I’m curious on if you’re actually asking a question of if you’re wanting to make a statement?
Some of your responses to people who I thought made good points lead me to believe that you’re looking for a certain answer.
At any rate, I’ll provide my perspective. I believe that both Watkins and TA’s production – or lack thereof depending on your perspective – is what it is due to multiple factors. McVay, Goff, and the player themselves were all influential in the production that resulted. I’ll give my reasoning on each in order.
McVayNot so fast on the Amen. I’m going to challenge your premise right off the bat. McVay is a creative offensive mind but there is more than one type of creativity. The coach who is creative in scheming and play calling is different than the coach who creatively utilizes various skillsets in his offense.
Another way to say it is, there are two types of coaches: the coach who adjusts his scheme to fit the skillsets of his players versus the coach who is more rigid in his scheme and finds skillsets to plug in. Both types can work. Bill Belichek is an example of the latter type. If a player doesn’t fit in NE, they get traded.
Mcvay seems to be a Belichek type. In the offseason he repeatedly talked about the WR skillsets that he needs to make his offense work. And he repeatedly stated the one role he did not have was a deep threat receiver – one who could take the top of a defense. That language tells you that he is not just looking for more great players; he's looking for specific skillsets to plug into his scheme.
That being the case, McVay is not the type of coach that is primarily concerned with "developing and emphasizing the strengths" of an O player. That actually is more along the lines of how Wade talks. Wade discovers a player’s strengths and adjusts his scheme accordingly. That’s why he can seamlessly switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4 and effectively use players like Quinn, Barron, and AD when most people thought they wouldn’t fit his scheme.
As pertains to Watkins and Austin, McVay was only concerned with plugging in their skillsets to maximize the offense. In Watkins’ case, he plugged him into the role of deep threat WR. Watkins has a lot more capability in his skillset but McVay didn’t need that to make the offense work. We saw that this was evident when Woods was out for a few games. Suddenly, Watkins was used more in the short and intermediate patterns.
In TA’s case, McVay essentially labeled him a RB and only used him in that role. Some change of pace RB sweeps and decoy value is all he needed from TA to make the offense work. McVay essentially said as much several times after games. He said that Tavon could do more but he hadn’t done much to work in those other TA capabilities into his offense.
So there was no effort to creatively work in Watkins’ and TA’s full capabilities into the offense. I believe this is partially because both were late additions to his offense. TA was injured all of TC and preseason; Watkins was a late addition via trade. By the time they arrived, McVay had the foundation of his offense in place and humming. You really can’t fault his approach since they were the #1 offense but when it comes to Watkins and TA, this “imaginative offense” concept doesn’t exist.
GoffAs others have pointed out, Goff is a young, developing QB.
As such, he checks down often. Due to the way McVay has set up his scheme (see above), Woods, Kupp, and Gurley are going to be the primary targets on check downs because Watkins is mostly running deep routes. (McVay did seem to change that in the RZ.)
Goff also gets overreliant, IMO, on receivers that he’s developed a comfort level with. I love Kupp and he came through in several big moments. But he had a ton of opportunities because it seems Goff looks for him in critical situations.
Does anyone really believe that Kupp is getting more open than everyone else on crucial 3rd downs? Or that McVay is directing Goff to go to Kupp the most in those situations? The answer here is, Goff has a high comfort level with Kupp that doesn’t exist to the same degree with Watkins. At times this year, he became predictable in who he was going to target. Goff was already pretty comfortable with Woods and Kupp prior to Watkins arriving and it shows.
I think as Goff develops, that tendoncy to become overreliant will go away, making him even more dangerous.
Watkins and AustinSome of the lack of production is on the players themselves.
When Watkins arrived, he said it would take two weeks to learn the offense. The report towards the end of the year that discussed him and Goff not being on the same page suggests that it took a lot longer than two weeks. But again his late addition to the offense is a factor here. He was the only player who had to learn a new offense a few days before the season started.
It’s abundantly clear that Austin is just not that good of a player. I held on for as long as I could in his corner but that time is over.
On the question of whether we should bring those two guys back, my position is strongly on the side of yes for Watkins. I’m 100% certain that we woudn’t be the #1 offense or be 11-5 without Watkins. There is no need to deviate from what is working.
Tavon can go…
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2018 10:29AM by dzrams.
