Jakuvious

Best bet would be to pick two teams that still leave you lacking or green at the QB position. If you can throw in a bad combined OL as well then that's even better. I could see something like a Cardinals/Bills combination not being any better than the Bills final record. Maybe the Cardinals/Jets. Either combo leaves you in the same place as the original teams, effectively. A rookie QB trying to overcome a terrible OL and/or weapons and appropriately struggling to do so. You'd have a potentially very talented and strong defense, but you're still left basically where the Bills were this year.

Most of the time, probably. But I'm not going to go back to the combine to make a judgment on athleticism when I have multiple years of the players playing in the NFL to make the comparison by instead. The combine is useful for assessing athleticism up until the point we have sufficient NFL tape. Then it becomes outclassed by just watching them play.

No one gives a damn about the combine.

Good find, good post.

What on earth are you talking about? Lower depth of target means easier completions, so it adds catch rate. Thats what I said. Lower depth of target also reflects the lack of deep passes. Julio having a high depth of target does not mean he is not catching intermediate passes. High or mid level depth of target tends to mean an even spread. Unless it's really high, like near 20, then you typically have a deep specialist. You're trying to reverse the logic and that doesn't make sense. If his depth of target was like 25, you'd be right, hes only catching deep balls. That's not where it is. You're taking really odd and random logical leaps here. Like, go to PFR and pull a list of Julio's receptions. You'll still find plenty of short ones. You wont find many long ones for Thomad.

Because the hole you're picking doesn't match the stat line you posted, at all. Catch rate does not equal ability to catch intermediate passes. Like....that's non-sense.

What on earth does his catch rate have to do with getting open in the middle of the field? Here is literally what you typed. You're saying that what you said isn't true. Like, do you realize what you posted? You posted a fake criticism of Julio following it up with saying you don't believe it.

Both of those hypothetical games are arbitrary and not really a reference to anything, though. Yeah, I'd rather have 12 for 180 than 3 for 180. But the former isn't what Thomas was practically ever doing, and the latter isn't what anyone else is ever doing either. An average Thomas game was 8 for 88 yards. An average Julio game was 7 for 105 yards. I'd rather have the latter. Thomas's lead in catches over guys like Nuk and Jones amounted to a catch per game. Their lead in yards amounted to 10 - 20 yards per game. Give me those yards.

So your argument is that posting a flaw that isn't true and that you don't believe is equivalent to people posting what they believe is a genuine hole in someone's game? That's not a good argument. That's not even really an argument. That's you saying you can make something up so something else must not be true. Also, who said Thomas isn't a true #1? People are saying he's not elite or top tier. Those are VERY different standards. And you have to nitpick when we're comparing guys that might be 2nd or 3rd best at their position (where I'd probably have Julio and Nuk, who have been topics of debate) to someone who might be 6th or 7th, around where I think Thomas belongs.

A contested catch 40 yards downfield is going to be much lower percentage than one 5 yards downfield. More time for the defender to react, the throw is going to be less precise inherently, etc. I also don't know where the stat came from and how it's calculated. These things tend to be vague and subjective. Does it just mean the defender had contact with the receiver at the time of catch, or does it mean the defender actually was making a play on the ball? Does a slant where a defender is trailing but has an arm on the WRs hip count? Or does it have to be the kind of thing where the defender is diving over the WR to get to the ball? I don't know these things, but I know regardless, passes further downfield will always be less precise (on average) and less likely to be caught.

I never said anything about Julio except that his depth of target hurt his catch rate. Relative to Thomas, at least.

He was 6th in yards and 10th in TDs. Way down there in yards per reception. If you want to go with just production, that doesn't really clearly paint him as elite either.

If we're going to say that his lack of deep production is a result of the system, than we also need to be saying that his high catch rate and volume of catches is because of the system as well. You want to have it both ways, praise him for his short production while excusing his deep production, and it doesn't work that way. Either both are due to Thomas's skill, or both are largely due to the offensive system.

Thomas's average targeted air yards was 7.7. Julio's was 14.0. That's going to get you a drastically lower catch rate.

Just outside for me, solidly in tier 2, but then it depends on how you split out the tiers.