The lack of receiving depth is appalling

[Whatever]

(09-25-2021, 11:53 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have no idea how they define "contested catches", but the QB is responsible for the pass. So maybe the throws have not been as good on Tate's 6 "contested" targets.  Or maybe the target would not even be "contested" if it was not over or under thrown.  And if a defender can get a hand on the ball and knock it away yiu can't blame that on the receiver.


I like advanced statistics, but some of them don't really measure what people think they measure.  For example there was a lot of discussion about "separation" in the off season, but when you look at the numbers there was no real correlation between "separation" and production in WRs.  Some scrub WRs had big separation numbers while many of the best had poor separation.

I assume you meant Tee instead of Tate.

As stated before, 6 of Tee's 15 targets have been contested compared to 1 of 11 for Chase and 2 of 13 for Boyd.  That strongly indicates that it's an issue with Tee and not Burrow.  Next Gen Stats showed us last year that Tee was struggling to get separation and the thought was that he would polish up his route running this year, but it's not where people hoped it would be yet.

Separation is a factor in a receiver's production, but other things play into it like target volume.  Some are great at making contested catches and can be productive without a lot of separation.  However, Tee is coming down with a very low % of his contested targets, so he doesn't fall into that category.  The main stat with separation I brought up was the teams with QB's making a high % of throws to covered targets don't typically make the playoffs.  We saw why against the Bears.  We had a lost fumble and a pick trying to force feed Tee the ball when he was well covered.  

I'm not saying Tee is a bum, but he's not a WR1 and should not be getting WR1 target share.  Chase should be getting the 7-8 targets per game Tee has been getting and Tee should be seeing 5 or so.