AJ's injury a blessing in disgise ?

[HarleyDog]

(09-13-2019, 05:15 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Rep.

Losing your best weapon that could have been the difference in a one point loss is never a blessing.  

Every team that has an elite WR throws the ball to him a lot.  That is not a bad thing.  In fact it is smart.

Actually, it's not a good thing either. Forget the loss (I will address later). The OP has a point.

(09-13-2019, 05:18 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Don't even know what he means by "one-dimensional".  We already have developed a top WR to play opposite Green (Boyd).

Who developed when AJ was out and TB became Andy's next go to guy.

(09-13-2019, 05:20 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I don't get it either.  Apparently a passing game with Green, Boyd, Eifert, Uzomah, Mixon/Gio, and whichever fringe WRs want to contribute is one-dimensional as long as AJ Green isn't in traction.

When Green is in, Andy already has chosen who he's going to before the ball is hiked. You've had to have seen this in the many plays over the years. We've had WR's completely open, Andy doesn't see them because he's throwing into double coverage to Green.

(09-13-2019, 05:49 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Granted, if this were a dissertation I would have gone with his median number of catches, but my point remains.  We can call targeting AJ Green "one dimensional" but we're also celebrating the fact that John Ross was targeted more than AJ was in something like 90% of the games in his 8 year career.

Not even a comparison in a stat with 1 game but you probably know that. Andy has relied too much on AJ. I think most of us have noticed or nobody would be defending the OP. I'll support why I think it's (sorta) a blessing:

Obviously the crutch Andy has had with AJ which has been mentioned. Also because when AJ goes down, Andy seems a bit confused and his timing is off with other receivers. Having AJ get hurt in preseason forced him to adjust to the timing of the other guys, which will definitely pay off. But here's the biggest reason of all. Andy is moving in the pocket and keeping the play alive more than ever in the past. Why? Because he's being forced to look other than just throwing at AJ and relying on him to bring it down (which he has been so great).

It's never a blessing to have AJ hurt, but in this case, when he get's healthy, it could pay huge dividends during the stretch as long as Andy doesn't get back to old habits.

[Nicomo Cosca]

(09-13-2019, 04:48 PM)Nately120 Wrote: If you aren't into winning then I guess having AJ Green out can be a sort of blessing, yes.

/thread

[*jason*]

(09-13-2019, 05:25 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I agree.  For years, I've sort of thought that AJ was a bit of a security blanket for Andy.  There have been moments where I see Andy lock onto AJ with almost tunnel vision, much to the detriment of all the other receiving targets out there.  However, every time AJ gets injured, other receivers seem to become stars.

For example, look at Mo Sanu and Marvin Jones.  When AJ went down for a period in 2014, Andy was forced to rely on those two.  They both went on to land lucrative free agency deals, just a season later.  Now, look at Tyler Boyd.  When AJ was dinged up, Andy found faith in TB, and he just landed a nice extension with the Bengals.  Last week, it was John Ross to reap the benefits of AJ Green not being in the lineup.

So, yes I can see the OP's point.  Let's just hope that when AJ Green does return to the lineup, he doesn't get re-injured due to overwork..

Marvin Jones was out all of 2014. It was Sanu that really stepped up when AJ missed some games early on. It's amazing that the Bengals' record was as good as it was that season. No Eifert. No Burfict for most of the year. No Marvin Jones... Jeremy Hill came on late in the season, but still. It's easy to forget that after getting thumper at home by Cleveland, there was a really good chance they were gonna get left out of the playoffs.

But as to the point of this thread...

Locking onto a stud WR isn't uncommon. Watson chucks it at DeAndre Hopkins every chance he gets. AJ being out is no blessing.

[Whatever]

(09-13-2019, 06:46 PM)Nately120 Wrote: So let's see....32.8 attemps and 9.3 per game go to Green = 28.3%

Dalton had 51 attempts last week and 12 went to Ross and that = 23.5%


Ok, well I guess that means Ross wasn't target more than AJ Green.  Ok, well if that percentage goes any higher for Ross we'd better be upset that Dalton is getting tunnelvision for Ross, fair enough?

At this point, Andy's a veteran QB and I think he can generally be trusted to make the correct presnap reads and throw to the to the open guy.  Honestly, if he can't be trusted to do that, he really shouldn't be the starter.

I think he definitely forced the ball to AJ a lot early in his career, but that's something all young QB's do.  I think that because of that, now whenever he gets fooled by a coverage and throws to a double covered AJ, we assume he's just reverting back to those tendencies and don't consider that maybe the defense disguised the coverage in order to bait a bad throw.  

In Seattle, it seemed they concentrated on doubling Boyd and they struggled to cover Ross one on one.  However, Boyd, Ross, Willis, and Erickson all got early catches to get them confidence and into the game.  

[grampahol]

(09-13-2019, 05:27 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: gotta find me some dime store butter.

I remember dime stores like Kresgies and don't remember them selling groceries much less butter. Kresgies went on to become Kmart though.. that lasted awhile. They were the forerunners of the dollar stores not to mention most shoe stores and even home office supply stores. 

[*rfaulk34*]

(09-13-2019, 06:27 PM)Whatever Wrote: Dalton averages 32.8 attempts per game for his career.  Last week, he attempted over 50 passes.

A few years ago i posted Dalton's rating by number of pass attempts. I'm in the process of updating those numbers and i'll post them when i'm done. It's pretty interesting to see how good/bad a QB is depending on the number of attempts he has in a game. 

[*Nately120*]

So the boot is off and if AJ was good to start today we'd be disappointed? Honest question