05-05-2016, 07:23 PM
(05-05-2016, 06:09 PM)Stormborn Wrote: The 2 years after he averaged over 12 yards per returned, he averaged 5.6 and 6.5 yards per return. Plus he always got burned as a corner. He was a worse Tate at corner.
But in the overall point I agree, memories of Keiwan Ratliff shouldn't stop them for looking for an actual upgrade.
I definitely agree he was an awful corner, but I'm talking strictly about the risk of replacing your return guy, in response to what Lucie said. Strictly as a PR, Ratliff was pretty bad, but it's not like he was killing us out there with fumbles, etc. 6.5 yards per return is only 1.5 yards less than what Tate is bringing. Actually, I just looked it up and Tate averaged 6.3 on punt returns last season.
Like you said though, it's just one guy out of dozens that we've had, and most of those guys were serviceable at worst. Even the worst example didn't exactly hurt the team much. It's a risk/reward thing. It's not that hard to find a KR/PR who is at least serviceable, so there's not much risk there, imo. If you find a special returner though, it could really swing a couple games our way each year.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
