Did the Vikings give up too soon on Clemmings, Beavers?

[purplefaithful]

It didn’t take TJ Clemmings or Willie Beavers long to find work after being released Saturday afternoon by the Minnesota Vikings. Washington signed Clemmings on Sunday and Beavers inked a deal with the New England Patriots Monday afternoon.
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2017/0...s-beavers/

[Guest]

TJ Clemming's:
Unless you’re a cold-hearted monster, you have sympathy for Clemmings’ situation.
Because of his freakish athleticism for the position, Clemmings was projected by NFL.com as a first or second-round pick. Draft analyst Lance Zierlein compared him to Houston’s Duane Brown and said that he had a very high ceiling.
Zierlein’s write-up was prophetic:
“Like Duane Brown, Clemmings played high school basketball and was a late switch to the offensive tackle position in college. There are holes in his protection technique and he must learn to trust his feet. Clemmings should continue to learn the position and improve. He has the physical traits to become a Pro Bowl tackle, but the Senior Bowl practices exposed how green he still is. Confidence could become an issue with his pass protection unless he develops selective amnesia when beaten.”
The Vikings drafted him based off potential. His tape, a scout told NFL.com, was not all that impressive.
What he needed most was time in low-pressure situations to work through his technical shortcomings and build confidence by making progress from week to week in practice.
What he got was the highest-pressure situations possible. 

[Guest]

Willie Beavers
Any time the New England Patriots sign a player, the immediate reaction is: “What did we miss? ”
The Vikings picking Aviante Collins over Beavers was a little surprising since the former Western Michigan tackle had shown growth during camp. He was one of the highest rated Vikings players by PFF metrics in the final preseason game against the Dolphins.
At 23, Beavers is nowhere close to his peak. In fact, he’s younger than Collins and likely has a higher ceiling.

But making progress this year in camp doesn’t suggest Beavers was getting much closer considering he was the highest drafted player to be cut out of camp last year. Consider how poorly you’d have to perform to be released as a fourth-round pick from a team that had arguably the league’s worst offensive line last season.
Bottom line
Neither release came as a huge surprise since both Clemmings and Beavers – high risk, high reward prospects – did not give the Vikings any indications that they would become quality players some day. It also shouldn’t be a shock that other teams would take a zero-risk swing at them.
So, while there was a case to keep one or both, the Vikings decided they couldn’t take any chances on the offensive line this year.

[Guest]

No.

[Guest]

Silly article. A resounding no. 

[Guest]

Clemmings maybe. Beavers no. Funny thing about this is that they're using PFF's preseason grade to defend Beavers, when it was PFF who ranked Beavers 258th out of 258 qualifying tackles the year he was drafted. And it's silly to suggest that Beavers (5.3 forty, 20 reps) has a higher ceiling than Collins 4.8, 34)

[Guest]

@purplefaithful said:

“Like Duane Brown, Clemmings played high school basketball and was a late switch to the offensive tackle position in college. There are holes in his protection technique and he must learn to trust his feet. Clemmings should continue to learn the position and improve. He has the physical traits to become a Pro Bowl tackle, but the Senior Bowl practices exposed how green he still is. Confidence could become an issue with his pass protection unless he develops selective amnesia when beaten.”
The Vikings drafted him based off potential. His tape, a scout told NFL.com, was not all that impressive.
What he needed most was time in low-pressure situations to work through his technical shortcomings and build confidence by making progress from week to week in practice.
What he got was the highest-pressure situations possible. 

That is it in a nutshell.  Kid was green and didn't get to be brought along slowly.  In the end, it was mental issues that doomed him.

[Guest]

Both of them shouldn't have been drafted in the first place. It's bad enough that Spielman doesn't like to draft Olineman early, but when you consistently whiff on mid to late round lineman who are long term projects, you
have to overpay for marginal free agents to fill in for those failures. Look at his picks after the 2012 draft where Kalil was the only lineman taken.

2013 Jeff Baca 6th Round
2013 Travis Bond 7th Round
2014 David Yankey 5th Round
2015 TJ Clemmings 4th Round
2015 Tyrus Thompson 6th Round
2015 Austin Shepherd 7th Round
2016 Willie Beavers 4th Round

If you include Kalil, not one of those lineman remain with the Vikings. That's 5 years in a row before 2017 that we have nothing to show for with the Olineman Spielman selected. If any of us performed like that in our jobs, we would have all been fired by now. 

Hopefully Elflein and Isadora pan out. Ricky has to get lucky at some point. 

[Guest]

[Guest]

Clemmings was one of our favorite guy to talk to. Smart, engaging, funny.  For that, I, personally, gave him too much credit.  It took me 18 months before I admitted that he was horrible and getting worse.   He is just like Matt Kalil.  Showed some early capability, but has bad footwork, is slow, lunges at blocks, etc. 

He is gone about a year too late.  Beavers is pretty much a joke.  He was lucky to get put on the practice squad last year.  He is the most recent in a line of Jeff Baca's and David Yankey's.  Big, and played a decent colleges, but did not have the athleticism or strength to play in the NFL