Virgil Green is a liability, not a weapon.
It’s not his fault; Virgil is who he is. Virgil Green is massive, giant, enormous. He is truly something to look at. Just the sight of Virgil Green makes us in the media feel bad about our own bodies; he gives us reason to renew our gym membership.
He is a mountain of a man, but it takes a lot to move a mountain, and that mountain doesn’t move very well. Virgil Green is slow, sluggish; he is unhurried.
Now this is all relative; Virgil Green could beat most of us in a foot race. But I use the word slow because, in relation to the new age of tight ends, he is. He is a power-stroke diesel, not a Ferrari.
The media has been saying that Virgil Green is the answer at tight end; he just needs his chance. Well, he has his chance, because there’s no other answer; there’s no one else, so go get em big fella.
(NOTE: John Phillips and Henry Krieger-Coble are on the roster — Nothing to see here, moving on)
Jeff Heuerman would have been an option, but he’s never available. Heuerman is a specimen in his own right. He can stretch the field a little. He can block. Heuerman really is impressive as an athlete … when he plays. The problem is, he doesn’t play. Jeff Heuerman, the guy who sat out all last year with an injury, has been sidelined for most of the preseason. Label him injury prone, or call him mean names, but the truth of the matter is that he isn’t available. And you can’t throw to a guy who spends most of his time stretching with the trainer on the sidelines.
Back to Mount Virgil …
Virgil Green was Kaepernick’s main target at Nevada, but that was Nevada. A Mountain West School, Nevada did face NFL talent from time to time, but at the end of the day, it’s still the Mountain West. Safeties in the Mountain West were scared of Virgil Green; he was a big, elusive man, who could block and catch and had just enough speed to get behind the coverage if you made a mistake.
This isn’t the Mountain West; this is the AFC West.
There are zero safeties in the NFL who are slower than Virgil Green. That is a problem.
Gary Kubiak uses his tight ends in a special role: They block, they run bench and drag routes, they run deep post routes and they run deep flag patterns off of play action. Gary Kubiak is one of the best at utilizing the tight end, and he makes them do just about everything.
A Kubiak tight end can drive a defense crazy, but Green is not a Kubiak tight end.
Virgil Green, as a pass threat, is a limited, and this will cause problems. The Broncos are going to try to be a run-first team, which will be hard for them to do with safeties playing close to the line of scrimmage, and they will, because they have no reason to back up. The higher end of the passing tree does not exist for Virgil. He will not stretch a defense or keep a safety deep. He is what he is. He is Mark Bavaro, but slower.
So what do you do with this? Nothing, Virgil Green isn’t changing, and tight ends aren’t hanging on trees. You are what you are for the 2016 season.
Tight ends with Rick Dennison and Gary Kubiak are used as a weapon, but with Virgil Green, that weapon can only do so much. In the end, though, it might not be a big deal. With Trevor Siemian throwing, not much is going to be happening past 12 yards anyway.
