Auden Tate seeking trade

[Whatever]

(09-20-2020, 03:01 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: There is no "nuh-uh". Ross fits a role and produces more negative plays than positive and he's out injured a lot. Tate is healthy and catches the ball. His lack of speed is overstated. A good coach knows who produces and creates plays and matches that allow those players to produce. 

No one should advocate Tate "taking Ross' place" straight up. He should be on the active roster and Thomas should take Ross' place on the depth chart. 

Points like "His lack of speed is overstated" are "nub-uh" type arguments.  You're not supporting that position at all.

Neither player is injured right now, so that really doesn't play into it.  Maybe you look at it when cutting to 53, but not on who dresses.  If you're not dressing a guy because he's injury prone and you're afraid he'll get hurt, he shouldn't be on the roster to begin with.  Tate also has an extensive injury history going back to college, so it's not like he's proven to be durable.  

As far as Tate catching the ball, they caught the exact same % of their targets last year.  I'm not sure what you consider a negative play.  They both fumbled once last year.  Are we talking negative yardage plays?  If we're talking incompletions as negative plays, they had the same catch%, so the same incompletion%.  

Honestly, very few coaches rearrange their systems around players.  The fact that they changed the run blocking scheme last year was very rare.  They tend to lobby for players that fit their scheme, which is why it typically takes them a year or two to rebuild once they take a new job.  Tate doesn't seem to fit that scheme, hence he's the odd man out.  They also have the benefit of practice and knowing the play calls when they evaluate game film.  Tate ran a limited route tree last year, likely because there's a number of routes he struggled with in practice.  It's also very likely due to his current position on the depth that a lot of these incompletions on bad throws the fans blamed on Andy were actually on Tate.  The coaches know the play and know where he's supposed to be and they know if he's slow out of his breaks, not running routes at the correct depth, etc., etc.

I do agree that based on what he's done the first 2 games that Thomas should start seeing more of the snaps in Ross's spot.  The guy has been getting open, making the catches, and Joe seems to trust him.  However, that doesn't mean Tate should be active or playing more.  Even if Thomas completely supplants Ross at that spot, Ross still has to be active as his backup to give him a rest or if he gets injured so they can still run their offense.  Tate doesn't have the skill set to play that position.  Erickson is Boyd's backup in the slot.  Tate was supposed to be AJ's backup, but it seems Higgins has already climbed over him for that job.  That puts Tate the odd man out because he can't run the offense at the other two spots due to his limited skill set.