Auden Tate: Where to play him

[t3r3e3]

(12-31-2019, 07:14 PM)Whatever Wrote: Auden Tate is never going to be Mike Williams.  You're comparing a 4.49 guy to a 4.68 guy  Williams has 17 20+ yard catches and 8 40+ yard catches.  Tate had 8 20+ yard catches and 0 40+ yard catches.  While better QB play is a factor, the main reason Williams is a 1000 yard WR and Tate is a 575 yard WR is Williams is a big bodied WR with deep speed and Tate is a slow big bodied WR.  

Oh, I'm certain an inordinate number of fade passes were chucked out of bounds by noodle armed Andy in Tate's general direction in the red zone just for the specific reason of making him look like a joke inside the 20.  His red zone stats are what they are.  If you have facts to refute the reasonable inference we can make from his stats that Tate blows in the red zone, present them. If you don't, let it go.  You can throw some names out there that did worse, but that doesn't mean he did well.

While Andy doesn't have great ball placement, he was top 5 in the league in percentage of passes thrown to receivers with a defender within a yard of them.  That's because guys don't get open, including Tate.  While you can argue separation doesn't matter, the only guy in the top 20 in that metric that's in the playoffs is Russell Wilson.  You need guys that can get open if you want to win.

Hate to break it to you, but Boyd did not have some great season.  He was 7th in the league in targets, 25th in yards, tied for 11th in catches, and tied for 44th in TD's.  This year was really proof positive that Boyd isn't a #1.  In the current NFL, you give any decent WR enough targets and they'll put up decent yardage.

Boyd is an ideal WR3, and a lower end WR2. His skills are suited to the slot.