Garrett Gilkey apparently thinks he can still be good

Pewter Report published a great piece on the worst guard in the NFL: Garrett Gilkey. It's all about his journey to the NFL, his life in school, how he learned he could actually be good. Oh, and about how he was absurdly terrible last season. There was that, too.

I hate to be too harsh on Gilkey -- there's some really touching personal stuff in that profile on how he was bullied as a child. But he summed up his own performance perfectly:

"And after the season Coach Warhop shared with me and said, ‘You are going to have to fight for your spot on this team,'" Gilkey said. "You had every opportunity to take that starting guard spot and you didn't take it. You only squandered it.' And he is right. I did. And I know the rest of the coaching staff and upper management have that same belief.

I'm still not sure how he hung on to so many snaps, and now even the coaches are confused about why they gave him that many apparently. But now that they did, keeping him on the roster isn't the worst thing in the world. He's a long, long shot to make the roster in the first place. There's a lot of (admittedly mostly low-level) competition for his roster spot, let alone a starting job.

But the expectation that he'll actually be good next year? I can't see it. I didn't see a thing that makes me think he even has the potential, really. No "well if he can just clean that up"s. No "look aside from the penalties." Not even "he was good on these couple of snaps." It just wasn't good. At all.

Now watch him tear it up and make me look like a fool. I wouldn't complain.