John Ross and his confidence

[*psychdoctor*]

(01-14-2019, 06:45 PM)McC Wrote: It's kinda perplexing that when you see how they used him at Washington, that the Bengals decided to use him in almost none of those ways.

I think that Lewis had a different player in mind at #9 in the draft and Ross was picked, he wasn't thrilled.  Ross was injury prone before the draft and red flags were everywhere and he was injured his first year.  Add on top of this his inability to position himself to make catches, learn the playbook, and drops led him to Lewis's doghouse. 

As I stated before, it is the coaches responsibility to place the player in position to be successful and the coaching staff did not do this well.  But I also have to be realistic about other factors.  One, Dalton has trouble in accuracy with long passes.  Two, the O-Line situation was porous and did not give the Dalton-Ross connection to unfold.  So the team tried gadget plays like reversals and short routes.  On occasion they tried to go deep to Ross, but missed.    

I think AJ Green has done well moving to the slot on occasion.  They should let Ross just fly down the field to keep one of the safeties deep.  

If the light does not come on for Ross this next season, then I would agree that it is time to move on or just use him near in the Red Zone; the guy had a high percentage of TD per reception ratio.