Yes he's said Witten is still the best TE on the team. The guys on G bag has criticize Witten speed every since he's retired. But Jason has never been fast. being faster and more athletic does it mean he's better
Honestly I dunno where or why I keep hearing that Witten was never fast,.. I believe his 40 time during his pre-draft workouts was 4.65, ..and that was good for a 245+ pound TE coming out of Tennessee. He wasn't Vernon Davis or Evan Ingram 4.3/4.4 blazing, but hell those guys pure speed was so rare and exceptional. (and i'm still waiting for Ingram to become an pro bowl TE)
Imo, Witten's best trait was his technically sound route running. Probably no TE could hip- head fake, swivel and sell his in-out cuts and breaks better than Witten.
That's why even the better coverage LBs and safeties continued to have issues covering him. But that was well in his prime.
I don't think Witten can consistently beat those caliber coverage guys at this stage of his career. And I don't think he can easily zip through the deep seam middle near as well as he used to in the Romo days. But i do think we will see Witten occasionally find the open spots in zone and busted coverages, beat the adequate LBs/safeties to key 3rd down underneath chain movers,
and occasionally some red zone catches which he still knows how to manuever to make enough space for QBs tosses. The big difference maybe some of the TE sets and designs, as they may diverse it as Blake could be the TE in the 2-set to run and hit the occasional deep seam middle instead of Witten.