Is Larry Fitzgerald Still A Top 12 WR Talent Wise?

[NFLExpert49]

4 hours ago, packerrfan74 said:

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. 

What? You think Anquan Boldin was explosive? 

I used his numbers - the numbers of a receiver who was clearly unexplosive - to illustrate how unexplosive Fitzgerald is.

40+ yard completions and receptions has been a statistic on nfl.com since the website was up in the 90s. Where the hell have you been? 

[NFLExpert49]

5 hours ago, skywlker32 said:

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

Yeah, and if you look at his RAC in 2011, it came from broken tackles. But as I said, 2011 was clearly a fluke year for him. 

[NFLExpert49]

5 hours ago, skywlker32 said:

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

It was in the context of him averaging 10.4 yards per catch over a 3 year span. 

[NFLExpert49]

6 hours ago, TXsteeler said:

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".

As I said, they're clearly not reliable if that's where they had Fitzgerald ranked. When linebackers are running stride for stride/closing on a WR every time he takes off in the open field, it's safe to say you're dealing with a receiver who isn't very fast. You can see Jake Ryan of the Packers running stride-for-stride with him on that 75 yard catch and run vs. GB you linked to a video of from the 2015-16 playoffs. You can go back to 2011 and watch his catch-and-run vs. San Francisco and see Navorro Bowman running stride-for-stride with him. 

If he had great speed, he would have to be considered an enormous underachiever. What explosive player has just 1 catch of 40+ yards over a 48 game span? 

And if you can't make it translate to explosive plays, you can't be considered an explosive player. You could have Usain Bolt speed and it wouldn't matter. 

[NFLExpert49]

9 hours ago, skywlker32 said:

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.

Considering James Harrison is running stride-for-stride with Polamalu there, something is wrong with Polamalu. He wouldn't have caught anyone the way he was running on that play. 

[SmittyBacall]

I don't understand the purpose of this explosiveness debate. Fitzgerald was never known as an explosive receiver, why is this trait the barometer for a receivers talent? I don't understand. He was talented in so many other ways. This whole thread has been derailed into a semantic debate about "talent". Clearly @NFLExpert49 is arguing for ones athletic ability. That's pigeon-holing a word that has a broad scope of interpretations. I'll ask again, do you consider a world-class juggler to be talented? 

And lets not pretend 40+ yard TD's and explosiveness are strictly correlated. For example, Alshon Jeffery and Mike Evans are two great deep threats. They're also relatively slow long-striders who build up momentum to win deep. 

[skywlker32]

13 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Yeah, and if you look at his RAC in 2011, it came from broken tackles. But as I said, 2011 was clearly a fluke year for him. 

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2012/broken-tackles-2011

Except that he didn't have a large number of broken tackles (less than 10 per the link).

13 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Considering James Harrison is running stride-for-stride with Polamalu there, something is wrong with Polamalu. He wouldn't have caught anyone the way he was running on that play. 

Harrison is running directly behind Fitzgerald and Fitz is very easily pulling away. Polamalu is coming from an angle, but is unable to make up ANY ground. I don't know what play you are watching there.

 

14 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

It was in the context of him averaging 10.4 yards per catch over a 3 year span. 

You were still completely factually incorrect in what you were saying though since you said that he averaged less than 10 yards per catch. Claiming you were putting it in context of a 3 year span doesn't help that you were wrong.

[NFLExpert49]

5 hours ago, skywlker32 said:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2012/broken-tackles-2011

Except that he didn't have a large number of broken tackles (less than 10 per the link).

Harrison is running directly behind Fitzgerald and Fitz is very easily pulling away. Polamalu is coming from an angle, but is unable to make up ANY ground. I don't know what play you are watching there.

 

You were still completely factually incorrect in what you were saying though since you said that he averaged less than 10 yards per catch. Claiming you were putting it in context of a 3 year span doesn't help that you were wrong.

But he got a lot of RAC off the tackles he did break, per actually reviewing his big plays from that season. 

Polamalu isn't running any faster than Harrison on the play. That's what I'm watching. Polamalu starts out in front of Harrison and the two of them end up running side-by-side. Polamalu's either hobbled or not running full speed, because he's running slowly on that play. 

He did average less than 10 yards per catch in the season being referred to in the link I was responding to. I'm not sure why you aren't grasping this. 

[skywlker32]

58 minutes ago, NFLExpert49 said:

But he got a lot of RAC off the tackles he did break, per actually reviewing his big plays from that season. 

Polamalu isn't running any faster than Harrison on the play. That's what I'm watching. Polamalu starts out in front of Harrison and the two of them end up running side-by-side. Polamalu's either hobbled or not running full speed, because he's running slowly on that play. 

He did average less than 10 yards per catch in the season being referred to in the link I was responding to. I'm not sure why you aren't grasping this. 

So.. confirmation bias? Unless you actually have stats to support this, that's all it is. No matter what here, either he was very good after the catch (a very good TALENT to have) or he was getting a normal number of yards after contact per reception (which means he would have been more of a deep threat than you like to admit).

Polamalu is running the wrong direction from the play initially. Once he gets back around to running the same direction, he makes no ground on Fitz. Fitz is very easily pulling away from anyone else on the play.

Except that play is from 2015 season (only year Carson Palmer played against Packers as a Cardinal I believe, definitely did not play against the packers in 2016 season). That is not his sub 10 yards per reception year (2016).

[NFLExpert49]

2 hours ago, skywlker32 said:

So.. confirmation bias? Unless you actually have stats to support this, that's all it is. No matter what here, either he was very good after the catch (a very good TALENT to have) or he was getting a normal number of yards after contact per reception (which means he would have been more of a deep threat than you like to admit).

Polamalu is running the wrong direction from the play initially. Once he gets back around to running the same direction, he makes no ground on Fitz. Fitz is very easily pulling away from anyone else on the play.

Except that play is from 2015 season (only year Carson Palmer played against Packers as a Cardinal I believe, definitely did not play against the packers in 2016 season). That is not his sub 10 yards per reception year (2016).

As I already said, it was a fluke year. I do have stats to prove it - YAC average for each season is shown on a player's yahoo stats page. His YAC average for 2011 was 6.4. 

Again, James Harrison is running stride-for-stride with Polamalu. Polamalu never runs faster than Harrison on this play.

I was referencing the tweet when I was talking about the sub-10 ypc season. The tweet mentioned he averaged under 10 yards per catch, but claimed it "wasn't because he couldn't run." Of course it was because he couldn't run. It wasn't some fluke season, as shown by what he averaged over a 3 year stretch. 

[BleedTheClock]

People are arguing that Larry Fitzgerald is an explosive receiver? He's unbelievably good, but explosive is not a word I'd use to describe him.

He isn't slow, but he's closer to being slow than he is to being fast.

 

 

SLOW----------------------------------Larry Fitzgerald------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------FAST

 

Larry Fitz doesn't need to be fast. He's got unreal body control and ridiculous hands. He can make big plays down the field with those traits alone.

[DirtyDez]

On 6/1/2018 at 3:14 PM, sammymvpknight said:

Josh Gordon can wake up a night after a bender...take a poop...a put up 100 yards and a TD or two. The guy's insane. He's probably the most talented WR in the NFL...it's just a matter if his heads is in the game.

Why is it more impressive after a bowel movement?  I would speak more to his talent if he could post those numbers while constipated.

[Superman(DH23)]

#1 Larry Fitzgerald is not explosive.  Thats really not a matter of debate, we've known this since he came into the league. 

#2 explosiveness/= speed.  I have seen track guys run average 40s.  We have heard about 40 speed being manufactured.  Ive also seen players that were fast on the field run bad 40s (Joe Haden, Mario Manningham).  The 40, the Vert, the broad jump.  These are explosion tests.  You want to know how FAST a player is, watch the tape.  Somebody already brought up Evans and Alshon, but you also had Rice, and Fitz who were long striders and built up speed.  They werent explosive. But they didnt off get caught from behind either.

#3 Explosive plays are those of 20+ not 40+.  That has been the accepted view for 1 simple reason: 40+ plays are fluky.  There is almost always a missed assignment, or something that allows that play to happen.  

#4 Explosiveness is not the only measure of talent for a wr.  Fitz has maybe the best hands of all time, he is one of the best route runners in the game.  He has an incredibly high football iq.  So he isnt explosive, he has plenty of other talents to lean on.

#5 Yes Calvin Johnson was explosive.  At 6056 235 lbs he ran a 4.35 40.  That is equally if not more impressive than Moss' 4.28 when you factor that he outweighed Moss by damn near 30 lbs.  

[ET80]

1 hour ago, Superman(DH23) said:

#1 Larry Fitzgerald is not explosive.  Thats really not a matter of debate, we've known this since he came into the league. 

#2 explosiveness/= speed.  I have seen track guys run average 40s.  We have heard about 40 speed being manufactured.  Ive also seen players that were fast on the field run bad 40s (Joe Haden, Mario Manningham).  The 40, the Vert, the broad jump.  These are explosion tests.  You want to know how FAST a player is, watch the tape.  Somebody already brought up Evans and Alshon, but you also had Rice, and Fitz who were long striders and built up speed.  They werent explosive. But they didnt off get caught from behind either.

Ok, so if #2 is to be taken at face value,  then #1 is false. The one thing that made Larry Fitzgerald so dominant early on was his uncanny ability to get the jump ball - he would be covered and would outjump EVERYONE and come down with the ball.

I like the #2 and I feel as if it's a common misconception to people here. You can be plenty fast, but not be explosive. Vertical, 10 yard splits on a 40, broad jumps will differentiate whether or not someone is explosive. 

[Superman(DH23)]

2 minutes ago, EliteTexan80 said:

Ok, so if #2 is to be taken at face value,  then #1 is false. The one thing that made Larry Fitzgerald so dominant early on was his uncanny ability to get the jump ball - he would be covered and would outjump EVERYONE and come down with the ball.

I like the #2 and I feel as if it's a common misconception to people here. You can be plenty fast, but not be explosive. Vertical, 10 yard splits on a 40, broad jumps will differentiate whether or not someone is explosive. 

I think we are saying the same thing here ET.  But Larrys ability to win the jump ball is more about his body control and hands and the fact that he is 6'3" often facing 5'10" cbs.  I wouldnt describe him as explosive as much as i love him.