"TOAST" Mckelvin

[Confused]

I hate to steal Op's thunder with a negative thread, but the sooner Mcgee and Youboty get back the better. This guy is a liabilty. He needs alot of work. The tools are there, dont get me wrong, his tackling is great. He is fast as hell, and he is an ASSET on run support. He had no bussiness covering the 6'5" Vincent Jackson by himself. He looked like a rookie.

[blackonyx89]

I hate to steal Op's thunder with a negative thread, but the sooner Mcgee and Youboty get back the better. This guy is a liabilty. He needs alot of work. The tools are there, dont get me wrong, his tackling is great. He is fast as hell, and he is an ASSET on run support. He had no bussiness covering the 6'5" Vincent Jackson by himself. He looked like a rookie.

Veterans as well as rookies get burnt from time to time. I hope McGee gets back ASAP!!!

[Mitchy moo]

He is a rookie.

[The Spaz]

He sure played like a rookie yesterday. We need McGee back soon.

[Nighthawk]

He's a rookie...I'm not worried.

[syracuse76]

its all good im glad we won. im glad he got exposed, it is good for em. YOU GOTTA CRAWL BEFORE YOU CAN WALK. i think that play for the td he was burned on was part of his welcome to the nfl package.

[Confused]

No doubt he will get better. I guess what I am saying is we need to not put him in situations like that if we can avoid it.

[Pinkerton Security]

he was not really close to Floyd on the first Td. On the one to Jackson he was actually in decent position to whap it down, but Jackson has a big frame, the throw was an NFL-caliber throw, and its something hes gonna work on I'm sure.

[mayotm]

he was not really close to Floyd on the first Td. On the one to Jackson he was actually in decent position to whap it down, but Jackson has a big frame, the throw was an NFL-caliber throw, and its something hes gonna work on I'm sure.Agreed. He had pretty good coverage on the second one. Rivers made a perfect throw.

[mybills]

McGee played better as a rookie.

just sayin'

[HAMMER]

No doubt he will get better. I guess what I am saying is we need to not put him in situations like that if we can avoid it.

Nobody put him in that situation, it could not be avoided. He got beat by a very good receiver/QB combo, it happens to vets as well as rooks. This playing time will help him immensely and should not be discounted, good plays or bad.

[jmb1099]

I am he was able to take his lumps yesterday. He received an NFL education you just don't get in college. He'll improve and by the end of the season he'll be playing well. By next season he'll justify why we took him.

[bigbub2352]

I am not a fan of McKelvin i have been saying it all along since i seen him at the Preseason Night practices that i went to

He has bust written all over him, i know it is too early to say but he consistently run straight into the coverage on STs and regularly gets beat on double moves on D
Hope it can be corrected but i just dont see the potential everyone else does

[BigGabes23]

I would not even come close to taking another rookie CB over him...... He still has an amazing set of tools to work with, and a great coaching staff and peers (Mcgee, Whitner, Greer) to learn from. Look at Greer, I was on this board 2 years ago saying I can't beleive he is still on the team, and now he is one of the most under rated CBs in the league. If he is still "toast" this time next year (which he will not be) then you can say "I told you so." How about enjoying the fact that we are 5-1 and one of the best teams in the AFC rather than pointing out insignifigant problems with the team.

[Ebenezer]

if this team were on a 5-11 path I would say the kid can play and not to worry...I will feel better with McGee back.

[billsfanone]

I don't think he'll materialize as the kick returner they expect him to be. You either have "it" like McGee & Parrish or you don't.

[CUHATIN]

Nobody put him in that situation, it could not be avoided. He got beat by a very good receiver/QB combo, it happens to vets as well as rooks. This playing time will help him immensely and should not be discounted, good plays or bad.

I agree, Rivers is playing some of the best football this year and has beat stud CBs alot this year!

[baalworship]

He was drafted to match up Randy Moss and other big name receivers. He has the skillset to be amazing...not worried yet.

Remember, Revis started slow last year and got better every game.

On most plays McKelvin seems to have the coverage but he is not using his hands to disrupt the pass.

[Michael82]

I thought he looked horrible in coverage and his special teams play did nothing to excite me either.... :ill:

[alohabillsfan]

Just a tad premature with the toast label...

[Griff]

McKelvin has a lot to learn, but we drafted him early, we don't need him yet. When and if we don't extend McGee is when we will need him. This is his time to learn.

[Night Train]

McKelvins problem yesterday, as is common with most CB Rooks, is they get caught looking into the backfield and let their coverage responsibility get 2-3 steps of daylight.

They believe they can recover quickly like they did in College but they cannot in the NFL.

About the only Rookie CB I ever remember looking good early in his Rookie season was HOF'r Darryl Green of Washington. The rest were all toasted early & often. That's the hardest position in the NFL to excel at initially.

Rivers had all day to throw on those 2 TD's, which didn't help matters.

The key now is to see whether he learns from the painful film he will review today.

[madness]

My kid was a clumsy mess when he first learned to walk. Now he runs everywhere.

Give the kid some time. He'll watch the film, learn from his mistakes and come out better next time. Once this kid "gets" it, he'll be making big plays instead of giving them up.

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial
and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." — Some famous deafblind lady

[Lexwhat]

Like others have mentioned, I'm glad he took some lumps in a Bills win. He's got a lot of work to do.

[Michael82]

The one thing I did like was that he played the run pretty well.

[djjimkelly]

way way to quick to call this guy toast its the nature of the position.


allowing only 14 vs a very potent offense tells me he held his own!!!!!!!!!!!

[DraftBoy]

He's not toast yet. He got burned on the Floyd TD no doubt, and he was out of position on the Jackson one. He let the defender stay in front of him, and he let him get inside. He forgot the cardinal rule of endzone defense. Use the three out of bounds lines as your friend. You always defend to the outside and let the WR get behind you. He did neither against Jackson and it resulted in a TD. Granted Jackson did a good job using his body too. McKelvin simply made a rookie mistake. He'll get better but its going to take some time, you guys have to practice some patience. His run support was very good though and that is reason to be happy.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

Having had an opportunity to watch both D.Revis and A.Ross play for the Jets and Giants last season, I'm not at all disappointed by what I have seen from McKelvin at CB thus far this season.

As has already been pointed out, rookie CBs tend to make a lot of mistakes and costly mistakes when they first begin to play in the NFL. And, it is a well-known fact that NFL QBs will "pick on" a rookie CB to test him and will continue to "pick on" him until he shows that he can cover his man. And, that's part of what I liked about how McKelvin played against San Diego.

If you recall how badly McKelvin played in the preseason, McKelvin played so poorly that a lot of people here had Reggie Corner rated above Leodis. He stunk in coverage. He wasn't bad when he subbed in for a couple of plays here and there in the first few games of the season...but he wasn't tested much in coverage and wasn't that great the times that he was.

Then, McKelvin got called on to play significantly more minutes against Arizona and, while there were a lot of others who played just as or nearly as bad as he did, Leodis really didn't play that well in that game.

Now, I didn't get to see all of the game against San Diego, but I saw enough of the game to agree with those who have said that he blew his coverage on the Floyd TD, but had much better coverage on the TD to Jackson. But, I also saw something else: I saw McKelvin get better as the game went on.

Even though he gave up a bad TD to Floyd, overall, what I saw of McKelvin's coverage before the second TD was consistently better than his coverage most of the time in Arizona. And, after San Diego got its second TD, how many times did Rivers throw the ball to McKelvin's man? Not that often. Why didn't they "pick on" the rookie more? They were going at Greer as much as they were going at McKelvin.

All of which tells me that McKelvin is slowly improving--not just from week-to-week, but from defensive series to defensive series. Which leads me to believe that he is going to get better and better as the season goes on.

And, that's what Revis and Ross did. Ross got "picked on" early in the season, but not nearly as much as Revis. Revis was "embarrassed" consistently early on last year, including in the first game against the Bills. I don't remember what team it was, but there was one game when the Jets' opponent successfully went after Revis on one play after another the whole game. Revis was awful. But, then, in the second half of the season, Revis began to just blossom and, by the end of the season, he was playing very impressively.

I don't know if McKelvin will see enough playing time to blossom quite like Ross and Revis did last year, but, for the amount of playing time that he has had and from where he started, I'm not at all disappointed with what I have seen from McKelvin at cornerback this season-: I expected him to make the mistakes that he has made and I expect him to get better--and, from what I have seen, he is progressing and improving (although, he is by NO MEANS "there" yet!!!).

McKelvin is going to give up some big plays--and some of them are really going to hurt the Bills--they all do. But, what you have to understand is that he is a rookie--rookies make mistakes--and, with experience, he is going to get better. And, McKelvin has shown that he has the talent to get a lot better. It's just going to take time and going through making those mistakes.

What I do find disappointing in McKelvin's play thus far this season has been his kickoff returns. The Bills' blocking of KO returns has not been that good this season and they have played some teams that have pretty good special teams, but McKelvin seems to be a lot more tentative on his kickoff returns since the season started. And, when there have been gaps for him to run through, he hasn't seemed to hit them right the way he did during the preseason. The last two games have been particularly disappointing.

Based on his performance in the preseason, I expected McKelvin to be a bit better than he has been thus far on special teams. I'm just hoping now that he will get better and get closer to being the threat on kickoff returns that he was in the preseason as the rest of the season progresses.

[alohabillsfan]

LTBF, as always a pleasure to read!

[jamze132]

Nice post LTBF...

[thenry20]

I knew he would struggle but it's the tools on these boards who called for Greer's head once we drafted this kid in the 1st round. WTF! That pissed me off to no end.

Jabari has done nothing to embarrass himself as a corner. He's been a stud and rarely thrown to.

I've got nothing against Ashton but I hope we can retain this guy. He's legit.