Jeff Driskel and John Ross Injuries

[Daddy-O]

(09-01-2017, 09:52 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: Care to elaborate?  I honestly think he will be the most valuable player on our offense not named AJ Green.  

I base this on not just his contributions as a receiver, but how he will help to open up the rushing attack with Jet Sweeps, whether he gets the ball or not, those plays force LBs to shift just enough to open up holes for the RB.  He also will force safeties to play off the line of scrimmage.  The last time we had that was with Chris Henry and Chad and that was the last 1400 yard rusher we had.  Rudi was great, but a lot of it had to do with how defenses had to defend the Bengals.

He is also a big play waiting to happen.  A TD every five times he touched the ball his senior year.  We saw just a glimpse of that last night.  If he broke/slipped one more tackle, he was gone.  He tracks the deep ball extremely well.  

He is much more than a deep threat.  He has stop and go speed that can turn a quick slant in to big yardage.  He runs great routes.  

And if you want to pin it on Marvin not playing rookies over vets, remember, Marv is on a one-year contract.  He has also cooled on that stance a bit, as you see Willis, Lawson, Mixon, and even Evans getting significant playing time. 

That's a stretch IMO.  From what I've seen out of Ross to this point has been nothing spectacular.  Granted it's only been a couple of games.

He has great straight-line speed but I have not seen him separate from the DB's on the go routes.  This is something they are counting on to open the field.  And maybe he will do this on a more consistent basis moving forward.  If he does they still have to target him and he still has to make catches for teams to start taking him serious - enough so where they drag a safety one way or the other.  As it stands now, even if he's not injured, he's not going to start.  So the whole mindset of opening the field for AJ is not going to happen until he does and starts making plays.

This might by the end of the year, who knows.  But for now, if I were a D coordinator, I would pay him no extra attention when he's in the game, other than accounting for the end-around's and other plays around the line of scrimmage, bubble screen's, etc..  Speed is only good in space and he needs to prove he can create that space before I buy in.

Plus he seems very brittle.

Just my 2 cents (and that's about what it's worth   )