10-15-2015, 08:59 AM
(10-14-2015, 09:00 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: What board are you reading? Up til recently, the boards were pretty split on Gresh. He has/had lots of fans on here. Many people were salty he left and probably would've preferred he started for us this year over Eifert. A lot of the same people who were bashing Eifert for being inexperienced and injury prone were also fans of Gresh. So lets not pretend that the boards have ever been one-sided on the subject.
I was debating with several non-trolls this summer about Gresh. I saw a few people predicting he'd have a career year with a different team or that the Bengals held him back with their play-calling. That's going beyond saying he was a "solid contributor". Some people truly think/thought Gresh has immense talent and is capable of being a top 10 TE. Heck over the last year or so, I saw quite a few people say Gresh was a top 10 TE.
Sure, Keith Rivers was bad. He also had plenty of folks (mostly on the boards) that didn't want to admit that. Quite a few claimed he was a victim of injuries/circumstances and that he'd probably be a big time player for the Giants. That talk didn't stop until Rivers started washing out elsewhere.
I'd say that Gresh's career was a bit better than Rivers', but they were both overrated by some, and I have a feeling that Gresh's career outside of Cincy is going to end on a similar note. I don't think the guy was trash, but he was an average player overall, and a liability at times.
Let's be honest, the board being "split" on Gresham isn't true at all. In reality, the only split you could call it were those saying that they wanted Gresham to be re-signed because of the worry if Eifert goes down, we have nothing behind him. There were also a lot of us wanting to see a more improved version of the 2013 offense when we had 2 TE sets with 2 receiving TEs. Very, very, very few people wanted Gresham back here because they thought Eifert sucked and that Gresham was awesomesauce. If someone expresses concern that our 3-4 TEs going into the season had a combined 400 yards receiving and our best talent coming off a season ending injury, I don't think it's really overrating Gresham as much as it's being upset that we lost a guy that was solid here and likely better than a bunch of rookies.
Gresham does/did have immense talent and is/was absolutely capable of being a top 10 TE. Do you really argue that? We've seen a lot of guys over the years here with immense talent, but it didn't always translate to the field or issues would arise. It doesn't mean the talent isn't there. Jermaine Gresham is VERY talented, but it's unfortunate that he had his issues and couldn't be that top 10 player that he had potential to be. Gresham may not be a top 10 TE, but you're just showing your bias if you don't think he had the talent to be. Did you watch him in college? Did you see his athleticism in the NFL? The potential and talent was there, but it didn't translate as well as it could have. It's rare to see any of the guys that regularly hit the big numbers to be great blockers, but Gresham could catch and block, so I was content with him not having Jimmy Graham statlines as long as we had other receivers picking up the slack there while Gresham could be a good blocker when needed as well.
He may not have been a consensus top 10 player at his position, but that doesn't mean the next step after that is mediocre. Also, having him here with Eifert was what a lot of us wanted to see. I would just about have to guarantee that Gresham would have put up bigger numbers than most TE2 in the league while continuing to be a good blocker, but that's before the whole back injury thing came out and it seems that those issues are still lingering for the guy. I don't love him, I don't think he's great or elite, I don't think he nearly lived up to his potential, I just think he's better than being the punchline on these boards to 90% of posters. You're ignoring the majority if you honestly don't think the narrative has been to bash the damn guy for years now. He has been thrashed as much, if not more than any non-Andy player on this team. Maualuga and Peko have taken less heat at times than Gresham. What he has done on this team since he's been in the league doesn't deserve all the hate, that's my point here, this is the one time I'll throw out the classic Fred line and say that he's definitely better than most people give him credit for.
If you're going to act like people made excuses for Gresham at some astonishing rate, you can check out this new-ish thread for some awesome "excuses", and by excuses I mean an entire thread with just about zero people defending the guy....
http://bengalsboard.net/Thread-Would-Gresham-be-doing-the-same-thing-Eifert-is-if-he-had-this-years-Andy
