Thomas Eager to Prove His Worth

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Westbrook finally "got it" in '99 but then got injured in '00 and seemed to fade away after that.

The dude had mega talent, it's a shame. I recall reading about him once that he admitted to not being a big fan of football. That always stuck with me and I think it explained alot.

He had great talent as an overall athlete, but wasnt much of a football player. Wasn't very much when goin over the middle. In 99 he got deep a lot which he was good at, but as an overall wr he was just avg. I think he was overevaluated based on his size & speed, never had great hands.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

70 Chip:

You hit that one out of the park. What else might anyone have thought Devin Thomas might have said about his dismal 2008 season? Howabout "I sucked last year - - but I got my cash up front so you can all go [bleep] yourselves." I don't think so...

Here is the deal. Thomas has to focus on NFL football to see if he can become an NFL player. At the moment, he is not one. He made it through college football on his physical skills because most of the time he was up against an opponent with significantly lesser skills. That is simply not the case in the NFL... [As an analogy for Washington DC area residents, remember Kwame Brown and how he dominated high school basketball games before he came to the NBA Wizards and stunk out the joint. And he continues to stink out the joint in other cities to this day...]

Now, Thomas has to learn how to run pass routes and how to block and how to get open - without pushing off so blatantly that Stevie Wonder could call the penalty from his luxury suite - and how to work as part of a team of players where he is NOT the best player on the team.

Lots of players make that transition. Lots of others do not. Matty cited Michael Westbrook earlier. That was a player whose physical skills were at least equal to Thomas' - and maybe greater - but Westbrook never "got it" when it came to being a factor in the NFL.

So far there are ZERO indications that Thomas can make the jump. He had a year to show progress; he showed none. That is none as in zero, nada, zilch, nil ...

The important changes he needs to make this summer are ones that exist between his ears. Reportedly, one of his "problems" is that he likes the "night time club scene" a lot more than he likes the film study and the game-plan study scenes. We won't know if he REALLY focused on football stuff until sometime in Game 1 or Game 2 of next season. Don't rely on what he says he focused on; what else might you expect him to say?

Until the regular season in 2009 - - speculate away. Just recognize that some of the speculators here have burgundy and gold tinted glasses on when they look to the future.

lol, classic!!
'Booth review by Stevie Wonder...play stands as called, offensive pass interference'