Depth as an Issue

[charlie813brown]

It wouldn't work. The NFL passing game works on timing, open lanes and mismatches. A simple Cover 2 defense with the 2 Safeties up near the LBs would clog the lanes and prevent this offense from going anywhere. Also, they get stats from their real life offenses that open up the center and allow them to roam. IF all three of them were on the field, they wouldn't even put out 1/2 their production. (maybe Davis makes that mark, maybe). TEs need WRs!! It's a fact, otherwise some team would already have tried this offensive set-up long ago. Even two years ago, when New England had Hernandez, Crumpler, and Gronk, they didn't run 3 TE sets because they knew it wouldn't work!

[Onyxgem]

It wouldn't work. The NFL passing game works on timing, open lanes and mismatches. A simple Cover 2 defense with the 2 Safeties up near the LBs would clog the lanes and prevent this offense from going anywhere. Also, they get stats from their real life offenses that open up the center and allow them to roam. IF all three of them were on the field, they wouldn't even put out 1/2 their production. (maybe Davis makes that mark, maybe). TEs need WRs!! It's a fact, otherwise some team would already have tried this offensive set-up long ago. Even two years ago, when New England had Hernandez, Crumpler, and Gronk, they didn't run 3 TE sets because they knew it wouldn't work!

I disagree with everything you just said.....3 TE would wokr and would work well imho.

[Jared A]

I agree with onyx here. There's a difference between the normal TE, and players like Tony Gonzalez and Vernon Davis. They CAN stretch the field. You can actually split them out wide and a corner can't defend them 1 on 1.

[Ben C.]

I agree with onyx here. There's a difference between the normal TE, and players like Tony Gonzalez and Vernon Davis. They CAN stretch the field. You can actually split them out wide and a corner can't defend them 1 on 1.

Case in point is Jermichael Finley. The Packers line him up wide more often than not. And he definitely stretches the field.

[sportznut]

This isn't the days of slow, plodding, block first TEs. Sure, some of those guys still exist, but TEs are a bigger part of the offense these days mainly b/c of their freakish athleticism. They are often overgrown WRs too fast for LBs, and too big for CBs/safeties to cover. There's a reason why most of the top teams in the league now covet playmaking, stretch the field types of TEs.

Again, its unconventional to be sure, but to say it wouldn't work really is short sighted and living in the past. Its not 3 yards and a cloud of dust anymore either, and with the way the rules are about contact at the line of scrimmage or downfield, many of these TEs are extremely difficult to defend.

[Goodell]

Looking at it more tonight, there are some things I'd recommend changing.

To clarify for some newer to the league following along, though, no one can enter any specific formations. It's just a grade for general receiver quality on the squad including backups. Nobody can say how many TEs or WRs they want on the field at one time or in different situations. It doesn't really work that way. But we can examine and adjust if needed the way the receiver area grade is calcualted for teams. There is a change with it I think should be made there after looking at it further, as I was off in my initial statement of how I thought that was (or perhaps should be) calculated.

If we look at the other area grades, they do what I mention with an emphasis on the quality of depth.

DEFENSIVE FRONT 7: 2 DE, DT/NT, 3 LB, DT/LB (3-4 or 4-3) + DL/LB Backup
SECONDARY: 4 CB/S Starters + Backup
OFFENSIVE LINE: 5 Starters + Backup + FB/TE if help grade

Receivers does not, though.
RECEIVER STRENGTH: Top 3 Receivers + Backup

In a league where there are a lot of quality TEs (we even created a position for them of TEWR) as well as pass-happy offenses where if your QB isn't getting 4000 yards they are looking to replace him, just looking at those few number of receivers amongst both WRs and TEs doesn't really do that grade justice when compared to the other area grades that seem to capture quality depth better. We look at more DBs for team grade than WR+TEs combined and that doesn't really make sense. There are a couple of places, perhaps like that, where the NFL wasn't as pass-happy when we first started 5 years ago and we might need to adjust to keep up with the new passing realities.

We are now pulling in extra skill position players this year (per a previous poll) with more WRs getting involved in our sim results since all player stats for all games are now uploaded.

I mentioned earlier that if it didn't already would make sense to me to have your starting two WRs be part of any team receiver strength grade. I would propose this small tweak there to that grade.

RECEIVER STRENGTH: Top 4 Receivers (at least 2 WRs) + Backup

We'd also make more TEs into TEWRs if they received a decent amount of passes last year to increase the number of players who would factor into that increased receiver corp measurement.

That would still allow a TE-packed team to have 3 TEs in their overall receiver strength grade (although one of them would be treated like a backup grade and not counted as highly as the two higher ones) but the grade couldn't only be 3 TEs and one backup WR. It would have to be at least 2 WRs, 2 other receivers (either WR/TE) and a backup (either TE/WR).

That seems reasonable to me.

At the time with support for this compromise expressed where a team couldn't have their entire Receiver grade made out of TEs only but still have 3 TEs within their grade, I updated the language on the depth chart page about a change to the 2 WR + 2 TE/WR + backup but that it wasn't updated yet in the grade calculation. That should be updated now. I also made several TEs now TEWRs (especially if over 75 grade) seeing as pulling in extra receiver into the grades.