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LMU93
...because it does show his clear talent. He was not a bust by any means but rather such an inconsistent player. For every highlight reel punt return he had 6 or 7 where he went nowhere (by choice) vs getting them 7-10 yards of field position.
I remember some of those downfield catches too and always wondered why he did not do that with any consistency. Was it that he could grasp more of the Rams simplistic 2015-2016 offenses but was in way over his head when McVay and LaFleur arrived? Maybe.
His most consistent aspect to his game was as a runner being handed the ball. He was good in that role and if Dallas utilized him mainly as a 3rd down RB he could do well there. I highly doubt he is anything more than maybe their 4th WR.
I thought they gave him one final chance in the week 17 game vs SF last year and unfortunately he laid an egg. That probably was the end for him.
Also makes you sigh to see the lopsided scores in so many of those 2013-2016 clips...
He will always have the 2013 Indy game. That was something. I hope he does well in Dallas. He seems like a good guy and was a hard worker.
I would say that his game was a package and that if you did not have one part it took away from the other parts. In fact I think Linehan sees it well--you line him outside and he can still run the ball, line him up in the backfield and he can still catch passes. If you treated him just as a runner it took away from his game.
I actually don't care that much about the special teams plays. I look at the offensive plays.
From 2014-16, he caught 59.5% of his 227 targets, which while not great is the same as players like Pierre Garcon, Julio Jones, Jimmy Graham etc. and better than players like AJ Green, Ty Hilton, Amari Cooper, etc.
What is NOT frustrating to me about that vid is the variety of kinds of passes he catches. That vid alone shows he was much more active in the passing game than people often tend to think. From the way Linehan talks about him, he has watched film on Tavon and is preparing to use him in that way, as a combined yards weapon who runs, catches, and decoys. (He works as a decoy because teams gameplan in the need to contain him. Why? Control explosive plays. You don't do that if you don't fear the guy and his capacity for explosive plays.)
The controversy in this thread was approaching things wrong IMO. For some it was either McV doesn;t know what he is doing or Tavon can't do things. Neither is true and neither is the answer in this case.
McV did not use TA in all the ways you can and the way they did before, especially in 2014-15, but I think that's a combination of TA missing time practicing the offense and McV basically not wanting to alter his scheme to fit Tavon in as a receiving weapon. Though we know he could be used that because he
was that in previous years. I never thought he was a pure receiver, and said so before they even drafted him, but he is a combined yards weapon if you program him in right, and I put the vid up to show that. There's play after play in that vid of TA doing things as a receiving weapon that some are saying he cannot do. But. He did them.