GRITS, I have never said that Tavon never delivered. He did. And you are precisely correct: there have been years when he was the team's only real positive.
I suspect that's a big reason why many fans have a hard time hearing him criticized. He was all we had, and dismissals of that one shining light--however thin--seem to hurt.
What I always say is not intended to deny what we are agreed on. I offer instead 2 related points:
- His slender gift was not enough to do any more than a brief flash now and then.
- He offered a misleading, inadequate, and distracting road to team development.
We have seen the guy play for, what, 4 years now? He has NEVER shown the sort of ability a team can build on. We long had an annual wringing of hands--when will they learn how to use him? But there has never been any evidence that there was some mysterious package that would turn him loose. I think the record shows that we used him the right way to get maximum value from his gifts.
And the big problem is that that way was always gimmicky. Jet sweeps with a tiny, fairly quick player can light things up once in a while, but they lead a team down a tactical road AWAY FROM what actually works in the NFL.
Think of last year. We had a problem running our talented TB. Instead of focusing on solving that problem, we settled for some jet gimmicks that could compensate a bit for the failure to turn Gurley loose. The results WERE productive ... on a small scale. Better than what we saw otherwise. But not enough to add up to a genuine NFL offense.
I believe that drafting Tavon led Fisher's regime down a false road. They spent YEARS trying to cash in on a dream of a gimmick that could be substantive enough to build on.
At the same time, they made desultory efforts to strengthen the WR corps. They brought in a number of decent to very good RBs and went through a long run of OL. You'd think that Fisher would let nothing stop his quest for a dominant running game. Yet, when the actual RBs ran into a wall, he kept trying to substitute Tavon gimmicks for genuine running competence.
To me, the PROBLEM with Tavon is PRECISELY the fact that he was occasionally productive on a really bad offense. Trying to enhance his intermittent splash plays distracted the commitment to offensive excellence. And those teasing flashes of brilliance led to a contract that Tavon would never be able to justify.
I have no animus toward Tavon. He's a tough guy who plays hard and makes plays when he can. A team with a strong coach and a deep offensive roster could conceivably get a lot of value from him on an occasional basis. I think Bellichek could do a lot with him.
But Bellichek would NOT build his offense on Tavon or allow himself to be distracted from the necessity of building a sound downfield passing game. He'd do that FIRST! And if he had the general offensive competence and roster resources, well, he might make occasional use of a gadget with limited value.
Our problem was that we tried to build an offense on a gadget guy. Tavon did what he could to justify that approach. But it wasn't enough and it distracted us from the business of building an NFL offense.
I do not believe for 1 second that McVay will make the same mistake. He will develop the grown-up offense and not get distracted by Tavon's fools gold.
All my opinion, of course.
