ Antonio Gates followed, and so did the Seattle Seahawks’ Jimmy Graham, among others.

Those are the names that slide off Gathers’ tongue immediately when discussing his own tight end ambitions. They’re also the names that usually flash in your mind right away when naming successful basketball-to-football tight end transfers.

But Gathers is different. Among a group of triangular-shaped basketball pegs trying to fit into square football holes, he’s the rectangle.

He’s the outcast in a group of outliers, with Gates the only real historical comparison to fall back on. Graham at least played one year of college football and was invited to the Senior Bowl, and Gonzalez logged three seasons for the California Golden Bears, recording 500-plus receiving yards in the last two. Gates, meanwhile, didn’t take the field once at Kent State, and instead stayed focused on basketball before holding a private workout prior to the draft.

Where did Gathers’ last football snap take place, along with those four touchdowns? East St. John Elementary. That’s certainly not some SEC football powerhouse—unless conference realignment takes a truly radical turn someday.

Gathers hasn’t played competitive football since he was on a middle school field at the age of 14. In the years since, he shifted his athletic focus to the hard court, and in 2011 he was named Louisiana’s Mr. Basketball. The award given to the best high school basketball player in the state has also been handed to Glen "Big Baby" Davis and three-time NBA All-Star Paul Millsap.

But even as Gathers kept bruising bodies down low over four years for Baylor while leading his conference in offensive rebounds during the 2015-16 season (128) and in total rebounds the previous year (394), he always had his first love in mind.

The NFL knew it, too. That’s why the talent gem search often took scouts to a foreign place with squeaks and shot clocks. They were there to watch a chiseled athletic specimen who stands 6’7” and weighs 278 pounds.

They were there to watch Rico Gathers.




Follow the > link < for the rest of the story.


More video:

Doug Free turned into one of those cats from the Broadway show Cats.

 

[waving monkey]

No I am not tapping the brakes I watch I listen to others

lol i notice anytime anyone says anything positive about Rico, this is said. Can't people just express positive thinking without someone reading into it at the extreme.
I remember posting a few comments right after last years draft about how I thought Dak could very well become our QB of the future and believe I heard the same then, Now would I have been surprised if I was wrong, no as I just expressed my thoughts on what I saw in him.
I understand the hesitancy, but they are opinions even if they are risky ones.

thank you; they wear the "tap the brakes" like an elders badge

 

[manster4ever]

Sorry but too much hype without seeing it on the field. Trust me, I want to believe and excited to see if he can play. The offense is going to roll this year and it would be awesome to have a legit 2nd TE to add to the mix.

Finally, a reasonable post. Sure this guy has massive POTENTIAL but that's all it is right now. Calm down people. Dude hasn't played football in years.

 

[UDcowboysfan]

He will be on the 53, remember when swaim went down? Our offense really fell off because we didn't have anyone that could block and still be a decent threat in the passing game. Hopefully he has learned enough to take on that role. If the hype is real next season he can take more of wittens role, if not the whole thing if he retires. Then again swaim showed he can't be brushed aside, never bad to have competition.

 

[BAZ]

Rico Gathers was picked 18 choices after Tom Brady, somebody liked him!

That is insane.

 

[PJTHEDOORS]

Finally, a reasonable post. Sure this guy has massive POTENTIAL but that's all it is right now. Calm down people. Dude hasn't played football in years.

Sounds like the older generation (at the time) banning rock n roll because it was loud and made people dance back in 1956. "Calm down! Calm down! RnR is EVIL".

E V E R Y B O D Y R O C K ON

 

[Pants]

Right. My point exactly. He could end up being the TE in *The Longest Yard" or a perennial pro bowler for years to come. We don't know. But we have measurables, off-season dedication, and reap potential to be excited about.

SO he can start up a team with Randle, Hardy and the lot?

 

[Maxmadden]

Sounds like the older generation (at the time) banning rock n roll because it was loud and made people dance back in 1956. "Calm down! Calm down! RnR is EVIL".

E V E R Y B O D Y R O C K ON

 

[Pants]

NO! Petal to the metal!

So, he likes flowers now?

I love how many in this thread SO want to have us "out-think" other teams by having this guy take over the TE position that they are throwing HOF names around like Gates and Witten...heck, there was even a back-end reference to Mr Rice....

....I am just wondering if a guy like this was drafted last year by the Eagles or Commanders, would everyone be "scared" that this guy could take over the TE position in the NFL or would everyone be screaming "JAG" from the heavens?

For me, I am intrigued by the guy's measurables and that he was a successful athlete in college in something that may translate into a TE position...one thing is for sure, he won't even get a chance until, minimally, next year if Mr Witten decides to hang up the cleats

 

[Proof]

Forget Gates, I want the next Jason Witten!

Lol. It is kinda funny wittens name wasn't included in the list of studies. Get it together big man

 

[Bleu Star]

Sounds like the older generation (at the time) banning rock n roll because it was loud and made people dance back in 1956. "Calm down! Calm down! RnR is EVIL".

E V E R Y B O D Y R O C K ON

That's right. I'm well beyond listening to these pump the brakes put away the anointing oil cries of mediocrity. There are some exciting things happening and I am super excited about them.

The regenerating nerve said hello to all the brake pumpers!

 

[Bleu Star]

So, he likes flowers now?

I love how many in this thread SO want to have us "out-think" other teams by having this guy take over the TE position that they are throwing HOF names around like Gates and Witten...heck, there was even a back-end reference to Mr Rice....

....I am just wondering if a guy like this was drafted last year by the Eagles or Commanders, would everyone be "scared" that this guy could take over the TE position in the NFL or would everyone be screaming "JAG" from the heavens?

For me, I am intrigued by the guy's measurables and that he was a successful athlete in college in something that may translate into a TE position...one thing is for sure, he won't even get a chance until, minimally, next year if Mr Witten decides to hang up the cleats

I think he gets red zone opportunities this year. He will play himself into that role in training camp. That's my hot steamy take.