Auden Tate: Where to play him

[impactplaya]

(12-31-2019, 04:11 PM)Whatever Wrote: 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.

Can you provide some evidence on his poor red zone play ?
I tnought alot of the offenses bad red zone play was more 
Scheme and ZT calling stupid plays like Dalton on a draw play