Tate delivered today.

[Whatever]

(11-02-2020, 07:18 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: AJ is coming around, Ross is done and Tate has shown to, at least, keep the chains moving. Zac and Callahan both said he's been underutilized. 

Tate should only give them one more option when they're in the redzone and it shouldn't only be to attempt fades. He scored a touchdown once every four catches in college. There's no reason he can't be productive in the redzone here if used right. 

Unfortunately, I don't really trust this staff's media takes on players.  They talk nice about everybody, even Ross.  

Looking at snap counts, in a typical game Thomas plays a little over 30% of the offensive snaps and Tate a little over 20%.  Tate played a lot more against Philly and Tennessee.  Why?  Neither club has a CB taller than 6'0". The coaching staff is playing matchups, which is frankly the smart thing to do. Tate gives them a mismatch in games with teams with small CB's.  They tried to exploit that against Philly, but their CB's held up with good positional play and ball skills.  They tried it against the Titans and had a ton of success with it.

The issue is, Tate and Thomas are the #4 and #5 WR's depending on the week.  How much are you going to go into 4-5 wide in the red zone?  Doing so is especially bad for us because we have a suspect OL and it invites the blitz since the D doesn't have to sweat the big play.  Are you pulling Tee, Boyd, or AJ off the field for Tate?  Not if you're smart.  If you go 4-5 WR, you're probably running a fade on one side to draw a defender out of the middle of the field and to give your QB a quick throw in case the blitz comes, anyways.  Sad reality is, any play you draw up to specifically get Tate the ball down there Tee and/or AJ can run as good or better without tipping your hand and likely without forcing Burrow to make as good of a throw.  

If every player did in the pro's what they did in college,no GM would ever miss on a draft pick. Not everything a guy has in college translates.  Vonn Bell was lauded for his coverage ability in college and he's basically a box S in the pro's.  Whenever I hear "if he was used right" it makes me cringe because it inevitably reminds me of the millions of OSU fans excuse making for why a guy was a bust in the NFL.