Wow. You guys are still at it.. lol, looks like TE is as much or more controversial than the Safety position.
Welp, nothing I say is going to change anyone else’s mind I’m sure, but I will add my perspective.
Geoff Swaim became the de facto leader of the bunch last year after the surprise retirements of both Hanna and Witten. He was the veteran and received the early season snaps, before going down with yet another injury. The coaches obviously trusted him to carry out his assignments more than Jarwin, Shultz, and (cough) Rico, exp the blocking assignments. Swaim is what he is at this point.. a career backup TE. He’s a Jag now, kinda fitting.
Jarwin essentially was a rookie since he was on the practice squad a year before. That made Shultz and Jarwin behind the eightball to start the season as both were playing their first season. When Swaim went down and the coaches actually started playing the young guys.. they were productive and flashed real ability. Nate Newton is always preaching that the young guys have got to get on the field to learn the nuances of the game and I couldn’t agree more.
Whether folks realize it or not, there are only a handful of elite TEs in the league. As a matter of fact, only three TEs went over 1k yards last year.. Kelce, Ertz, and Kittle. And all three are basically the focal point of the offense. After them, it’s a significant drop in production.
http://www.nfl.com/stats/categoryst...Category=TIGHT_END&season=2018&seasonType=REG
The fact is, the TE position typically takes time to develop. Just go look at the first couple seasons of the aforementioned above. All the angsts about not drafting a TE when we don’t even know what Jarwin or Shultz can be is lunacy, exp since our young TEs barely played the first half of the season. After Swaim went down, Jarwin actually was able get on the field and build chemistry with Dak.. and it really showed the last game of the season when Jarwin scored 3TDs against the Giants. Likewise, I believe an offseason will help Schultz tremendously to be more prepared year 2. We might just have what some are whining ab on the roster already. (It’s funny, I remember saying the same thing ab DeMarcus Lawrence a few years back when folks were crying for a ‘War Daddy’)
Take a look at the snaps per game allotment in the link below, it shows Jarwin was very productive and didn’t miss much when he was giving the chance.
https://subscribers.footballguys.com/teams/teampage-dal-6.php
http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/gamelog/_/id/2991767/blake-jarwin
Jarwin finished the season with a encouraging stat line based on the amount of snaps received:
27 catches- 307yd- 11.4 avg- 3tds
Thank god we didn’t have fans wanting to cut the goat
Witten after his first full season stat line.
35 catches- 347yd- 9.9 avg- 1tds