Quote
Suh-weet!
I assume you're talking about his runs (I don't see anything "gimmicky" about his punt returns or WR play)? Why are they "gimmick-based"? And, more to the point, what's the relevance of that?
I have two guesses. One is that you don't like it stylistically.
The other, more substantive concern might be that you don't think it's reliable.
Maybe you can explain?
It's very much the latter.
You can't build an NFL offense on that stuff that is productive in any consistent manner.
And Tavon is a major proof. People say he has been productive. But, we cannot convert 3rd downs. He has not changed that. Not remotely close to doing so. Sure, we can all remember a few 1st downs. But his impact has made little difference in the league's worst 3rd down offense.
You need actual WR competence for that. And actual WR competence does something else.
It commands the attention of the defense and pulls it toward the perimeter. Defense facing us have a laughably easy task: attack the LOS and get us to 3rd and longer than 4 yards, and you're off the field.
Tavon has made no difference to this. He does not distort defense. Sure, they have to remember to cover the back side, but after a couple of jet sweeps, they become pretty easy to stop. AS A RECEIVER ... Tavon does little, so far as I can see, to distort or stretch defenses.
The argument for Tavon is that he has been the only source of production on a bad offense. OK. True. "Where would our offense have been without him?"
Well, if we didn't have Tavon and went with what we have had, we would have been even worse.
But replace Tavon with a sound, competent NFL WR, and the ceiling for achievement goes way up. You move the chains. You score in the RZ. You possess the ball longer. You force the DBs off the LOS and provide running room for your RBs. On and On.
Tavon does none of that. He just compensates for, I dunno, maybe 30% of what you're missing in a true WR.
Another NBA analogy. The hoops league always has guys who score on bad teams because, well, someone has to score. Then those guys go to a good team and do very little. They had a gimmick that worked in desultory games when the offense had few other options, but the gimmick is unnecessary and inadequate on an offense trying to execute under serious competitive pressure.
That's Tavon. And as long as our FO sees him as a major key to building the future, I have great concern for our team's future.
