Is Larry Fitzgerald Still A Top 12 WR Talent Wise?

[lavar703]

Again, you've pulled an arbitrary stat that means next to nothing and are using it as a measuring stick for great receivers. If you really want to use this list as some barometer for greatness that means Santana Moss is a better receiver than Marvin Harrison, Andre Johnson, Andre Reed and Reggie Wayne. Antonio Brown=Braylon Edwards I guess...Still want to continue on with how ridiculously silly this is?

[NFLExpert49]

11 minutes ago, lavar703 said:

Again, you've pulled an arbitrary stat that means next to nothing and are using it as a measuring stick for great receivers. If you really want to use this list as some barometer for greatness that means Santana Moss is a better receiver than Marvin Harrison, Andre Johnson, Andre Reed and Reggie Wayne. Antonio Brown=Braylon Edwards I guess...Still want to continue on with how ridiculously silly this is?

Uh, No. It's a statistic that proves he has an extreme lack of explosiveness. It shows he's a one-dimensional receiver.

Santana Moss may have been more explosive than those guys, but those guys also didn't have an embarrassing lack of explosive plays in their career. Explosiveness was still part of some of their games.

Santana Moss having 24 career 40+ yard touchdowns to Andre Reed's 18, for example, isn't a ridiculously large difference. 

Santana Moss having 24 to Larry Fitzgerald's 8, however, is. 

It isn't/wasn't a part of Fitzgerald's game, which is why he is not a top tier talent, and why he never was one of the most talented receivers around. 

This thread is about Fitzgerald's talent. 

I guess you think Jarvis Landry is more talented than Mike Wallace? 

Fitzgerald was a very good wide receiver, for what he was. But he isn't/wasn't as gifted (talented) as a lot of other guys. 

[TXsteeler]

2 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

It's a statistic that proves he has an extreme lack of explosiveness.

That's not at all what it does. There are so many other variables involved with catches and especially TDs over 40 or 30 yards.

You want to measure Larry's speed, Why not use actual measurements of his speed?

https://cardswire.usatoday.com/2017/09/17/who-says-larry-fitzgerald-has-lost-a-step/

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-gameday/0ap3000000627391/Next-Gen-Stats-Larry-Fitzgerald

[NFLExpert49]

3 hours ago, TXsteeler said:

That's not at all what it does. There are so many other variables involved with catches and especially TDs over 40 or 30 yards.

You want to measure Larry's speed, Why not use actual measurements of his speed?

https://cardswire.usatoday.com/2017/09/17/who-says-larry-fitzgerald-has-lost-a-step/

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-gameday/0ap3000000627391/Next-Gen-Stats-Larry-Fitzgerald

Oh, please. Where did those measurements come from, exactly? He's running the 5th fastest MPH of the week on a 33 yard catch-and-run in which he was caught from behind by Darius Slay? 

In the words of the great Judge Judy, "if it doesn't make sense, that's because it's not true."

I can assure you, there are at least several linebackers in the league who would beat Fitzgerald in a 40 and a 100. 

If Fitzgerald could run, he would not be averaging under 10 yards per catch. You would have to think Bruce Arians is the biggest moron alive to not attempt to use his speed if he had it. 

[Soko]

7 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Uh, No. It's a statistic that proves he has an extreme lack of explosiveness. It shows he's a one-dimensional receiver.

40+ yard TDs is not an explosiveness stat anymore than 1-10 yard TDs are a route running stat. 

In the last 4 years, Julio Jones’ TD totals are 6, 8, 6, and 3. Is he not explosive? 

Using one statistic to make a blanket statement about a player’s skill set is dumb. Especially one that isn’t isolating the receiver (as much as possible), like TDs from x distance.

[NFLExpert49]

3 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

40+ yard TDs is not an explosiveness stat anymore than 1-10 yard TDs are a route running stat. 

In the last 4 years, Julio Jones’ TD totals are 6, 8, 6, and 3. Is he not explosive? 

Using one statistic to make a blanket statement about a player’s skill set is dumb. Especially one that isn’t isolating the receiver (as much as possible), like TDs from x distance.

Julio Jones already has 13 career TDs of 40+ yards (to Fitzgerald's 8), and he has played in fewer than half the games Fitzgerald has so far. Jones is lacking in the red zone, not explosiveness. 

And 40+ is a longstanding measurement for explosive plays. They even use the 40 yard dash as a barometer for football speed.

Also, I brought up 40+ yard plays in general in addition to 40+ yard touchdowns. Fitzgerald has just 1 reception of 40+ yards in the last 48 games. I'm pretty sure that's the worst rate for a starting wide receiver in the history of professional football. I think Keyshawn Johnson may have had a similar stretch at the end of his career, but that's about it. 

You can't just ignore something like that when asking where Fitzgerald ranks in terms of talent. 

And let me be clear: Fitzgerald is a better receiver than most of the guys ranked above him in 40+ yard touchdowns. I'm not denying that. 

I'm simply saying that Fitzgerald is WAY down there in where he ranks in terms of explosiveness, which these statistics demonstrate. It's an important attribute that is missing from his game. 

Fitzgerald has size and great hands, durability and toughness. The size is an especially important asset. But size isn't talent. 

[Soko]

2 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Julio Jones already has 13 career TDs of 40+ yards (to Fitzgerald's 8), and he has played in fewer than half the games Fitzgerald has so far. Jones is lacking in the red zone, not explosiveness. 

And 40+ is a longstanding measurement for explosive plays. They even use the 40 yard dash as a barometer for football speed.

Also, I brought up 40+ yard plays in general in addition to 40+ yard touchdowns. Fitzgerald has just 1 reception of 40+ yards in the last 48 games. I'm pretty sure that's the worst rate for a starting wide receiver in the history of professional football. I think Keyshawn Johnson may have had a similar stretch at the end of his career, but that's about it. 

You can't just ignore something like that when asking where Fitzgerald ranks in terms of talent. 

And let me be clear: Fitzgerald is a better receiver than most of the guys ranked above him in 40+ yard touchdowns. I'm not denying that. 

I'm simply saying that Fitzgerald is WAY down there in where he ranks in terms of explosiveness, which these statistics demonstrate. It's an important attribute that is missing from his game. 

Fitzgerald has size and great hands, durability and toughness. The size is an especially important asset. But size isn't talent. 

Except touchdowns are an extremely opportunistic statistic where someone like Fitzgerald, who played on a bunch of lacking offenses, does not get to take advantage. 

You’re also implying that a TD bomb from the 50 yard line is somehow more explosive than a 60 yard play from your own 20. 

40+ yards in the last 4 seasons...for a 30+ year old receiver. Makes sense.

I guess you’ll skim over the fact that Fitzgerald’s career features a season where he averaged more YPC than any year in the career of receivers like Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Deandre Hopkins, AJ Green, or Andre Johnson?

Point is, you’re using a lack of long-touchdowns to discount a guy who isn’t really a pure deep threat (and largely lacked the quarterbacks to get him those long balls) when it isn’t a metric for explosiveness.

Calvin Johnson wasn’t an overly explosive receiver but he had great buildup speed and obviously possessed otherworldly ball skills with his size. 

3 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

If Fitzgerald could run, he would not be averaging under 10 yards per catch. You would have to think Bruce Arians is the biggest moron alive to not attempt to use his speed if he had it. 

Fact check: Fitzgerald averaged over 10 YPC on his 109 catches last season. This is coming primarily as a slot receiver, as Arizona has had speedsters on their team the last few years. 

Painting it like Fitzgerald can’t or has struggled to reach 10 YPC (which happened once in his entire career, 2016 at 9.6) just makes you look silly.

—

Anyway, I’m not even on board with Fitz being the most explosive guy there is. Definitely not now at this point in his career. But in his prime? Sure he was. Not an elite one like Demaryious Thomas, OBJ, or Randy Moss, but it was there. Calling him a career slow, “plodding”, stiff athlete is straight disrespect and false.

[NFLExpert49]

48 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

Except touchdowns are an extremely opportunistic statistic where someone like Fitzgerald, who played on a bunch of lacking offenses, does not get to take advantage. 

You’re also implying that a TD bomb from the 50 yard line is somehow more explosive than a 60 yard play from your own 20. 

40+ yards in the last 4 seasons...for a 30+ year old receiver. Makes sense.

I guess you’ll skim over the fact that Fitzgerald’s career features a season where he averaged more YPC than any year in the career of receivers like Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Deandre Hopkins, AJ Green, or Andre Johnson?

Point is, you’re using a lack of long-touchdowns to discount a guy who isn’t really a pure deep threat (and largely lacked the quarterbacks to get him those long balls) when it isn’t a metric for explosiveness.

Calvin Johnson wasn’t an overly explosive receiver but he had great buildup speed and obviously possessed otherworldly ball skills with his size. 

Fact check: Fitzgerald averaged over 10 YPC on his 109 catches last season. This is coming primarily as a slot receiver, as Arizona has had speedsters on their team the last few years. 

Painting it like Fitzgerald can’t or has struggled to reach 10 YPC (which happened once in his entire career, 2016 at 9.6) just makes you look silly.

—

Anyway, I’m not even on board with Fitz being the most explosive guy there is. Definitely not now at this point in his career. But in his prime? Sure he was. Not an elite one like Demaryious Thomas, OBJ, or Randy Moss, but it was there. Calling him a career slow, “plodding”, stiff athlete is straight disrespect and false.

I'm talking about 40+ yard touchdowns, not touchdowns in general. The statistic reflects the player's individual ability to make something happen based on explosiveness, and to not get caught from behind in the open field. 

If a player has explosiveness, it will reveal itself at some point, regardless of the situation. Fitzgerald's does not because he simply doesn't have it.

Fitzgerald's 2011 was a clear fluke. Look at the other 13 years of his career. 2011 was the same year 3 guys (and nearly a 4th) passed for 5,000+ yards. Some NFL seasons are weird like that.

Long distance touchdowns are absolutely a metric for explosiveness. How could they not be? Not to mention, I also mentioned 40+ yard plays in general, in which Fitzgerald has quite possibly the worst 48 game stretch for 40+ yard plays of any starting WR in NFL history (just 1 in 48 games).

Calvin Johnson was absolutely explosive.

Fitzgerald has averaged just 10.4 yards per catch over the last 3 seasons combined. Explosive receivers don't do that. And a reminder: The title of this thread is about CURRENT Fitzgerald and where he ranks in terms of talent. I mentioned that he wasn't explosive even in his prime, but you could at least make an argument there. But trying to argue that he's explosive now is just nuts. It hardly gets any less explosive than modern Fitzgerald. 

It's just ridiculous how there are people in this thread saying that explosive plays are not the measure of a player's explosiveness. Like, WHAT? 

 

[Soko]

2 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

I'm talking about 40+ yard touchdowns, not touchdowns in general. The statistic reflects the player's individual ability to make something happen based on explosiveness, and to not get caught from behind in the open field. 

Not necessarily, unless you’re assuming those are the only factors that go into a play that goes 40 or more yards and a TD. Also doesn’t change the fact that touchdowns, no matter the distance, are opportunitistic.

Quote

Fitzgerald's 2011 was a clear fluke. Look at the other 13 years of his career. 2011 was the same year 3 guys (and nearly a 4th) passed for 5,000+ yards. Some NFL seasons are weird like that.

Sure, then I guess Randy Moss’ 07 season was a fluke because in his entire career, he never came within 5 TDs of that mark. I guess Calvin Johnson’s 2012 season was a fluke because he never came within 25 catches or 200 yards of those marks. I guess Adrian Peterson’s MVP season was a fluke because he only ever breached 1,500 yards a single time in his career other than that one. Or you can say these players had career-years. 

Yeah, much easier to just call it a fluke.

Quote

Long distance touchdowns are absolutely a metric for explosiveness. How could they not be? Not to mention, I also mentioned 40+ yard plays in general, in which Fitzgerald has quite possibly the worst 48 game stretch for 40+ yard plays of any starting WR in NFL history (just 1 in 48 games).

How could they not be? Let me count the ways. Blown coverages. Bad tackling. Excellent play design. Awful pass rush. 

Quote

Calvin Johnson was absolutely explosive.

I’m not going to debate this with you a) because it’s not on topic, and b) because I’m relatively confident you’ll just use your 40+ yard TDs metric as a self fulfilling prophecy.

Quote

Fitzgerald has averaged just 10.4 yards per catch over the last 3 seasons combined. Explosive receivers don't do that. And a reminder: The title of this thread is about CURRENT Fitzgerald and where he ranks in terms of talent. I mentioned that he wasn't explosive even in his prime, but you could at least make an argument there. But trying to argue that he's explosive now is just nuts. It hardly gets any less explosive than modern Fitzgerald. 

So you admit you were wrong about him averaging less than 10 YPC? 

FWIW, I never even said current Fitz is an explosive guy. I said your reasoning for discounting him is incredibly close minded, and you even made statements about his career that were just false.

Quote

It's just ridiculous how there are people in this thread saying that explosive plays are not the measure of a player's explosiveness. Like, WHAT? 

40+ yard TDs aren’t necessarily explosive plays anymore so than 25 yard TDs are inherently not explosive. Wes Welker went for 99, that doesn’t make him a burner.

[NFLExpert49]

A touchdown from long range isn't "opportunistic." If you're that far away from the endzone, you're not merely in position to score that touchdown because of the team you're on. It's different when it comes in the red zone...especially for running backs who are just punching it in.

What's opportunistic about burning a corner deep for a 45 yard TD? What's opportunistic about juking 3 guys and taking it 70 yards for a touchdown?

Randy Moss had many years to demonstrate he was explosive and capable of huge TD numbers. Same for Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson in yards. Plus, those are all volume statistics. Fitzgerald's 2011 yards per catch average was so far away from the other 13 years of his career it's absurd. It's almost the NFL equivalent to Brady Anderson's 50 home run season, where everyone assumes Anderson was on steroids that year.

"Blown coverages. Bad tackling." Yeah, and this balances out because everyone gets the benefit of these. Fitzgerald has played in 218 games. Over that amount of time, luck balances out. 

Do you honestly think the difference between Fitzgerald and the guys way ahead of him is they just got lucky a whole bunch more times? 

Re: Calvin Johnson. He ran a 4.35. Made it translate on the field with explosive plays. What else is there to define "explosiveness?" What's next, are you going to tell me that Wes Welker - despite his 4.75 or so 40 speed and 3 career touchdowns of 40 yards or more, and 13 career plays of 40 yards or more, is explosive? What else is there to define explosiveness? Is every receiver in NFL history "explosive?" Or do you just want to change the definition of "explosive" to, "productive?"

Re: Fitzgerald: I was referring to the link another poster posted which mentioned he was averaging less than 10 yards per catch (this was from week 1 of the 2017 season, referencing his 2016 season). He averaged under 10 yards per catch in 2016. It absolutely was because he can't run. Nobody who can really run is averaging under 10 yards per catch (when they catch that many passes/they're that involved in the offense). 

If Welker had a bunch of 99 yard plays, that would be different. You don't seem to understand how sample size works. 

It's not about any individual play. It's about a safe general assumption. It's a safe assumption that over the course of many years of heavy involvement, an explosive player is going to get more long gains and long touchdowns than a nonexplosive player. And the rankings I posted fit about what you'd expect.

Is it really any surprise that Bob Hayes - once the world's fastest man - is not only ranked 5th in NFL history in this category, but that in terms of explosive play rate in terms of per games played and involvement in the offense as far as pass attempts/catches (opportunities), he was probably the best ever? 

The guys are the top were explosive, game-breaking players. The guys at the bottom were not. Is it any surprise that numerous tight ends are at the bottom of this list?

All I'm doing is showing a good measurement for the explosiveness category of receiver. It's not a ranking of the best receivers, as it's only one component. A guy like Santana Moss was lacking in other areas.  

[skywlker32]

21 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

[...]

The guy chasing him from behind on that play is James Harrison, a linebacker. 

[...]

He is also very clearly running away from Polamalu in that clip, but please go ahead and ignore that since is doesn't fit your narrative.

[TXsteeler]

16 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Oh, please. Where did those measurements come from, exactly? He's running the 5th fastest MPH of the week on a 33 yard catch-and-run in which he was caught from behind by Darius Slay? 

In the words of the great Judge Judy, "if it doesn't make sense, that's because it's not true."

I can assure you, there are at least several linebackers in the league who would beat Fitzgerald in a 40 and a 100. 

If Fitzgerald could run, he would not be averaging under 10 yards per catch. You would have to think Bruce Arians is the biggest moron alive to not attempt to use his speed if he had it. 

From the NFL's Next Gen Stats. I don't know if they use trackers on players equipment or if they just use tracking software, but those are official NFL speeds. The top speed also does not need to be sustained.

Again, speed is a measurement of distance over time, not "40 yard plays".

[skywlker32]

17 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Oh, please. Where did those measurements come from, exactly? He's running the 5th fastest MPH of the week on a 33 yard catch-and-run in which he was caught from behind by Darius Slay? 

In the words of the great Judge Judy, "if it doesn't make sense, that's because it's not true."

I can assure you, there are at least several linebackers in the league who would beat Fitzgerald in a 40 and a 100. 

If Fitzgerald could run, he would not be averaging under 10 yards per catch. You would have to think Bruce Arians is the biggest moron alive to not attempt to use his speed if he had it. 

Only true for one season of his career at the age of 33...but sure.

[skywlker32]

Also for not having any explosion, Fitzgerald had more YAC in 2011 than Randy Moss did in any year of his career

[Cheesehawk]

On 7/1/2018 at 12:21 PM, NFLExpert49 said:

Yeah, and Wes Welker once had a 99-yard touchdown against the Dolphins. Clearly, he must have been an "explosive" receiver as well.

The guy chasing him from behind on that play is James Harrison, a linebacker. 

Fitzgerald has played 14 years as a feature receiver, missing just 6 games combined in those 14 years, and has only 30 career catches of 40+ yards.

Julio Jones has played half that and already has 32.

Odell Beckham Jr has played only 3 seasons + 4 games and already has 22.

Anquan Boldin - he of the 4.7 40 - played the same number of years, and fewer games, and had 28.

And if you don't like 40 as the distance for demonstrating explosiveness (which would result in big plays and, often, not getting caught in the open field, hence long distance touchdowns), we could also try 30, but that's not going to help him. 

So are you admitting here that speed has nothing to do with explosiveness? Never in my life have I seen completions of 40+ yards used to argue explosiveness. This is asinine.