I think it was the coaches and trainers that told him he needs to be a better blocker to get on the field. And it is the trainers who are assisting him in bulking up.
I also don't think it is a surprise that he had trouble blocking at 265 lbs. He didn't learn how to use leverage in high school and college. I was a basketball player, and many of my friends were wrestlers. I weighed 165 in high school, and they wrestled at 126 and 132. And they could beat me easily in wrestling because they knew how to use leverage. But there was a friend who wrestled at 105 and actually wrestled in exhibition matches with the US Olympic wrestling team in 1983. I could easily beat him due to my size and superior power.
I wish him well. I also don't understand those who are so quick to despise him for wanting to be a great player.
But Gathers was always a long-shot player. The Cowboys used their very last draft pick in 2016 to take a gamble on him. If it pays off great. If it doesn't, then that doesn't mean the Cowboys were stupid to take the risk, or that Gathers didn't give his best effort. Sometimes long shots don't pay off. And maybe Gathers will never develop to the point of being a great NFL player. I'm still rooting for him to be successful, and I'm not so jaded as to write off a player with his innate talent so quickly. I'm willing to be patient. If he's player #53 on the team, and can use his increased bulk to contribute on special teams, then I say keep him around another year, and let's see what happens.
I would have preferred that the coaches, trainers, and Rico all got on the same page the day he got here that he needed to learn how to block. That was always his most direct route to getting on the field.
Rico's latest comments on putting on weight were all about him, and no one else. Last year I, this year I. Sounded like he has just making it his training regimen himself. And it certainly seems that way from the flip flopping of starting big, going smaller, then going big again. Were our coaches really responsible for that? I'm annoyed thinking they even *put up* with that.
He wants to be great. Great. Doesn't sound like he's been that eager to *do* the things necessary to get great. Or even get on the field. On the subject of blocking, he once said "Jimmy Graham don't block". Wanting to be great is great. Thinking you can stroll into the NFL and be a superstar without doing the work isn't great. Thinking it's your destiny to be the greatest so you can't be bothered with the tiresome, unglamorous parts is a recipe for failure.
He is a long shot to be Jimmy Graham. Who isn't? I think he's even a long shot to be a receiving TE. If that's what he aims at short term. He looks like a plodding long strider who won't get separation and has no experience. He's a bigger, stronger Escobar, but even slower and nowhere near the route runner. Probably a smaller catch radius, but likely better at blocking out and competing for the ball.
But I don't think he was that much of a long shot for an NFL career. He has the size, strength, agility, length, hands, and catch radius. If he learned how to block reasonably, *boom*, he's on the active roster as a short yardage/goal line weapon. If he learns how to block well, he could play for almost a decade just on that. And that keeps him on rosters long enough to learn to be all the receiving TE he can be.
How hard is it to teach players to block? We routinely turn LBs into fullbacks. Turned Hanna into a great blocker, and that was the weakness of his game.
As for keeping him, I think he may have slow walked his development off the team. With Witten and Hanna leaving, and us picking up Olawale, I expect more FB and less two TE. Maybe even lots of no TE, with a FB and three WRS. That looks like our best package to me. Beasley should be on the field, and our TEs have no experience.
I don't think we carry 4 TEs if their role gets significantly reduced, which is inevitable with Witten leaving. Unless Jarwin and the draft pick outplay Swaim, I don't see how Rico makes our 53. We're a young team with lot of guys we want to keep. We're likely going long at DE.
He'll get picked up somewhere else. But that won't do us much good.
Hang on with special teams? His shortest route to that is again learning to block. If he had spent the last two years doing that instead of visualizing himself as Jimmy Don't Need No Steenkin Blocking Graham, he wouldn't be worried about sneaking on to the team as bottom of the roster special teams roster churn.
