We must have been watching different games. He flashed 5-6 times to me. Thought he looked great. Heard its been all camp. I guess well see, but everywhere but here he is trending up and in fact it has been said he is #1 right now and other guys chasing him. The posts in this thread are farcical. As long as he stays healthy (and i wouldnt bet on that and that is a definite concern with him) he will have a nice year. 40+ catches and 5+ TDs.
They're saying all the right things 2 recent articles about what a great camp he's having. Arians said the key is Niklas overtrained before and kept getting hurt. in another he said that Niklas is finally comfortable in the system and ironically he started to get comfortable last year when playing scout team TE running other teams plays in practice against the first team defense. He made a few plays and finally started to feel comfortable playing at that level.
I hope it's all true but I want to see him "flash" against defenders that will actually be playing in NFL games this year and I want to see consistency. If you watch him blocking it's almost entirely hit or miss, he literally either gets the block or totally whiffs, and winds up grabbing the guy he was supposed to block.
That's the key for him IMO he has to get to where he can block well enough to get time away from Gresham and Fells. With Gresham's back again being a problem we REALLY need a TE to step up. I think most of us expected it to be Momah and he didn't exactly play well against the Raiders himself. the ideal guy is Niklas because he's bigger than momah and has the potential to be a much better blocker. He hasn't done a thing yet but if he can, it would be huge.
Just call me a skeptic. He just never looked like he is comfortable playing TE. Hopefully it's finally coming together for him.
If he gets those stats you projected he'd actually surpass his college career.
