Yesterday, Dave Halprin from Blogging The Boys gave us his thoughts on new Dolphins LB Akin Ayodele. So, today, Dave shares his thoughts below about new Dolphins TE Anthony Fasano:
Anthony Fasano was brought in when the Cowboys were planning to institute a 2-TE base offense and his job was to play opposite Jason Witten. We thought he was a tough blocker who could also get out in the passing lanes and make plays. This never really panned out. We dropped the 2-TE scheme pretty quickly and he went to being a reserve behind Witten and used as a blocker, sometimes out of the backfield as a pseudo-FB.
The kid was a willing blocker but his technique wasn't always sound and he missed blocks as much as he made them. He never became a receiving threat, partly because he was behind Witten, but partly because he just couldn't shake the coverage. The lasting memory for Dallas fans about Fasano was his drop of a TD in the Giants playoff game.
In short, he was a disappointment in Dallas because he was never a good enough blocker or a good enough receiver to justify his draft position and he was in danger of getting beat out of his second string position by an UDFA. There is some talent there, he does have the body for a TE and he occasionally flashed good hands but he never put it all together for us. Recently, we've heard part of the problem, besides injury, was that he blew too many assignments.
In my view, the acquisition of Fasano was a great move by the Dolphins because he's a low-risk, high-reward kind of player. The Dolphins only spent a 4th round pick to get both Fasano and Ayodele. And Fasano is only getting $975,000 total over the next two seasons. So there really is no downside to his acquisition.
It'll be an interesting training camp competition between Fasano and the other 3 tight ends currently on the roster (David Martin, Justin Peelle, and Sean Ryan).
Any early predictions on how this plays out?