2023-2024 NFL Season Thread • Page 3664

In a good offense, you should have an X receiver who’s actually capable of beating that double coverage, not a Mike Williams. it’s great if you’re Cincinnati and you have two. It’s great if you’re Miami and your Y receiver is one of the best speed receivers of all time so you don’t have to worry about that. We are not that. We are a normal structured team that clearly has a strong 2 and 3 in place but no 1.

In basketball terms, on our team, nobody wants the clutch shot when you know it’s gonna be contested and you’re not gonna get a clean release. In basketball terms, we don’t have a star and are probably gonna get bounced in the playoffs because no one’s splitting two defenders with a footwork fadeaway catch when you need a play against good defense. I think it works the same way in the NFL. Unless you have mf Steph Curry at Y receiver getting wide open and putting up long touchdowns all day, you better do what MOST teams do then, and have Giannis or Durant or another slasher X receiver to get them high percentage drives and fouls through contact and double teams. Because that is the defense your best players are going to see in those moments.

We don’t have a player like that who allows us to play outside conventional wisdom. We don’t have a Hill that forces defenses to focus on something other than X double moves and post corners etc and draw up unique plays to stop him. So I’d rather just do the thing that has worked throughout history in the NFL, get me somebody who can fight through and sidestep beyond and toe tap behind and “body language” with the quarterback, on coverages that are already designed to take their original route away. Let our route perfectionists play WR2 and 3 where it’s not a big deal if they get erased against certain opponents.

 

Defenses do not double WRs nearly as much as the general public seems to think

 

Okay fine, give me all your disgruntled WRs and I'll do Matt's trade down lol

 

Corey Davis wasn't very good but his abrupt retirement during training camp really hurt

 

But I think, in a good offense, you should have at least three capable receiving threats that can align at different positions (X vs Z vs slot, or even at TE or RB) and a coach who can deploy them differently from one another frequently enough to take advantage of matchups, not just “You play X? We need you to beat double coverage the 5% of the time you face it”

 

I'm not gonna pretend to cry about WRs since Miami has arguably the best duo in the league, but god damn past that they have NOTHING lol plus Durham Smythe is a waste as a receiving TE

we don't have a WR3/4/5 on the roster at the moment unless you count Erik Ezukanma who might not play because of a neck injury

i would expect them to be players in the mid-tier WR market and maybe take one on day 2.

 

(This is part of the reason why the Eagles’ offense got stale and disappointed this year!)

 

Those stats are hard to find but I see a lot of Cooper Kupp, who is not an X. CeeDee Lamb, also not an X.

A post from 2021 showed that Hunter Renfrow was one of the most doubled receivers in the league lol

 

Every team with a good young QB except the Ravens has done better than us at WR. Comparing apples to apples, I don’t think we OR the Ravens are doing enough. We could have somebody who’s like, maybe par or right behind Lamb and I’d be thrilled with that. Hell, signing Mike Evans counts.

 

Double DEEZ

 

Lamb is an X

Kupp rotated a lot but he had some X snaps for certain

 

Yes I too would be thrilled if we suddenly had a top five receiver but I think demanding that is a little silly

 

Not double-man bracketing, but they do call plays that lean a safety to that side and prioritize taking away a lot of late-developing, tricky X receiver routes

and this is where a guy like JJ or Davante blows my mind cause he can see that happening and already have a plan pre snap for seeing that second guy coming and having him fooled too

 

Lamb literally aligns from the slot more than outside, let alone at the X position. Kupp aligns in the slot literally twice as much.

 

I know Matt Harmon has talked about it a lot of the years in his data collection that WRs rarely get doubled.

I think it’s very interesting that Kupp and Lamb are seemingly higher up there, and that Renfrow was, considering they mostly run out of the slot. I wonder if it’s one of those things where opposing teams have a slot corner on them, but shade a LB or safety on them in the coverage because it’s easier to disguise that that shading a safety overtop of a WR lined up on the boundary

 

Top five! Shit, give me a top TWELVE receiver. Give me fuckin prime Keenan Allen like Herbert had. SOMETHING.

 

Love Matt Harmon.

I'm guessing the LB or a box safety is influencing that a lot.

 

So he’s an X that can migrate. That’s a bonus. Ridley is not a Y that can play X as well, but there are definitely X’s who can play Y just as well.

 

Yeah Lamv lines up in the slot, like, half the time. I’m willing to bet that Michael Gallup is still their primary X receiver, as he has been for years, including the years Amari Cooper was there for

 

..................NO lmao. X is a position on the field and Kupp and Lamb both take the vast majority of their snaps NOT at that position.

 

Didn’t we just have a whole thing about how Justin Jefferson was a slot WR in college and people had no idea he had this skill?

Why do we think Minnesota didn’t just keep him in the slot? Hint: because his elite skills are more valuable at X where the QB is more likely to lean on him on a tough passing situation

 

In my Madden file where I’m a Dolphins RB they added Tank Dell as WR3 somehow

 

Exactly. Gallup is their X. Cooks is their Z.

 

give you a Hall of Famer?

 

Okay but IF Minnesota kept him at the slot, then you would be incorrect to say he plays X lmao.