Tight Ends; best of the rest

[Hunter2_1]

17 hours ago, stl4life07 said:

Idk what you mean by other TEs exist? You could’ve put any current NFL TE who has played a down in the NFL but to put a guy who literally hasn’t played a meaningful snap in the NFL as the 7th best TE that’s a bit extreme. 
 

Honestly Idk where I’d put Pitts on a list but he would be below guys that are at least somewhat well established or showed promise last season. It’s not to diss Pitts but to show respect to the others and see Pitts play a few meaningful games. Then when the season ends we can revisit the list and move Pitts accordingly. At least that’s how I see it. 

Decided to do a bit of research in case I was missing something. I'd have him around 15th or so. PFF had this to say about him;

 

18th  TYLER HIGBEE, LOS ANGELES RAMS

Higbee’s red-hot close to the 2019 season didn’t carry over into the 2020 campaign. Over the last five weeks of the 2019 season, Higbee ranked third among all offensive players in PFF receiving grade (91.2) and receptions (43). No player had more receiving yards (522), either. (IMPRESSIVE)

Higbee remained TE1 in Los Angeles last season, out-snapping Gerald Everett by nearly 200 snaps over the course of the regular season, but his production took a hit. Higbee’s PFF grade dropped nearly 20 points to 67.6 in 2020, and his 1.62 receiving yards per route run was nearly a full yard lower than his mark in 2019 (2.60).   ...(Ooo what happened?)

 

Sorry man, looks like he's about where I'd put him.

 

13 hours ago, stl4life07 said:

In 2019 Higbee had (4) straight 100yd receiving games and was 16yds short of breaking the record for tight ends of most consecutive 100yd receiving games. I really wish he would’ve gotten it so at least people can put some respect on his name.

Yeah that's 2019. When do we ever rank players here based on the season before last?

[stl4life07]

55 minutes ago, BigTrav said:

That's right, only LAR players exists. Certainly you'd get that image if you only read your posts. Every single post without exception you only mention Ram players. 

I can see why you or anyone would think that BUT have you stopped and think for a second maybe just MAYBE Higbee is just good and it doesn’t matter if he is on the Rams? 
 

Perfect example, in the NBA I’m a Nets fan. Been a fan since the Jason Kidd days. I’ve also am a KD fan. Been that way since his OKC days. So by me saying KD is the best player on the planet I can see someone saying, well I’m just being a Nets fan. In reality that’s not true. It just so happens KD is on the team I’m a fan of.

I’ve seen Higbee back when he was in college and he torched my LSU Tigers. I knew he had supreme talent that ultimately was unlocked when McVay became coach and decided to use him in the offense a lot. It has ZERO to do with him being on the Rams BUT I can understand why people would think so because nobody knows what goes on in my head when I make a post. Nobody knows if I’m making a post being a Rams fan or just being a football fan. When comment about “lists” or make lists in coming from a football fan first. If I didn’t then commenting on lists or making lists would be pointless. 

[stl4life07]

1 hour ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Decided to do a bit of research in case I was missing something. I'd have him around 15th or so. PFF had this to say about him;

 

18th  TYLER HIGBEE, LOS ANGELES RAMS

Higbee’s red-hot close to the 2019 season didn’t carry over into the 2020 campaign. Over the last five weeks of the 2019 season, Higbee ranked third among all offensive players in PFF receiving grade (91.2) and receptions (43). No player had more receiving yards (522), either. (IMPRESSIVE)

Higbee remained TE1 in Los Angeles last season, out-snapping Gerald Everett by nearly 200 snaps over the course of the regular season, but his production took a hit. Higbee’s PFF grade dropped nearly 20 points to 67.6 in 2020, and his 1.62 receiving yards per route run was nearly a full yard lower than his mark in 2019 (2.60).   ...(Ooo what happened?)

 

Sorry man, looks like he's about where I'd put him.

 

Yeah that's 2019. When do we ever rank players here based on the season before last?

Thanks for doing research first and foremost. So you have Higbee 15th? Interesting. That’s what I get confused about lists. Do you rank players based on what they have done? Do you rank players on what you think they will do? 

If it’s ranking players on what you think they will do then we shall see with Pitts because tight  ends rarely walk into their rookie seasons and have big impactful seasons. Meanwhile we know Stafford and now McVay is going to open up the playbook which we clearly know he didn’t last season and I believe he said as much due to being frustrated with Goff. I think Higbee will have his best season. Now how his best season look like? I can’t tell you but in the same breath the best season for a rookie tight end is 56/1076/12 that was by Mike Ditka in 1961. We ASSUME Pitts will walk in and have that type of season if not better. Again we shall see.
 

I just think WE as fans always fall into the trap of the shiny new player and start pushing him high up before he even plays a meaningful snap. Again I’m not saying Pitts won’t be great. If I could I’d trade Higbee in a heartbeat for Pitts because I believe Pitts will be special but for me I’m just waiting to at least see what Pitts will actually do in the NFL while I’ve seen what Higbee has already done and know his ceiling is still high based on a better QB, no Everett so that means more opportunities (which we’ve already seen in 2019 that produced great results) and the playbook opening up this year as opposed to McVay not really do so last season. That’s my argument. 

Edited August 19, 2021 by stl4life07

[JAF-N72EX]

On 8/18/2021 at 6:00 AM, Hunter2_1 said:

@JAF-N72EX You reckon Kmet is far off this range? I like him to have a 2nd year jump

I think around the 15 range is more reasonable IMHO. Especially since Dalton is the expected starter. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility to crack the 12th spot in terms of production when Fields get the go ahead (TEs are a rookie QBs best friend), but a lot of things would need to either go very right or very wrong for the offense in order for that to happen. And this isn't a knock on Kmet either.

What I mean is, in this system, he's going to be competing for targets in an offense that spread the ball around to 5 or more other players. Arob is gonna see his usual 20-25% looks alone. Mooney proved to be a legit deep threat (which Fields likes) and unseated Miller last season to take over the #2 spot, so he's looking at a leap in production. Monty showed to be a dynamic back last season (while proving me wrong in the process), so I expect him to get ~40 looks again. To the start of the season, Graham played the Y position and Kmet played the U and they switched late in the season when Kmet got more comfortable with the offense, which is why he's getting an opportunity this year. So, Graham will no doubt see a drop in production like he did late in the season because of Kmet's emergence, but he's still a redzone threat (led the team TDs last season). Cohen missed last season due to injury and he's back. He' a scatback-slash-gadget player who is arguably our best player in the open field and has never finished a season with less than 3rd on the team in terms of targets since his sophomore season and over 1800 scrimmage yards in 2018 and 2019 combined. Think Darren Sproles. So they are going to use him when they can. He's labeled as a RB but he can line up everywhere on the field and with the lack of depth at receiver I expect the staff to get him pretty heavily involved in the pass game. They can't keep using him on run plays in single back sets like they have. He's too limited as a runner, which makes him predictable and tips the defense whenever he's on the field. They know his best strength is in the open field and that he can't run between tackles and he's mostly likely going to be used as either a stretch play or a checkdown.

TLDR; The point is, there's only so many targets to go around. So unless the Bears offense somehow turns into a juggernaut (when have you ever heard that?) or we start to see injuries (Cohen 2020) or player regression happen (Miller 2020), then Kmet may have a hard time getting enough looks to prop up his numbers to crack the top-12.

I have high hopes for Kmet and I expect a jump too but not a major production increase in 2021. I expect something along the lines of 70/650/4 this year and 2023 is when we really see him start to shine. His current situation and how he carries himself reminds me alot like Greg Olsen. 

[Jeezla]

Is Pitts definitely lining up at TE?