I still see Witten as an asset blocking and catching. Jarwin is deserving also but Witten commands more respect from the defenses IMO.
Jarwin is getting about 1/2 as many snaps as Witten. so its not like Jarwin is not getting chances to play. everyone focuses on 3 long plays he made and they were good, so let me not diminish those, but his other catches were 7,4,3,7,5, 1, 0, 0
so this notion that Witten is catching only 3 to 4 yard passes and jarwin is catching these deep passes is just plain silly.
this year in 8 games Jarwin has played in about 300 snaps and has only 12 caches for 162 yards about a 13 YPC.... skewed because of this one 42 yard catch in the last game. yes, the catch counts, but prior to giants game his average was about 11 YPC......
so why isn't he getting open more?....again, if you subscribe to conspiracy theories, the coaches are telling dak not to throw it to him and scheming things so Jarwin is not open.....whatever floats your boat
witten has played in about 600 snaps (give or take a few). has 34 catches for 321 a shade under 10 YPC...
very interestingly though he has had his most catches against Giants but least success...he has had 11 catches against giants for 6,4,5,6, 8,8,12, 4,5,5,7
in these other games he has about 23 catches for 251 yards.... about 11 YPC
so for whatever reason, Jarwin seems to be the Giant killer as he has had a 28 yard and 42 yard catch against the Giants .....Witten seems to be the outlet for Dak with short passes and Giants are controlling him.....so if I am Dak, do I take a Sack? throw incomplete? or do I just dump it off for 4,5 yards to Witten who managed to be open?
so Jarwin is getting playing time. enough playing time to show what he has. he just hasn't shown enough.....I refuse to believe that Dak won't look his way or throw his way, given he has targeted him and made throws to him. Jarwin is young, still learning. he is a role player at this point and he is doing decent, not great in his Role...often you take a role player away from where he is, put him in a starting position and they struggle.....
do we need to upgrade TE position? heck yes. we have tried for several years. even before Witten retired....but right now Jarwin is not his replacement and he is not better than him over all.