Brandon LaFell IS the Answer at Wide Receiver

[Housh]

(03-26-2017, 04:32 PM)fredtoast Wrote: The #2 WR position has never been "the key" to any great offense or Super Bowl winning team.

If the Bengals upgrade at the #2 WR position it will have very little overall effect.  We will not suddenly be throwing the ball for 5000 yards a season.

I almost made a thread asking how teams with 2 dominant WRs fare historically in the superbowl.

But the way you phrased your statement was surely intentional and very contradictory. Your statement was "The #2 WR position has never been "the key" to any great offense or Super Bowl winning team." That's one of those blanket statements you throw out ever so often that's so purposely manipulated you cant be wrong.

Of course no #2 WR has ever been key to a superbowl winning team because not one team in the history of the superbowl has come into that game and told themselves "Were gonna ignore our best WR and feature our 2nd best guy for no reason at all."

Also we have to look at the history of teams to even make it to the superbowl that had 2 great WRs. And these just aren't teams where the #2 WR had a lucky game in the SB. These are teams that INVESTED in their #2 WR and ended up winning.

Recent memory is:

Cardinals VS Steelers(Win Hines Ward/ Santonio Holmes)
Packers(Win Greg Jennings/Jordy Nelson) VS Steelers
Giants(Win Cruz/Nicks) VS Pats,
Ravens(Win Torrey Smith/Anquan Bolden) VS 49ers,
Seahawks(Win Doug Baldwin/Golden Tate) VS Denver,
Denver(Win Demarrious Thomas/ Emmanual Sanders) VS Panthers
Giants (Win Amani Toomer and Plaxico Burress) VS Patriots
Colts VS Bears(Win Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison)

This list took minimal work and I took no interest into whether both receivers had good games or not. I just looked at the recent past SB winners and if they had 2 great WRs going into that game. The only teams that have consistely challenged for titles in the past 10 years without a solid WR 1 and WR 2 has been the Patriots and if you want to add them the Steelers, depending on your opinion of Hines Ward and Antwan Randle El.




So while NO stats say that a great #2 WR is the KEY to winning a superbowl, a very quick and shallow look at the last couple years of winners supports a claim that having 2 solid WRs is a NEEDED PART of building a superbowl team. Once again the Patriots are the only team in recent history to challenge for a title without 2 great WRs.

P.S A lot of those teams that lost also had 2 GREAT receivers. Maybe theres something to having a good WR core that needs to be researched.


Double P.S That list also shows that getting solid QB play in the playoffs basically guarantees a shot in any playoff game. I think in most of those games the QB who had the better game took home the win for his team. In other cases BOTH QBs had great games but it came down to who had the ball last. But in EVERY case if the QB played bad, then the team lost.



And lets just be honest.....Lafell aint gonna cut it at #2. He disappeared when AJ Green went down.