08-23-2018, 08:09 PM
(08-23-2018, 07:39 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: The Falcons didn't win the Super Bowl, and if you look at all the top guys of the past 20 years, how many got rings in their prime?
Megatron
Andre Johnson
Chad Johnson
AJ Green
Julio Jones
Odell Beckham
Dez Bryant
Larry Fitzgerald
TO
Moss
etc etc
Some want to dismiss it as a myth, but there is a lot of evidence to support the stance that paying a top WR isn't conducive to winning championships. At least enough evidence for you to respect that take.
To the bolded, it's not so much that I think Dalton's numbers would be better or worse. It's 2 things:
1. Not paying a WR 15+ million per would allow for other positions to be strengthened.
2. Spreading the ball around makes the offense less predictable and prevents the QB from leaning on 1 receiver as a crutch or force-feeding to get that guy his touches.
I've tracked Dalton's stats sans AJ before - and I'm not about to compile them again - but lets just say there was surprisingly minimal drop off. Yes there was some drop off, but consider that he was working entirely without a primary WR...and often without his top 2-3 guys in these games.
If there was some form of solid guy in place of AJ (say a Kelvin Benjamin or Alshon Jeffery) - I'm not sure there would be any drop off at all...assuming we don't force feed those guys the same way.
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Fwiw, this is all just a theory. I'm not saying for sure that we'd be better off with an average #1 and allocating money elsewhere, but it's certainly something I feel is worthy of discussion.
Hence the words, "For all we know".
It should be discussed. Real fans don't just watch the games and listen to the pundits. Real fans speculate what caused the play to fail.
Was it just the right defense, was it the QB, WR, blocking. If it was the QB, was it the way he threw the ball, did he have the enough time to step into the throw? If it was the WR, did the WR run sloppy route, slower than practice, was he taking the play off because he wasn't expecting the ball?
