The Biggest NFL Training Camp Disappointments so Far

NFL training camps are in full swing, the preseason has begun and the bloom is coming off a few roses.

From the tailing-off of free agency until the start of padded practice, only good news ever comes out of the NFL. Every team adds a slew of new rookies, every holdover looks great in T-shirts and shorts, every new free agent tears up drills. New coaches have brought a winning attitude, young quarterbacks are looking sharper and tempos everywhere are somehow faster.

Once the opening days of training camp are over, the pads go on and real competition starts? Well, that's when real news, and bad news, comes out.

With the first full week of preseason coming soon, teams are releasing initial depth charts; some with disappointing surprises. With the pads on and bodies flying around, critical injuries are starting to crop up. The on-the-ground reports from media—limited by teams throughout early camp—are coalescing into real evidence of who's playing better and who isn't.

Bleacher Report has looked over the coast-to-coast sweep of the NFL to bring you the biggest disappointments of training camp so far.

Milder Disappointments

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Jimmy Garoppolo: Lost in the heated debate about whether Jimmy Garoppolo should be getting more first-team reps has been the fact that, as ESPN.com's Mike Reiss reports, he hasn't done much with the reps he's been given. Struggling to move the ball is never a great look—but then, Garoppolo's never been a great practice player. Let's withhold judgement until he gets on the field.

Matt Elam: The young safety was ranked 78th out of 87 qualifying safeties by Pro Football Focus in 2014; the Ravens would have loved their 2013 first-rounder to solidify one of the team's few roster weaknesses. Instead, a torn biceps ended his season on August 3—and, perhaps, any hopes he might ever have come good.

Kevin White: He was the toast of the NFL combine, and his slide to the Chicago Bears might have kept the Bears' twin towers passing attack intact. But a rookie receiver coming onto an offense with an all-new head coach, coordinator and offensive system needs reps. Instead, a shin injury has kept White off the practice field. That said, it's hard to imagine a full-speed White would pull the Bears out of the NFC North basement by himself.

Cam Newton: C'mon, dude. Franchise quarterbacks don't let training camp beef with teammates play out in front of media. Newton's scuffle with cornerback Josh Norman isn't any evidence of anything we didn't already know about Newton, but a quarterback going into his fifth season shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff.

No. 12: Darren McFadden Being Darren McFadden

Gus Ruelas/Associated Press

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There was plenty of opportunity for the Arkansas product: A change of scenery, a tremendous offensive line, a long-bomb passing game and a team gunning for the Super Bowl. All he had to do was stay healthy and the once-electrifying back would have had a chance to achieve everything he was supposed to have done in Oakland.

But.

Another hamstring injury struck at the outset of training camp, after the opposite hamstring held him out of much of the spring. McFadden still hasn't practiced, and there's no real timetable on his return. Though the odds of 2008's No. 4 overall pick playing 16 games and carrying the ball 200-plus times were never great, it's sad to see the reality so harshly fall short of the dream.

No. 11: Trae Waynes' Rough Night

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

No matter how much players invest in combine preparation, or teams drool over elite height-weight measurables, in the end, you've got to know how to play—and cornerback is one of the few positions on the field where there are no shortcuts to learning how to play.

Trae Waynes is the latest example of this: Despite an eye-popping combine that inspired the Minnesota Vikings to draft him No. 11 overall, Waynes had little experience playing zone, off-man or any of the other techniques a professional cornerback has to be able to use in today's NFL.

As a result, Waynes did a lot of learning on the job in the Hall of Fame game. Out on the field for more reps than any other cornerback, per Pro Football Focus, Waynes was toasted pretty badly (earning a minus-4.1 grade).

The good news is these are the kind of mistakes Waynes will have to make to develop into the cornerback the Vikings hope he can be. The bad news is it looks like he'll be making a lot more of them before he starts making fewer.

No. 10: Jason Pierre-Paul's Reticence

Bill Kostroun/Associated Press

This isn't about the disappointment of Jason Pierre-Paul's fireworks injury; had that occurred during training camp, it'd be ranked much higher. Instead, it's the disappointment in Pierre-Paul's behavior after the fact and what it means for the season.

Of course, there's no right way for a (figurative, and arguably literal) franchise player to handle accidentally blowing his hand up. But refusing to sign his tender, refusing to report to camp and refusing to even talk to the New York Giants was definitely the wrong way.

On August 9, Pierre-Paul finally spoke to head coach Tom Coughlin, as Ebenezer Samuel of the New York Daily News reported—and while the two had a "good conversation," it doesn't seem like the Giants will be able to count on Pierre-Paul being productive any time soon.

No. 9: Shaun Suisham's ACL Tear

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

Football fans largely pretend specialists don't exist or don't matter, so media types rarely include them in lists like these. But when a kicker who's been rock-solid in the middle of the unpredictable vortex that is Heinz Field is lost for the year, that's a real disappointment.

The Steelers are blaming the 11-year-old FieldTurf at Tom Benson Stadium for Suisham's ACL tear, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette, and they may credibly blame the loss of Suisham if they miss the playoffs.

The AFC North was incredibly close last year, with the Steelers winning the division by just a half-game over the Cincinnati Bengals, and just one more half-game between the Bengals and third-place Baltimore Ravens.

The Steelers won four games by exactly one field goal each.

No. 8: EJ Manuel's Failure to Progress

Bill Wippert/Associated Press

During his brief NFL career, EJ Manuel has shown a few small, dim flashes of whatever it was that inspired then-head coach Doug Marrone to hitch his career to the Florida State product in 2013.

The first signal-caller taken in what is shaping up to be one of the worst quarterback classes in history, Manuel only needed to beat out an unimpressive Matt Cassel and promising-long-shot-but-still-a-long-shot Tyrod Taylor to reclaim the Bills starting job.

Going into their first preseason game, he appears to be third on the depth chart, per Mike Rodak of ESPN.com.

If Manuel was ever going to take a big step forward, it was going to be during this camp, with a talent-rich crop of receivers and running backs. Instead, well, he didn't—and probably won't.

No. 7: Bud Dupree's Unimpressive Debut

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The Pittsburgh Steelers are going new-school on defense, and 2015 first-round pick Bud Dupree should be at the head of the class.

Unfortunately, the No. 22 overall pick showed no pass-rush aptitude in the Hall of Fame game—literally, per Pro Football Focus, registering zero pressures on 17 pass-rush snaps. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers operations manager Joe Bussell led a Twitter chorus of evaluators who weren't shocked the athletic youngster's game didn't translate immediately to NFL success—but that doesn't do much to change the reality of the situation.

The Steelers defense has, for decades, been based on the linebackers' ability to disrupt the offense. Defensive linemen are there to eat blocks, defensive backs to hold down the fort—but the linebackers must make plays.

If the Steelers are going to defend the AFC North crown, they'll need a lot more from Dupree than they've seen so far this camp.

No. 6: Dontari Poe's Herniated Disk

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

This offseason, the Kansas City Chiefs put in place everything they need to make a deep playoff run.

Maddeningly, they're having trouble keeping everything in place.

The biggest training camp hit the Chiefs have taken so far is undoubtedly Poe's herniated disk; there's no quick, easy or even permanent fix for such an injury. Though head coach Andy Reid told Terez A. Paylor of the Kansas City Star that Poe, "stands a reasonable chance [of returning] in the early part of the season," the spine is a crucial part of anyone's anatomy—let alone a man who uses it for leverage for a living.

Rehab will be extensive, and how quickly and completely Poe will return is very much up in the air. If the Chiefs really are going to challenge for the AFC West title, they'll need him back as quickly and completely as possible—or maybe more quickly and completely than is possible.

No. 5: Geno Smith's Punched-out Face

As former New York Jets tight end and current ESPN analyst Anthony Becht wrote on Twitter, "Let's get this straight."

You can't blame Geno Smith for getting punched in the face, especially not over an unused plane ticket. You can't say he put himself in the situation to get punched or question his toughness for getting his jaw broken.

You can, however, question whether a guy with leadership and maturity issues had the full respect of the locker room in the wake of an incident like this—and like it or not, it'll be hard for everyone who watched Smith get his lights punched out to think of him as the kind of alpha-male leader a quarterback needs to be.

For a player who, by many reports, was taking a much-needed step forward on the field, this is nothing short of disastrous. For a team that was possibly looking at a quarterback controversy, this could be a blessing in disguise.

No. 4: Arian Foster

Bob Levey/Associated Press

"They'll be fine on offense," I told myself, "as long as they've still got Arian Foster."

That's what said on August 3, when I wrote a piece naming the Houston Texans one of the NFL's five most legitimate sleepers. That story went live early in the morning on August 4. Early that afternoon, Foster suffered a major groin injury.

In a season when the Texans lost Andre Johnson and took a step back at quarterback (sorry, Texans fans, Ryan Fitzpatrick is demonstrably better than anyone now on the roster), all the Texans needed to take advantage of their outstanding defense was the presence of Foster, a dynamic threat who could keep defenses honest and chains moving while the passing game jelled.

Now, the Texans will be relying on Alfred Blue—and possibly a free agent like Pierre Thomas—to do the bulk of the ground-gaining, and their prospects are much dimmer.

No. 3: Sheldon Richardson

Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

The headlines were as bad as they could possibly get.

Sheldon Richardson, already set to serve a four-game suspension for marijuana use, allegedly committed a jaw-dropping list of would-be crimes: drag racing, reckless driving, gun toting, drug smoking and endangering a minor—all at the same time.

Yet proper registration of the gun, a failure to prove drug use and an apparently light hand by prosecuting attorney Tim Lohmar leaves Richardson facing a small slate of misdemeanors.

The question then hangs over Richardson's head: Will he face further punishment from the league? Will commissioner Roger Goodell be willing to swing his I-don't-need-a-conviction punishment hammer while locked in a court battle over his too-eager use of the same?

As the Jets prepare for a pivotal, all-in season, there are suddenly very serious questions about the rock their defense is built on.

No. 2: Aldon Smith

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Considering the DUI arrest that caused Smith's release from the 49ers was his troubling third, it can't be that huge of a surprise. Yet coming at the end of a nightmare offseason, that one potential bright spot turned so dark so quickly that it's a massive disappointment.

Worse, it's a huge black mark on the resume of general manager Trent Baalke. Just days before, he'd spoken of Smith in glowing terms, even vowing to work out a multiyear extension.

In the wake of the bloodiest NFL power struggle the modern game's ever seen, the winner—Baalke—has just missed very, very badly on a hugely important player. If Baalke was absolutely convinced Smith had his life in order and was going to be a foundational player for his 49ers—his new, classy, doing-things-the-right-way, higher-standards 49ers—that's a terrible omen for his ability to judge talent and character going forward.

The man Baalke overthrew, deposed head coach Jim Harbaugh, certainly had his flaws. But if Baalke can't quickly prove he's got a steady hand on the tiller, the 49ers are headed right into the rocks.

No. 1: Deflategate Is Still a Thing

This goes beyond disappointment. Maybe "anger" is more accurate. "Rage," perhaps, or "fury." That Roger Goodell, Tom Brady, the NFLPA and all parties, intermediaries and subsidiaries thereof have not been able to come to a settlement on this issue beggars belief.

There's no winning here. Nobody involved in this nonsense is coming out smelling like a rose. These bickering fools have dragged their own names—and the rest of the NFL—so deeply through the mud that their reputations are forever stained. If any of them had an ounce of perspective, they'd have met in the middle and been done with it months ago.

Instead of helping the Patriots prepare to defend their Super Bowl championship, Brady's defending his honor in a courtroom. Instead of trumpeting the Patriots' glorious triumph and hyping their attempt to repeat, the league is savaging Brady's integrity and hamstringing the Patriots' reloading efforts.

That the two sides have resorted to asking a federal judge to be the grownup in the room is a massive disappointment. Reading between the lines of Judge Richard M. Berman's orders, you get the feeling the judge is disappointed, too.