Extension season.

[MOSteelers56]

35 minutes ago, warfelg said:

 

This is big for him. He was constantly leaving the ground on deep balls. 

2 minutes ago, 43M said:

He needs to focus on football, but the coaches needs to learn how to use him more to his strengths.

Yeah, this is true. He's not been great but he's had a lot of circumstances that have made it harder for him. 

[warfelg]

6 minutes ago, MOSteelers56 said:

This is big for him. He was constantly leaving the ground on deep balls. 

Yeah, this is true. He's not been great but he's had a lot of circumstances that have made it harder for him. 

Yea. I’ve heard some things about him not trusting his ability to be there. If we can get back to using him like he was his rookie year though he could get back to growing fast. I think Jujus injury last year hindered Claypools planned progression. 

[Dcash4]

Not sure if anyone will be able to view this, but I was bored and curious on some stuff. Just sharing:

Year	True Catch %	Separation	Drop %	Contest Catch	Route Wins	Sep vs Man	Sep vs Zone
Diontae Johnson
21	81%	1.89	5.50%	42.9%	41%	1.76	2.52
20	81%	1.18	7.60%	55.6%
19	88%	2.39	3.30%	16.7%
JuJu Smith-Schuster
21	88%	1.75	0%	16.7%	54.20%	1.5	2.25
20	95%	1.11	0%	53.8%
19	80%	1.4	4%	50.0%
Chase Claypool
21	71%	1.28	6.70%	50.0%	35.9%	0.88	2.14
20	80%	1.15	4.60%	19.2%
James Washington
21	77%	1.68	4.5%	50.0%	33.90%	1.05	2.45
20	81%	0.98	7.1%	31.3%
19	84%	1.2	2.5%	56.2%
Ray-Ray McCloud
21	93%	1.35	1.50%	20.0%	35.6%	1.47	1.88
20	100%	0.45	4.50%	0.0%

Only thing I will add is boy did that Randy Fichtner/Ben 2020 offense suck. 

[warfelg]

Only thing I can take away from that is Claypool and Johnson are more open guys; Juju and Washington were good jump ball contested catch guys.

[43M]

28 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

Not sure if anyone will be able to view this, but I was bored and curious on some stuff. Just sharing:

 

Year	True Catch %	Separation	Drop %	Contest Catch	Route Wins	Sep vs Man	Sep vs Zone
Diontae Johnson
21	81%	1.89	5.50%	42.9%	41%	1.76	2.52
20	81%	1.18	7.60%	55.6%
19	88%	2.39	3.30%	16.7%
JuJu Smith-Schuster
21	88%	1.75	0%	16.7%	54.20%	1.5	2.25
20	95%	1.11	0%	53.8%
19	80%	1.4	4%	50.0%
Chase Claypool
21	71%	1.28	6.70%	50.0%	35.9%	0.88	2.14
20	80%	1.15	4.60%	19.2%
James Washington
21	77%	1.68	4.5%	50.0%	33.90%	1.05	2.45
20	81%	0.98	7.1%	31.3%
19	84%	1.2	2.5%	56.2%
Ray-Ray McCloud
21	93%	1.35	1.50%	20.0%	35.6%	1.47	1.88
20	100%	0.45	4.50%	0.0%

Only thing I will add is boy did that Randy Fichtner/Ben 2020 offense suck. 

As soon as opposing defenses asjusted to limit the underneath stuff and made Ben look more than 7 yards downfield, we had the worst offense in football.   Much of that continued into 2021.   Only reason we didnt have a historically bad offense last year was because of numerous stat padding, late game comeback attempts, which were the only times last year when Ben still looked like an NFL QB.

That's why Im somewhat excited about this year.   Losing Ben (in his post elbow injury form) was an addition by subtraction.

[Dcash4]

9 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Only thing I can take away from that is Claypool and Johnson are more open guys; Juju and Washington were good jump ball contested catch guys.

I'm not sure it says that about Claypool as he ranks 5th on this list.  Johnson, yes -- and it's the big reason I like him. But look at Claypool's numbers vs man... big drop and a disappointing one since when you see 6'4, 4.4 man'd up it should be a trigger.  

DJ ranked 10th in separation per target in the league. Chase 89th.

Where this started for me was I wanted to compare James Washington to Chase - I came away very surprised in Chase's contested catch numbers. YOY is rough, but we will see which carries over. But was really disappointed that Washington checked more boxes. 

1 minute ago, 43M said:

As soon as opposing defenses asjusted to limit the underneath stuff and made Ben look more than 7 yards downfield, we had the worst offense in football.   Much of that continued into 2021.   Only reason we didnt have a historically bad offense last year was because of numerous stat padding, late game comeback attempts, which were the only times last year when Ben still looked like an NFL QB.

That's why Im somewhat excited about this year.   Losing Ben (in his post elbow injury form) was an addition by subtraction.

A stat I didn't include, but I thought was interesting was the "cushion" stat for where a defenders starts off the receiver. In a lot of cases, were were shorter by over a yard by other receivers. Speaks to defenses knew they just had to play up in the short area which crunched separation too -- that's the 2020 drop off. 

I look at DJ's separation numbers in 19 (first in the league) with Duck/Rudolph and I want to dive into his downfield attempts more. That's where I think he will see a big jump and I am curious to know if that's where the big jump comes from. 

[August4th]

7 minutes ago, 43M said:

As soon as opposing defenses asjusted to limit the underneath stuff and made Ben look more than 7 yards downfield, we had the worst offense in football.   Much of that continued into 2021.   Only reason we didnt have a historically bad offense last year was because of numerous stat padding, late game comeback attempts, which were the only times last year when Ben still looked like an NFL QB.

That's why Im somewhat excited about this year.   Losing Ben (in his post elbow injury form) was an addition by subtraction.

feels like we had several games where we went into halftime with like 50 yards passing 🥴 Ben should of retired after the surgery. that news about his arm being possibly better after the surgery was junk

[43M]

7 minutes ago, August4th said:

feels like we had several games where we went into halftime with like 50 yards passing 🥴 Ben should of retired after the surgery. that news about his arm being possibly better after the surgery was junk

Ben's deep ball abilities and mobility were already fading in in 2017 and 2018.   After his elbow surgery and going on 38 years old, there was no way he was coming back other than a shell of what he was.

I even said that the only way Ben coming back after that made sense was if we had an elite running game and defense to allow him to be a game manager again.   The defense was good enough....but the run game was balls and our entire offense revolved around the short passing game.    As soon as defenses keyed in on that...Ben's career was over.

[warfelg]

49 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

I'm not sure it says that about Claypool as he ranks 5th on this list.  Johnson, yes -- and it's the big reason I like him.

I think you are missing what I’m saying.  More neither is really a 50/50 jump ball guy.  And Claypool wasn’t in college either.  They both do more damage by getting the ball in their hands than getting the ball out of the air.

[warfelg]

2 hours ago, Dcash4 said:

Not sure if anyone will be able to view this, but I was bored and curious on some stuff. Just sharing:

 

Year	True Catch %	Separation	Drop %	Contest Catch	Route Wins	Sep vs Man	Sep vs Zone
Diontae Johnson
21	81%	1.89	5.50%	42.9%	41%	1.76	2.52
20	81%	1.18	7.60%	55.6%
19	88%	2.39	3.30%	16.7%
JuJu Smith-Schuster
21	88%	1.75	0%	16.7%	54.20%	1.5	2.25
20	95%	1.11	0%	53.8%
19	80%	1.4	4%	50.0%
Chase Claypool
21	71%	1.28	6.70%	50.0%	35.9%	0.88	2.14
20	80%	1.15	4.60%	19.2%
James Washington
21	77%	1.68	4.5%	50.0%	33.90%	1.05	2.45
20	81%	0.98	7.1%	31.3%
19	84%	1.2	2.5%	56.2%
Ray-Ray McCloud
21	93%	1.35	1.50%	20.0%	35.6%	1.47	1.88
20	100%	0.45	4.50%	0.0%

Only thing I will add is boy did that Randy Fichtner/Ben 2020 offense suck. 

FYI PFR has Claypool at a 5.5% drop rate in 2020 and 4.8% in 2021. Curious as to where your numbers came from. 

[Dcash4]

1 hour ago, warfelg said:

FYI PFR has Claypool at a 5.5% drop rate in 2020 and 4.8% in 2021. Curious as to where your numbers came from. 

Playerprofiler.com (I think). Drop rates are notoriously inconsistent across brands as no one has a specific drop metric. So as long as we look at the rates by the same source, feels like everyone on equal ground

PFR has DJ at 6.5, 9, and 3. 

[warfelg]

1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

Playerprofiler.com (I think). Drop rates are notoriously inconsistent across brands as no one has a specific drop metric. So as long as we look at the rates by the same source, feels like everyone on equal ground

PFR has DJ at 6.5, 9, and 3. 

Interesting though that PP has Claypool as worse with drops and PFR has DJ worse with drops. 

[warfelg]

10 hours ago, Dcash4 said:

Playerprofiler.com (I think). Drop rates are notoriously inconsistent across brands as no one has a specific drop metric. So as long as we look at the rates by the same source, feels like everyone on equal ground

PFR has DJ at 6.5, 9, and 3. 

Interestingly too:

PP makes DJ 3rd worst in the NFL. 
 

Meanwhile PFR you get this/

I saw someone make a point of what should be in consideration. The time of these drops. Like a 3rd and 3 drop is far worse than a 1st and 10 drop. And that’s not something you can get without diving through every play. It always felt like DJs drops come at bad times. 
 

Also didn’t know this until I looked it up to confirm off something on Twitter:

DJ lead the league in penalties at WR last year with 9. 

Edited May 27, 2022 by warfelg

[jebrick]

Personally, I think it is the type of routes that they made Claypool run.  Remember that they did not change the passing playbook.  I will bet they had Claypool running the same routes as Bryant did.  Claybook is actually a decent route runner from college but the Steelers used him to run flys and post routes. 

 

Will that change this year? I doubt is as they one big WR and that is Claypool.

[Dcash4]

1 hour ago, warfelg said:

DJ lead the league in penalties at WR last year with 9. 

And, oddly enough, his teammate was right behind him with 8. It’s no wonder we didn’t bring back the WR coach. How do your top 2 receivers lead the damn league in penalties?!?

1 hour ago, warfelg said:

I saw someone make a point of what should be in consideration. The time of these drops. Like a 3rd and 3 drop is far worse than a 1st and 10 drop. And that’s not something you can get without diving through every play. It always felt like DJs drops come at bad times.

His drops are infuriating because they are probably the easiest catches he would have on the day. Then he follows it up with his arm pinned to his side making a one handed grab.