Auden Tate: Where to play him

[Whatever]

(12-31-2019, 12:43 PM)Au165 Wrote: You realize breaking off a comeback and getting a yard of separation is creating it right? If you break off a comeback and he is a yard in front of you then you need to be benched because that is a sight adjustment and it turns into a 9. Luckily I have looked through half the games worth of tracking data on the field and no comebacks were ran so we don't have to worry about that. The reality is most his routes were out rotues, go routes and slants. Separation on a go ball is moot because he is a jump ball receiver he isn't running by guys he is going up, the data shows the ball was not put into play enough for him to do that.

While he had 14 targets inside 20, the question is how many were catchable? 

(12-31-2019, 12:53 PM)Au165 Wrote: I'd like to once again bring up, Auden Tate had a 70.8 PFF rating. So aside from all the data I am trying to give people, a service that actually watched him play is also telling you he was good at his job. The advanced stats thing is going to be a losing effort as people are going to keep nagging about this or that so I'll shelve that for a second, Although I would like to point out Mike Williams gets less separation in LA but gets more catchable balls and is producing because of it. If you turn on the tape you get a guy who shields defenders and makes contested catches, it's plain as day on tape. You got a guy that if given more opportunity would have had a bigger impact but was performing at a level of alot of WR's who are much faster and much higher regarded (Fuller/Hilton/Brown/Sanders/ETC.)

Somewhere this has turned into people acting like I am telling you he is the next AJ Green. What I am saying is that Auden Tate with a full season and more opportunity with catchable balls can be a 1k reciever in this league. People saying he is a 3 or 4 at best are laughable as there is nothing backing that up other that "needs more separation/speed" which his actual production does not back up.

It was simply used as an example of how distance from the nearest defender doesn't necessarily translate to open.  If you want to use that criteria, then fine.  Quit dancing around the statistic with comparisons to other players.  Just state that Auden Tate is the 14th worst player in the league with a minimum of 43 targets at generating seperation per NFL Next Gen Stats.  At the end of the day, you're citing yet another statistic that Tate is poor at.

If you care to look up his catchable pass % in the red zone, go for it.  I'm not going to make your defense for you.  He sucks in the red zone, which is where he should hypothetically be at his best.

The thing with catchable pass % is that it's not always that the QB made a bad throw.  The WR can get knocked off his route, make the wrong adjustment, the defender made a play on the ball before it got to the WR, the QB may simply be throwing it away because the WR didn't get open and he's gotta get rid of it.  How often is Tate actually open and the QB misfires?  Not often from my recollection.  If the QB tossed him up more 50/50 balls when he's covered instead of protecting the ball, he would have more catches, but we would also be getting picked off a lot more, too.  It's the receiver's job to get open so the QB doesn't have to make a "chuck it and pray" decision.  

Football Outsiders also just ranked Tate 73rd out of 81 players with at least 40 targets, so the opinion of the experts seems divided.  Alex Erickson also had a 67.1 PFF rating, which is not far off, either.  However, I think we can all agree that our WR's were not good last year and need to be upgraded.  Tate has positive traits like his catch radius, contested catch ability, and ability to create yards after contact.  He has negative traits like his lack of speed, inability to generate seperation, and his poor red zone play.  He is what he is, which is a back half of the depth chart WR.  There should not be a single WR on this squad who should be assured of his spot on the depth chart next year.