epheisey wrote:
The way they used him always baffled me. It was either every ball was thrown his way, regardless of coverage, or other options, OR the complete opposite, and they were afraid to throw his way and used him solely as a decoy.
I am only speculating but i believe when we threw the ball into a covered CJ that was mostly Stafford looking for a bail out and CJ is just such a beast. I do believe that schwartz liked using CJ as a decoy as oppose to a workhorse , but also think its a product of 1.) the way they practiced 2.) What defenses where trying to get them to do.
1.) Practice
Schwartz practices consisted of repeating plays until they got them correct. i think when Stafford got to the line of scrimmage it was almost preset who he was going to throw too, and then he went through his progressions, and CJ was the bail out
2.)Defense
According to Riaola, the Lions were very vanilla with their offensive scheme, i think opposing defense would watch game film and know exactly what we were trying to do, and would try to force the lions to throw to CJ in double/triple coverage. i mean scheme wise if you can't get to the QB, you'd want him throwing to a receiver in coverage.
*again just my thoughts
Consistency will also be a huge bonus this year with Tate at WR2 and our options in the slot. No longer will we have to force the ball to Calvin or completely ignore him because he's in double coverage with a safety shading that way too.
I don't think that a legit 2nd option at wr is as big of a deal as everyone thinks, while it does give us another target, its up to stafford to get that ball tohim on time. I think Ebron + adding Tate is more the huge impact. Like i said with Ebron we get the most bang for our buck. We get a Wideout that can stretch the field, additonal blocker, he can play the slot. He's too big for corners and too fast for LB's. You combine that with our OC's crazy offensive mind. *EXPLOSION!
If you haven't read Jeff's breakdown on Matty's throws , you should. Great review. One thing i missed that jeff pointed out, is that on the play where duram caught the TD, we had Duram 6'6", Fauria 6'8"(who was open), then you put CJ on the other side at 6'5", and you'd still have Ebron at 6'4" and Pettigrew 6'4". the packages and mismatches we could create are ridiculous