TheDude
McLovin
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I'm sure I will get a quiver full of arrows for this assessment, but I have thought for a long time that the offense (/ Romo) is WAY,WAY too reliant on Witten. This is not to say that Jason Witten is not a good TE or that all of this is his fault (directly or indirectly).
So let me preface the good things that Witten does. When he catches passes moving toward the opponents Goaline or even at a 45 degree angle, he is as good as it gets at moving the chains. His knack for finding openings in zones and selling routes is impeccable. He has great hands, uses his body to "box out defenders", and never fumbles.
However, he is not an explosive athelete or even remotely agile using the eyeball test. Curl routes and 2 yard stop and turn with shoulders pointed toward the Dallas endzone are what defenses salivate to see. Yet that is all too frequent the check down option.
I am a stat / finance grad, work in assessing risks for investments, I love some good stats, but to me football is way to complicated for definitive stats because it relies on so many moving parts of a system and the sample/game size is small. It doesn't lend itself to baseball Batting avg, OBS, ERA, etc. Sure I can buy that being efficient in passing and stopping the pass has a high correlation with winning, just I have postulated that scoring >13 pts in the first half strongly boosts your winning %.
That said, the NFL seems to be morphing into a faster more dynamic game. While it is great to see a Cowboy on amongst all-time leaders in receptions, I have felt that because the lack of a big play threat, all of the targets Witten receives has led to some memorable plays but at the cost of too many 3rd and 4 and a 2 yard reception.
While I am looking at some other data, I thought I would post the following as an overview. I looked back to 2008-12 at the the top 20 TEs in receiving yards. That figure was a quick 2 minute pull from ESPN and captures the top TEs in those years. What it shows is that Witten is not that effective in what I think TEs should be used for when looking at a per reception or per target basis - 1st downs or TDs.
If there is a good way to share a spreadsheet, I would be willing to add the link for those wanting to see the other player data. I am not saying this is an exhaustive analysis and Im not ruling out all confirmation bias, but the typical measure of these Stat leaders are - Rec, yards, TD. I think you have to normalize some data (i.e. if you throw to one receiver 100% of the time - they may lead in yards, REc and TDs, but at what cost?)
In 2012, 1st Dn/Rec percentage of 51% compares to Gronkowski's 82%, Gonzalez's 70%, Graham's 69%. I would like to get this for 3rd down's but haven't got all the data yet. Dez 1stDown/Rec was 59% and Miles Austin was 73%.
Additionally, 110 Receptions is simply too much and points to a very conservative and predictable offense as Witten does not pose the same big play threat of Gronk, Graham, Gonzales (less now), or Finley.
If I were defensive coordinator, all I would do is defend the seam route or somehow give Witten the route perpendicular to the sideline. Romo will throw it that way.
Anyway, I hope to find some more interesting data. The list from this analysis had a few surprises. Again, Witten is a great TE, but to me he needs to be utilized less often to keep defenses honest by knowing there isn't a high chance of Witten on 3rd down.
So let me preface the good things that Witten does. When he catches passes moving toward the opponents Goaline or even at a 45 degree angle, he is as good as it gets at moving the chains. His knack for finding openings in zones and selling routes is impeccable. He has great hands, uses his body to "box out defenders", and never fumbles.
However, he is not an explosive athelete or even remotely agile using the eyeball test. Curl routes and 2 yard stop and turn with shoulders pointed toward the Dallas endzone are what defenses salivate to see. Yet that is all too frequent the check down option.
I am a stat / finance grad, work in assessing risks for investments, I love some good stats, but to me football is way to complicated for definitive stats because it relies on so many moving parts of a system and the sample/game size is small. It doesn't lend itself to baseball Batting avg, OBS, ERA, etc. Sure I can buy that being efficient in passing and stopping the pass has a high correlation with winning, just I have postulated that scoring >13 pts in the first half strongly boosts your winning %.
That said, the NFL seems to be morphing into a faster more dynamic game. While it is great to see a Cowboy on amongst all-time leaders in receptions, I have felt that because the lack of a big play threat, all of the targets Witten receives has led to some memorable plays but at the cost of too many 3rd and 4 and a 2 yard reception.
While I am looking at some other data, I thought I would post the following as an overview. I looked back to 2008-12 at the the top 20 TEs in receiving yards. That figure was a quick 2 minute pull from ESPN and captures the top TEs in those years. What it shows is that Witten is not that effective in what I think TEs should be used for when looking at a per reception or per target basis - 1st downs or TDs.
If there is a good way to share a spreadsheet, I would be willing to add the link for those wanting to see the other player data. I am not saying this is an exhaustive analysis and Im not ruling out all confirmation bias, but the typical measure of these Stat leaders are - Rec, yards, TD. I think you have to normalize some data (i.e. if you throw to one receiver 100% of the time - they may lead in yards, REc and TDs, but at what cost?)
In 2012, 1st Dn/Rec percentage of 51% compares to Gronkowski's 82%, Gonzalez's 70%, Graham's 69%. I would like to get this for 3rd down's but haven't got all the data yet. Dez 1stDown/Rec was 59% and Miles Austin was 73%.
Additionally, 110 Receptions is simply too much and points to a very conservative and predictable offense as Witten does not pose the same big play threat of Gronk, Graham, Gonzales (less now), or Finley.
If I were defensive coordinator, all I would do is defend the seam route or somehow give Witten the route perpendicular to the sideline. Romo will throw it that way.
Anyway, I hope to find some more interesting data. The list from this analysis had a few surprises. Again, Witten is a great TE, but to me he needs to be utilized less often to keep defenses honest by knowing there isn't a high chance of Witten on 3rd down.
