NFL news on an association football podcast: Bengals TE @cj_uzomah announces he’s fully cleared from his season-ending Achilles injury as a guest on @LondonBluePod.

— Adi Joseph (@AdiJoseph) April 14, 2021

 

https://twitter.com/LondonBluePod/status/1382146729823272962

Healthy Uzomah and Moss with Sample? Pitts who?!

(Totally kidding of course)

(04-14-2021, 11:31 AM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: Healthy Uzomah and Moss with Sample? Pitts who?!

(Totally kidding of course)

Shrek still on the roster?

That’s good news, he still has plenty of time to get back into game shape now. He seemed to have a solid connection with Burrow those first couple of games before he went down.

(04-14-2021, 11:34 AM)leonardfan40 Wrote: That’s good news, he still has plenty of time to get back into game shape now. He seemed to have a solid connection with Burrow those first couple of games before he went down.

Had Uzomah had been able to stay healthy and maintain his 43.5 yards per game average, he would have been right around 700 yards on the season with a handful of TDs. That would have been right around Top 5.

If he can get back to that form, that would be a very good thing.
I'm skeptical though because he's 28 years old and hasn't had more than 439 yards and 3 TDs in a season, which was in 2018 when he took over as the primary TE after Eifert went down.
It's very rare that someone blossoms that late in their career.

(04-14-2021, 11:34 AM)leonardfan40 Wrote: That’s good news, he still has plenty of time to get back into game shape now. He seemed to have a solid connection with Burrow those first couple of games before he went down.

Yes, Burrow and Uzo seemed to have good chemistry before Uzo went down no question.

(04-14-2021, 11:28 AM)Bengalholic Wrote:

NFL news on an association football podcast: Bengals TE @cj_uzomah announces he’s fully cleared from his season-ending Achilles injury as a guest on @LondonBluePod.

— Adi Joseph (@AdiJoseph) April 14, 2021

 

https://twitter.com/LondonBluePod/status/1382146729823272962

Great to hear

(04-14-2021, 11:42 AM)ochocincos Wrote: Had Uzomah had been able to stay healthy and maintain his 43.5 yards per game average, he would have been right around 700 yards on the season with a handful of TDs. That would have been right around Top 5.

If he can get back to that form, that would be a very good thing.
I'm skeptical though because he's 28 years old and hasn't had more than 439 yards and 3 TDs in a season, which was in 2018 when he took over as the primary TE after Eifert went down.
It's very rare that someone blossoms that late in their career.

Alot of it is about who you have throwing to you and chemistry. Their OL has been such trash the past few years they've kept him in more to block. He's just now in his prime and if healthy he can be a force.

Good to hear.

(04-14-2021, 11:34 AM)leonardfan40 Wrote: That’s good news, he still has plenty of time to get back into game shape now. He seemed to have a solid connection with Burrow those first couple of games before he went down.

IMO it's more than this...When talking rehab, Joe said it was great to have CJ in the trainer's room with him. I'd imagine they established quite the rapport. Let's not forget Uzo is a converted QB

(04-14-2021, 03:25 PM)bfine32 Wrote: IMO it's more than this...When talking rehab, Joe said it was great to have CJ in the trainer's room with him. I'd imagine they established quite the rapport. Let's not forget Uzo is a converted QB

Great point, also forgot that Uzo used to be a QB.

(04-14-2021, 03:15 PM)higgy100 Wrote: Alot of it is about who you have throwing to you and chemistry. Their OL has been such trash the past few years they've kept him in more to block. He's just now in his prime and if healthy he can be a force.

I get that, but how often do you see pass catchers become an upper-tier starter at the age of 28?
Most guys who get there do so by like 25.
You might think of someone like Gary Barnidge, who was 30 when he had a breakout year in CLE in 2015, but he only put up 612 yards and 2 TDs the following year and then never played again.
Jimmy Smith was 27 during his breakout year, but was still in only his 4th season when it happened. Uzomah is entering his 7th season.

(04-14-2021, 06:51 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I get that, but how often do you see pass catchers become an upper-tier starter at the age of 28?
Most guys who get there do so by like 25.

I don't know if Uzo will ever be an "upper tier starter", but he was in the top half of the TEs in the league in production at age 25.

(04-14-2021, 06:51 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I get that, but how often do you see pass catchers become an upper-tier starter at the age of 28?
Most guys who get there do so by like 25.
You might think of someone like Gary Barnidge, who was 30 when he had a breakout year in CLE in 2015, but he only put up 612 yards and 2 TDs the following year and then never played again.
Jimmy Smith was 27 during his breakout year, but was still in only his 4th season when it happened. Uzomah is entering his 7th season.

The guy could already be upper tier, but since he is kept in to block most of the time no one would know it, not would they? You can't catch the ball if you don't get the ball.

(04-14-2021, 06:51 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I get that, but how often do you see pass catchers become an upper-tier starter at the age of 28?
Most guys who get there do so by like 25.
You might think of someone like Gary Barnidge, who was 30 when he had a breakout year in CLE in 2015, but he only put up 612 yards and 2 TDs the following year and then never played again.
Jimmy Smith was 27 during his breakout year, but was still in only his 4th season when it happened. Uzomah is entering his 7th season.

I think Uzomah can be an average TE , I don’t expect him to be a playmaker. I think part of thinking Uzomah could be a weapon is the timing of his injury. He was having a good game against Cleveland and scored a touchdown and then got hurt. Are last memory of Uzomah was on a good note. I also think his big volume that game was due to the circumstances. We couldn’t stop a nose bleed on defense versus Cleveland and Burrow ended throwing the ball 61 times. Cleveland was giving up a lot of underneath stuff and a lot of people thought that was Samples breakout game, he had 7 catches for 45 yards.

(04-15-2021, 12:55 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I don't know if Uzo will ever be an "upper tier starter", but he was in the top half of the TEs in the league in production at age 25.

Are you referring to 2018? I'm assuming you are since he's never had more production than that in a season.
If so, what are you defining as production?
Uzomah was 18th among TEs in yards, which is below the top half.
He was 24th in yards per game.
He was tied for 17th in TDs.

(04-14-2021, 03:19 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Good to hear.

Once he heard Moss was signed, his achilles magically gets fixed right away.  

(04-15-2021, 08:16 AM)Sled21 Wrote: The guy could already be upper tier, but since he is kept in to block most of the time no one would know it, not would they? You can't catch the ball if you don't get the ball.

In cases like this where they may lack some opportunities over the more prominent guys, you also can reference PFF. I usually do anyway.
While they aren't perfect, they usually aren't far off at all in their evaluations.
Uzomah has never had any PFF score higher than a 68.1, which was 2017.
His highest receiving score was 64.7, which was all the way back in 2015 where he caught one ball on one target.
Last year, his overall rating was 58.8 with a receiving rating of 61.2. His pass block was 75.3 and run block was 54.9.

So while I get your point that he "could" be, I'm skeptical because he's not really shown to be an upper tier pass catcher when given the opportunities in the past.

EDIT - For reference, 34 TEs had a receiving grade of 70+ last year. 33 had an overall grade of 70+.

(04-15-2021, 09:37 AM)ochocincos Wrote: Are you referring to 2018? I'm assuming you are since he's never had more production than that in a season.
If so, what are you defining as production?
Uzomah was 18th among TEs in yards, which is below the top half.
He was 24th in yards per game.
He was tied for 17th in TDs.

He likes to go with receptions when it comes to our TE’s...

(04-15-2021, 10:12 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: He likes to go with receptions when it comes to our TE’s...

Receptions = 43, which was 15th.
Receptions per game = 2.69, which was 23rd.

I don't personally like receptions much because I think 2 receptions for 50 yards is better than 5 receptions for 40 yards, but I can see why if the person getting the receptions is getting a lot of first downs. 

He got 21 first downs in 2018, which was ranked 110th among all WRs+TEs.
Among just TEs, that ranked 17th, so still bottom half.

So basically out of all the typically relevant receiving metrics, he was in the bottom half in yards, TDs, YPG, RPG, 1st Downs.
The only thing he was in the Top 15 in the league was in total receptions in 2018, and he was exactly 15th.