Whether he made the catch or not is irrelevant going forward. This is like math. It doesn't matter if you get the correct solution. What matters is whether you have developed the skill necessary to get the solution when the problems become more complex.
Will Fuller is legit these scouts and media people just don't want to change their decision on how they originally judge these guys.
I reallly dont understand the bashing on this kid.. At the end of the day- he was the 1st round selection by the Texans- like it or not.. Real Texans fans need to support the kid and give him a chance.. the guy put up spectacular numbers in College- and I hope he can suceed with the Texasn.. Regarding Drop passes- Its not like were not use to our receivers dropping passes for like 15 years (Besides Johnson) so whatever
One thing is for sure, we'll hear half the I told you folks after the first 60 yard bomb he catches from Brock and the other half when he drops a key 3rd down pass.
yup, both of those are definitely happening...Ill take the TD catch for every dropped third down though.
Don't take any criticism as bashing. It's perfectly okay to point out a player's weaknesses. Say it loud enough and the player will work hard enough to make the weakness a strength.
Why should anybody change their opinion? He is still exactly the same person I spent several hours evaluating before the draft. He hasn't played a single game between the time that I watched all those games and formed an opinion and this moment. If something had happened a little differently and say the Redskins drafted him at #21 instead of trading with the Texans, I have a feeling that one of two things would have happened for most of the people who are ready to throw down to defend this guy's honor: Most of his new found fand club had no idea who he was a month before the draft (maybe they new the name but never watched him specifically) would still have no real idea who he was. I would say, "Will Fuller" and the response would be, "Who?" The ones that know the name wouldn't be spending so much time vigorously defending him. In fact, I know that there are a couple of people that were sort of down on him before the draft who are now singing his praises, despite the fact that he hasn't spent a single second on the field in the interm. That is the very definition of biased decision making. Because he put on a shirt with pretty colors that you like, he is suddenly the most unfairly maligned man in the history of America. If you suddenly go from hating to loving a guy, or go from no opinion about a player to suddenly loving that player for no reason other than the fact that he put on your team's uniform, your opinion is the very definition of biased, and as a result completely worthless. Fundamentally I find most of the recent opinions I read about Will Fuller to be less than worthless because they were grown fully submerged in a bath of biased homerism. I disagree with people like Lance Zierlein who've loved him from the word go, but at least I respect that they fell in love before he was decked out in the home team's gear and as a result give their opinions due consideration. Ryan Mallett is the perfect example of this. People who didn't know who he was when his draft happened, were suddenly claiming, once the Texans traded for him, that all the issues he had at Michigan and Arkansas were blown all out of proportion, and that his notorious drunken binge that happened in Carolina when he met with the Panthers was made up to discredit him. Really? How exactly do you know this when you didn't know who he was until years after these things happened? Of course, as soon as he pulled the same s**t that he had been pulling for his entire life with the hometown team, the people who laughed off past mistakes were up in arms, as though they knew he was rotten all along. Yeah...
I wasn't up or down on him, I wanted a lineman, but we needed someone to take pressure off Dhop vertically and speed murdered us last year. But all that said, you know what actually had me rooting for and singing his praises (other than just being an all around Texan fan who roots for Texans players)? This kid, amidst all the crap with social media and being perfect before the draft, photoshopped himself as a Texan, when he got the call, he balled his eyes out he was so happy.. THAT, just like speed, is not something you can teach. I think that translates to work ethic, which I think mirrors Watt over Fairley, just like he will win over Doctson and Tread.. IMO
I understand that you've spent a ton of time watching game footage before this draft. And more power to you. But you've strategically set this up to be the hill that you may potentially die on. The Battle of Fuller Ridge. Way to take a stand. I look forward to finding out who'll be wrong or right. And nothing personal, I hope you're wrong. I just really want to see Fuller killing it while wearing a Texans jersey.
Homerism has nothing to do with being right or wrong about a prospect. If you gave JJ Watt a D grade and claimed nobody knew him you were wrong. If you gave Kareem Jackson a A you were wrong. Nobody knows what Fuller will do until he takes the field on Sunday in this cities system and philosophy. Once that happens then things matter... people are just talking now.
When it comes to skills that can or cannot be taught, I feel like football is similar to basketball. Some skills can never be significantly changed from college to the pros. Court vision and ballhandling would be good examples of this. I think in football your comparables would be accuracy as a quarterback and the ability to see the field. For a WR, an example of this would be the ability to "track" a deep ball. This is something Hopkins does really well, even better than Andre did, and it's something that both scouts and coaches have pointed out is one of Fuller's strengths. You can see it in the video. It's more than technique; at some level it boils down to instinct, or intuition. It's really hard to teach and almost impossible to coach up. Some skills, however, are difficult to learn but CAN be improved significantly with practice. In basketball this would be like shooting. It requires lots of reps to alter the muscle memory, but it's not something suprasellar that kids either got or didn't get in the growing up process. To me, the football comparison for these skills would be footwork and hands for all positions. This applies to DB's that are learning to backpedal, DE's that are learning to shed blocks, or O-linemen that are trying to get low and gain leverage. In the WR situation it would be route running and reaching out to grab balls at their apex. These things can be taught, and I believe the coaches know that they can iron them out of Fuller's game. They have had experience and success in the past with it. Coaches know what can and cannot be taught. And these aren't physical traits like speed, or length. Originally I was against drafting for traits and wanted Treadwell (Alshon Jeffrey) or Doctson (Nuk Hopkins) more than Coleman (Cordarelle Patterson) or Fuller (Ted Ginn Jr), but there are two reasons to me to regard Fuller as more likely to boom than to bust. First of all, he has a much better track record and route running history at Notre Dame than any of his bust comparables did coming out of college. If you go strictly by polish as a criteria for WR's in this draft, he wouldn't be the Patterson of the group, he would be the Hopkins in this class. Secondly, it's confirmation bias: the Texans admittedly suck hard at drafting rounds 2-5, but they're spot on when it comes to that first rounder. So you have to ask yourself: is Fuller more likely to disappoint and be another Heyward-Bey, or are the Texans more likely to break their streak of hits in the first round? (Unfortunately, this line of reasoning also makes me fear that Martin's knee might be worse than people are making it out to be. That Miller might never pan out; that Ervin might get beat out of a spot by Akeem Hunt in training camp; and that Joseph is slow and an arm tackler like Swearinger before him. We'll see.)
I admit I didn't know much about him during the college season. I did know he ran the fastest 40 time and I immediately thought he was a track star turned football player but come to find out that isn't the case. Watching his routes, how he tracks the ball in the air, his speed, durability, etc. are all things I wasn't aware of that have me more optimistic than him being just a track star. Granted his drops have me concerned and I hate body catchers but I do believe it is something that he can fix and truthfully I already think he has fixed it since the season ended. Although it is the combine and he is in shorts he has pretty natural hands and used them really effortless at the combine on crossing routes toward the sidelines. You can tell it is almost second nature for him now. When the bright lights are on and he has a comeback route that is caught in the lights we will see how he reacts then but you can simulate almost anything in practice now with the unlimited resources that teams have so not only has he had several months since the end of the season to work on his weaknesses he will have another several months to continue to fine tune before the season starts. Given his work ethic, ability to track the ball, fairly natural hands, route running technique/experience these are all positives that most speed guys do not possess. You are typically having to work on 5 or more weaknesses (usually tracking the ball in the air, route running technique, learning NFL playbook route tree, getting off the line, etc.). Fuller will have his things he needs to work on but I am confident he can do this based on what I have seen since the season has ended and the fact that he knows what his weaknesses are already. The scouting report above seems pretty spot on in that it all depends on if he can improve his technique to be a consistent playmaker or not. There are some things that he can't change like catching radius, slight of frame (he will get stronger) but I wouldn't count him out on him being able to be a complete outside receiver than can make catches all over the field if he gets his hands on the ball. It may take some time to produce but here's to hoping he can figure it out. I am not claiming to be an expert but I played receiver in high school and have small but strong hands and can usually tell if someone has natural hands or not so that is what gives me hope. Terrell Owens, Andre Johnson those guys did not have natural hands but were able to develop the ability to catch the ball one way or another with practice and routine. Fuller should be able to get even better separation than these guys once he learns the NFL game. Much has been made about Fuller’s drops, and he had far too many over the last two seasons. At the combine he measured in with small hands, which some pointed to as a reason for his high number of drops. There are technical reasons for the drops, and those will be discussed below when the breakdown turns to areas he must improve. I believe, however, that assuming that Fuller lacks good ball skills or quality hands is a mistake. Anyone that studies Fuller will see that while he lacks an ideal catching radius due to his short arms – when the ball is thrown away from his body he actually catches the football quite well. These types of catches show that Fuller does indeed have good hands.
Actually anybody who actually followed the draft process would have known that JJ Watt had possibly the greatest combine performance in the history of the combine. I wanted Robert Quinn, and I think that was a defensible position. A couple of years ago before he got hurt some people were calling him the best edge rusher in football. In retrospect Watt was the best choice, but Quinn wouldn't have been a joke. I was confused by the selection of Watt mostly because I didn't understand that they were planning to push Mario Williams out of the way so quickly. But if you really are motivated to go back and look at my posts I was very clear that Watt was as good a player as their was in that draft when all the people were screaming that they'd never heard of him. I know the narrative is that everybody who is criticizing Fuller must have been equally outraged at drafting JJ Watt over Fairley, but in my case I can categorically state that in my case it is not true, and if you are really motivated to go back and read my posts from that draft (and I am not that motivated and expect nobody else to be either) you will see that the narrative doesn't hold water. Lazy-ass Nick Fairley and the mentally disturbed Aldon Smith were the two players I spoke out on. I felt more strongly about them than Fuller. Several Aldon Smith doubters went back in forth in that draft with Missou alum "The Cat" who defended "his guy". It looked like I might have been wrong on Smith for a while and I actually got a little worried that I'd misjudged him, but I think I can hold my head pretty high evaluating that draft in retrospect. People were singing the praises of Ryan Mallett for a couple of weeks, too, and I held my tongue but events vindicated my opinion of him eventually, too, so if Fuller looks good after the first preseason game and people start crowing, don't be surprised if I don't roll over like a dog looking for a belly rub. And just to be clear, homerism is the bias of trying to judge a player objectively after you've learned that he's going to be on your team. I contend that most fans can't do it objectively. I don't think that is a wild statement. Back in the day, I remember defending Derrick "Rubber Band Man" Chievous and possibly the worst Houston sports draft pick of all time, John Turner, as a fan to fans of other teams before learning that lesson. I understand the impulse to subconsciously see the rosiest picture that you can for your team. As I said, I think Fuller's a great blocker. I compared him to a poor man's John Brown in Arizona. I don't expect him to be a disruption or a negative like Fairley or Smith. Rather, like Tyler Ervin, I think he's somewhat limited to playing a role. His speed will compliment Hopkins, but if Hopkins goes on IR, he simply can't be a #1 target, in the same way Ervin can't be a 30 carry per game bellcow back. I would have been a big supporter of drafting Fuller at a later point in the draft, like the second round, though I think someone else would have (in my opinion) reached for him. I don't dislike him anywhere near as much as Pro Football Focus who describes him as the #2 "buyer beware" (i.e. high risk) player in the draft. I don't dislike him as much as Pat Kirwan's "Real Football Network" who ranked him as the 1018th best player in the draft. I just take issue with people trying to talk themselves into Will Fuller and his great hands.
I appreciate your ability to vocalize your opinion, however I do not understand remarks like this. Again, this is just number crunching, but I think this "inability to be a #1" narrative is strange: Hopkins in 2012 made 25.8% of Clemson's receptions, he had 33.6% of their receiving yards and scored 45% of their receiving TDs. Fuller had 25.7% of ND's receptions, 37.3% of their receiving yards, and 56% of their receiving TDs last year. Statistically, he is better prepared to "be a #1" than Hopkins was coming out of college, and he has more experience "being a #1" than any other WR in this draft. We've been trained to assume that every fast WR will be a one-dimensional, sub-par player like Ginn or Torrey Smith or Heyward-Bey. I know this is crazy, but sometimes talented WRs can also be really fast. Week 1, my Texas Longhorns played Notre Dame and the announcers were openly talking about Fuller as a 1st rounder and he certainly looked the part. Again, I do not know why this keeps being overlooked: he scored TWENTY-NINE touchdowns over two seasons.
You've stated "he CAN'T use his hands' in a previous post. My advice to you is to go get your eyes checked as there's quite a bit of footage on this kid making some great catches. Is he inconsistent? At times yes, however you used the word "CAN'T".
Here is what I saw, and why I say this: He doesn't win 50/50 balls. If he's not open he's not going to jump up in the air and high point the ball.. Pretty often, his speed enables him to get wide open, but it is somewhat dependent on safety help and how they play him. He hasn't demonstrated an ability to take a throw when he's covered like a blanket by a DB and have him snatch the ball away from the corner like you can do with Hopkins, Julio Jones, AJ Green, Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, etc. That is why I say this. Also note, Notre Dame is a very pass happy offense, but his single most prolific game was 7 receptions. Treadwell IIRC, had a 14. Boyd had an 18 and a total of 5 double digit reception games. Coleman had a couple of 11's. Before his hernia, the fewest receptions he had in a game was 5, vs Fuller's max of 7. I could go on, but what I saw with Notre Dame was a guy who was a piece of the offense, not a guy who was "the man" who can get force fed receptions through double teams. If there's a game where he was snatching the ball out of the air from blanket coverage double teams all game long, let me know and I'll go back and watch it. It appears to me that if you wanted to completely gameplan your defense around him it would be possible to shut him out. People tried to do that to Hopkins last year and he'd just come away with 5 or 6 receptions. Fuller's big score games came when teams were packing the box against Prosise and showing mostly one deep coverage, and Fuller's man wasn't getting safety help consistently.
