Don’t look now but Terry is on pace for a great season

[turtle28]

If Terry has a second half as he did the first half he’ll finish the season with around 100 receptions, 1400 yards and 6 TDs.

Could be more or less in each category but I don’t know how any analyst can’t see that he’s a #1 WR. We just need to find a #2 WR to go opposite him who’s capable of catching around 60 passes, 800 yards and 5 TDs to go opposite Terry or even better than that.

[offbyone]

The impressive thing is it is with 3 different qbs. 

I disagree with the feeling that we are set at WR because we have one good one.  We need another #1 receiver or at least an elite TE.  What happens if Terry gets hurt?  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

[lavar703]

He’s elite. It’s okay to say it now. 

[MikeT14]

33 minutes ago, lavar703 said:

He’s elite. It’s okay to say it now. 

He's very good. Very good. I'm not using the "E" word yet. He's not in the DeAndre, Julio category for me. 

[turtle28]

1 hour ago, offbyone said:

The impressive thing is it is with 3 different qbs. 

I disagree with the feeling that we are set at WR because we have one good one.  We need another #1 receiver or at least an elite TE.  What happens if Terry gets hurt?  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I don’t think we need another WR that’s on Terry’s level or better but of course I’d love that, who wouldn’t? 

I feel we definitely need a #2 WR as I said. Terry is a #1 WR. He’s not the elite of the elite as far as the very best/dominate WRs in the NFL like Mike Thomas, DeVante Adams, DHop, Julio, Mike Evans and probably DJ Metcalf but we don’t need a WR at that level in order to have a good to great passing game and team. Not saying I don’t want a WR like that but, we don’t need it.

I definitely agree we need a huge upgrade at TE too. Thomas is fine as a #2 TE, but we need to either sign or draft an upgrade there.

Terry can be/is our #1, we need a #2 WR opposite him who can put up #s like I said in my OP. Maybe that’s Cam Sims or Harmon, but that seems far fetched to me. 
 

We have to hope that Steven Sims can develop into our long term answer in the slot or we need to find someone there too. I really still feel that when Steven Sims gets back into shape & healthy that he’s going to be a big piece that we were missing in our passing game in the slot the first half of the season since he injured his toe.

Edited November 10, 2020 by turtle28

[offbyone]

2 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

He's very good. Very good. I'm not using the "E" word yet. He's not in the DeAndre, Julio category for me. 

Agreed.  Elite WRs take over games.  Terry has yet to do that.  He impacts games, but he has not taken a game over yet.  Heck, every big game he has we lose.  He might become elite, but at this point he is just a very good WR.

[turtle28]

28 minutes ago, offbyone said:

Agreed.  Elite WRs take over games.  Terry has yet to do that.  He impacts games, but he has not taken a game over yet.  Heck, every big game he has we lose.  He might become elite, but at this point he is just a very good WR.

Perhaps that’s because the rest of the team isn’t doing enough to help us win. Terry is doing his part and he shouldn’t be downgraded bc others aren’t doing theirs. This reminds me of the posts we used to have where Kirk would have great games but we’d lose and people would say Kirk isn’t a good QB bc we lost the game. You can be a good or even an elite player and your team can lose for other reasons.

What’s Julio Jones’s teams record again?

Oh yeah 3-6, he must not be elite.  🙄

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by turtle28

[offbyone]

1 minute ago, turtle28 said:

Perhaps that’s because the rest of the team isn’t doing enough to help us win. Terry is doing his part and he shouldn’t be downgraded bc others aren’t doing theirs. This reminds me of the posts we used to have where Kirk would have great games but we’d lose and people would say Kirk isn’t a good QB bc we lost the game. You can be a good or even an elite player and your team can lose for other reasons.

What’s Julio Jones’s teams record again?

Oh yeah 3-6, he must not be elite.  🙄

 

Look I am not trying to be down on Terry, I think he is great.  I just don't agree that he is in the elite class of WRs at this point.  Julio Jones takes over games.  McLaurin does not.  You can project TM all you want, but until it actually happens he isn't there.  
You make my point by bringing up Cousins.  He is a very good qb.  Certainly above average, but he is not elite.  He couldn't put the team on his back and win consistently.  Elite qbs do that.  

[turtle28]

6 minutes ago, offbyone said:

Look I am not trying to be down on Terry, I think he is great.  I just don't agree that he is in the elite class of WRs at this point.  Julio Jones takes over games.  McLaurin does not.  You can project TM all you want, but until it actually happens he isn't there.  
You make my point by bringing up Cousins.  He is a very good qb.  Certainly above average, but he is not elite.  He couldn't put the team on his back and win consistently.  Elite qbs do that.  

So why aren’t the Falcons 6-3 instead of 3-6?

I do agree with what you’re saying though. As I said in my post I didn’t have Terry in the elite WRs but in the next group after them. I would say one reason he hasn’t taken over a game is QB play. I would have loved for us to have been able to draft Terry instead of Doctson in 2016 and for him to get 3 years to play with Cousins, that would’ve been fun to watch them together.

I would also say that the Elite QBs or Elite WRs have an elite player on the other end of that string. What is Aaron Rodgers w/o all the great WRs he’s played with like Driver, Nelson and DaVante Adam’s? And what are those players w/o him? Probably not as good. Those positions need each other to be elite and I would say that Terry hasn’t even played with a “good Qb yet,” let alone anything close to an “elite one.”

Kirk has never played with an elite WR either. He’s played with very good ones - Djax, Diggs, Garçon, Jefferson - but never an elite one. Kirk has never had a true elite/#1/top 5 in league WR.

[lavar703]

1 hour ago, offbyone said:

Agreed.  Elite WRs take over games.  Terry has yet to do that.  He impacts games, but he has not taken a game over yet.  Heck, every big game he has we lose.  He might become elite, but at this point he is just a very good WR.

I mean, we’ve won 5 games in the last nearly two seasons. The team is horrible and he’s basically the only weapon and he’s still on pace for 1200 yards. He’s doing this with no help around him and three different QBs taking snaps. 

[e16bball]

I went ahead and checked on where he ranks in receiving yards among all players in their first 22 games.

It’s 14th all-time. Just behind Michael Thomas and just ahead of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mike Evans, and Andre Johnson. You can check out the rest of the list here (I hope, pro-football-reference recently went paid, so I might not be able to link to the lists anymore), but the upshot is that most of the guys on that list were at the very least “very good” players. Many were superstars. 

Terry has made it onto that list while playing with 5 different QBs, 3-4 different OCs, and 0 other receiving talent on the field. It’s just downright silly how good he is.

 

Here’s the interesting one on the list for me though: a guy named Marcus Robinson. Played for the Bears in the late 90s and early 2000s. Went to South Carolina. Ranks 10th on that list with 1639 yards in his first 22 games, equidistant from Jerry Rice (1650) and Allen Robinson (1628). Put up 1400 yards as a 2nd-year receiver in 1999, catching passes from the dynamic trio of Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, and Jim Miller. I have literally no memory of this guy. Doesn’t even ring a bell.

Edited November 10, 2020 by e16bball

[turtle28]

46 minutes ago, e16bball said:

I went ahead and checked on where he ranks in receiving yards among all players in their first 22 games.

It’s 14th all-time. Just behind Michael Thomas and just ahead of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mike Evans, and Andre Johnson. You can check out the rest of the list here (I hope, pro-football-reference recently went paid, so I might not be able to link to the lists anymore), but the upshot is that most of the guys on that list were at the very least “very good” players. Many were superstars. 

Terry has made it onto that list while playing with 5 different QBs, 3-4 different OCs, and 0 other receiving talent on the field. It’s just downright silly how good he is.

 

Here’s the interesting one on the list for me though: a guy named Marcus Robinson. Played for the Bears in the late 90s and early 2000s. Went to South Carolina. Ranks 10th on that list with 1639 yards in his first 22 games, equidistant from Jerry Rice (1650) and Allen Robinson (1628). Put up 1400 yards as a 2nd-year receiver in 1999, catching passes from the dynamic trio of Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, and Jim Miller. I have literally no memory of this guy. Doesn’t even ring a bell.

I vaguely remember Marcus Robinson on the bears in the late 90s and early 2000s. Not sure if he got hurt or what happened to him but he didn’t have sustained success after those first handful of years. I actually do think he got hurt.

[turtle28]

1 hour ago, e16bball said:

I went ahead and checked on where he ranks in receiving yards among all players in their first 22 games.

It’s 14th all-time. Just behind Michael Thomas and just ahead of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mike Evans, and Andre Johnson. You can check out the rest of the list here (I hope, pro-football-reference recently went paid, so I might not be able to link to the lists anymore), but the upshot is that most of the guys on that list were at the very least “very good” players. Many were superstars. 

Terry has made it onto that list while playing with 5 different QBs, 3-4 different OCs, and 0 other receiving talent on the field. It’s just downright silly how good he is.

 

Here’s the interesting one on the list for me though: a guy named Marcus Robinson. Played for the Bears in the late 90s and early 2000s. Went to South Carolina. Ranks 10th on that list with 1639 yards in his first 22 games, equidistant from Jerry Rice (1650) and Allen Robinson (1628). Put up 1400 yards as a 2nd-year receiver in 1999, catching passes from the dynamic trio of Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, and Jim Miller. I have literally no memory of this guy. Doesn’t even ring a bell.

I can’t love this enough! Amazing info E! I just posted it on Twitter and tagged Terry so he knows.

[turtle28]

Don’t know if people have seen this before. Terry posted this after he got named captain. It’s a video of the equipment manager or whoever does it stitching the “C” onto Terry’s Jersey.

Edited November 11, 2020 by turtle28

[offbyone]

3 hours ago, turtle28 said:

So why aren’t the Falcons 6-3 instead of 3-6?

I do agree with what you’re saying though. As I said in my post I didn’t have Terry in the elite WRs but in the next group after them. I would say one reason he hasn’t taken over a game is QB play. I would have loved for us to have been able to draft Terry instead of Doctson in 2016 and for him to get 3 years to play with Cousins, that would’ve been fun to watch them together.

I would also say that the Elite QBs or Elite WRs have an elite player on the other end of that string. What is Aaron Rodgers w/o all the great WRs he’s played with like Driver, Nelson and DaVante Adam’s? And what are those players w/o him? Probably not as good. Those positions need each other to be elite and I would say that Terry hasn’t even played with a “good Qb yet,” let alone anything close to an “elite one.”

Kirk has never played with an elite WR either. He’s played with very good ones - Djax, Diggs, Garçon, Jefferson - but never an elite one. Kirk has never had a true elite/#1/top 5 in league WR.

Points taken.  It is just hard for me to align with him being elite until his big games at least coincide with Ws even a few.  But you are right that it is a bit unfair look at a player in a tunnel.  You have to consider what is around him.  Hopefully next year he will have a more stable/competent offense around him and we will see his greatness translate to wins.

He is definitely the kind of player I am excited to have on my team and someone we can build around.

3 hours ago, lavar703 said:

I mean, we’ve won 5 games in the last nearly two seasons. The team is horrible and he’s basically the only weapon and he’s still on pace for 1200 yards. He’s doing this with no help around him and three different QBs taking snaps. 

True.  I guess something is to be said if he has elite numbers on this pile of crap team.

@e16bball post also brings some strength to this argument.  At some point I just want to see his production translate to wins.