All this about Witten really doesn’t have anything to do with what I had been saying, which had nothing to do with whether Witten was still a top TE or whether he still should have been getting as many snaps as he was. If asked, my answer would be no to both things, but that’s I rrelevant to what I had been talking about.
I understand your point that the TEs didn’t score enough this year, but my point was that if you are going to call them proven losers for not having top years as rookies or first year starters, then you would have had to have called some of the best TEs in history proven losers after they were rookies or first year starters. History shows you can’t fairly make that kind of judgement with a rookie or first time starter
Swaim has been w the team for 2-3 years and they handed him an everydown role as if he earned that spot. He didn't put up any kind of numbers that resembled a good NFL te and the eye tests say hes a backup at best.
I get that Jarwin and Schultz are newbies and I know it takes time to acclimate to the NFL but there is just not a good excuse for not having a better te core in place.
I didn't like Hanna or Escobar either. We watched those guys play for 3-4 years and we heard the same lame duck excuses on why Tony and Dak couldn't get them the ball consistently .
I think they caught 5 balls in 4 years.
And Hanna played as a starter for 2+ years
The Te core has been trash for 5+ years but instead of a little substitution for better rbs and slot wrs we continue to send out these pathetic tes that are not worthy of any passing snaps
Until which time we start getting some black n white production there's no reason to use all these 11&12 personnel groups on critical passing downs .
Jarwins has muffed an offsides kick and been responsible for at least 3 interceptions Schulz isn't consistent and Rico is non existent.
If a te is playing every passing snap w no substitution then he better be getting 40 yards per game and a TD every 3 games and moving the chains effectively.
None of these tes are doing anything similar so until which time they do start succeeding then the answer is not to play them every snap
We've wasted thousands of snapcounts on non producing tes like Hanna Escobar Witten, Gathers Schulz and Jarwin so at some point you have to change the scheme.
We've had a shot to sign Good tes like graham etc but we never do. And our te drafts haven't planned out in 10 years so it's a tad frustrating
Until which time there's black n white production Everything these tes do as receivers is nothing but hype imo
If he caught 2 passes for 12 yards in a game and got 1 first down but no scores against the worst defenders playing every snap then he's not worthy of a bunch of passing snaps
If he's not making critical plays on critical passing downs and is just catching gimme passes and not beating his man consistently that's a pretty good indication that he's not going to amount to much