Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think?

SaintGnome · 01-16-2018, 07:52 PM

OK, I get it, everybody would like a TE with gaudy Jimmy Graham (with NO) stats, but is that either necessary or required for a healthy offense?
Over all it seems to be consensus that we need an upgrade at TE, apparently this years group hasn't shined enough to make most of the posters here happy.
I'm going by eyeball, so please you film study guys, and or super stats guys if you can set me straight please do.
First off, and this is hard to quantify, but from my naked eye I saw a ton of RB's huge runs and WR's RAC directly impacted by all of our TE's downfield blocking.
People keep harping on our third down percentage which by whatever BS stat method you apply to means our TE's suck , but how many times has our TE's been targeted and not caught the ball. Again, not stat guy but I haven't seen a lot of TE drops. Quite the opposite I've seen a ton of good catches by our TE's. I get Coleman had butter fingers (after catch) the last five or six catches, but over all our TE's (especially Hill, and our Hawaiian TE) have done damn well, and so I hope we don't spend much on a TE.
As I said on a previous post : if you don't throw a pass to one of our TE's, don't complain about our TE's receiving.

The Dude · 01-16-2018, 08:04 PM

I don’t think they are bad, I thing blocking as a whole has been great. It’s just the lack of the receiving threat. Maybe that was by plan. Payton did vow to run the ball more. Maybe he wanted to utilize other threats and comfortable with our guys blocking ability

WhoDat!656 · 01-16-2018, 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by The Dude

I don’t think they are bad, I thing blocking as a whole has been great. It’s just the lack of the receiving threat. Maybe that was by plan. Payton did vow to run the ball more. Maybe he wanted to utilize other threats and comfortable with our guys blocking ability

Why wouldn't SP want TEs that could block AND catch?

I guarantee you that if Graham blocked like Shockey or any of the other great TEs that he never would have traded him!

The Dude · 01-17-2018, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by WhoDat!656

Why wouldn't SP want TEs that could block AND catch?

I guarantee you that if Graham blocked like Shockey or any of the other great TEs that he never would have traded him!

I’m sure he does, I’m just thinking he thought we were good enough there and wanted to spend resources on other areas he thought were of greater concern.
Remember Fleener looked really good in preseason. Unfortunately didn’t carry into regular season

saintfan · 01-16-2018, 10:02 PM

Yes. Not horrible. Not great. We really need a play maker at that position.

Beastmode · 01-16-2018, 10:07 PM

Very difficult to find a good TE. They are all about the same, only like 3-4 in the whole NFL that create real problems. Hill is alright. Probably better than most of them and will likely be better next year. It takes a while for most of them to develop anyway. Ertz and Kelce are great but that did not happen over night.

saintfan · 01-17-2018, 08:59 AM

Originally Posted by Beastmode

Very difficult to find a good TE. They are all about the same, only like 3-4 in the whole NFL that create real problems. Hill is alright. Probably better than most of them and will likely be better next year. It takes a while for most of them to develop anyway. Ertz and Kelce are great but that did not happen over night.

I'm always (almost) pulling for the underdog. With that in mind, I like Hill. He's not a bad player. But he's not a play maker either, unfortunately. Love him on the roster, but would really like to see us upgrade TE. I'd even warm up to bringing Jimmy back at the right price, but I know that's not very likely anyway.

hitta · 01-17-2018, 05:14 AM

We need a TE. I see it very hard to rationalize it otherwise. Hill has been ok as a quick fix, but we need to upgrade the position. It is one of the prime reasons our third down conversion rate is so bad.

jeanpierre · 01-17-2018, 06:31 AM

Short memories 'round here...

We throw to that playmaker at TE and we're 7-9, 7-9, 7-9...

We start running the ball, putting that money into the lines, we make a strong showing in the tournament...

We ran out of horses on the offensive line (Mr. Glass aka Armstead can't seem to play an entire season)...

We ran out of horses on the defensive line (Rookie Hendrickson never had chance to get healthy and then Okafor)...

We ran out of horses at linebacker (We finished with our No. 5 and 6 LBer with a FA signed off street 6 weeks ago)...

Finish fixing the offensive line and the front seven on defense, replace Vaccaro if necessary, then worry about TE...

hitta · 01-17-2018, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by jeanpierre

Short memories 'round here...

We throw to that playmaker at TE and we're 7-9, 7-9, 7-9...

We start running the ball, putting that money into the lines, we make a strong showing in the tournament...

We ran out of horses on the offensive line (Mr. Glass aka Armstead can't seem to play an entire season)...

We ran out of horses on the defensive line (Rookie Hendrickson never had chance to get healthy and then Okafor)...

We ran out of horses at linebacker (We finished with our No. 5 and 6 LBer with a FA signed off street 6 weeks ago)...

Finish fixing the offensive line and the front seven on defense, replace Vaccaro if necessary, then worry about TE...

Those 7-9 teams weren't complete teams, so we threw to the TE all the time to compensate for bad play in other places. I agree we want to keep running the ball... we also want to be able to throw the ball as well(especially on third and longs and in goal-line situations). We sucked on third down this year, and it wasn't some random event that occurred. Adding a TE would help quite a bit to alleviate some of the concerns. We add a TE and we'll go from being in the mid 30% range to in the 40%s. We do that and we'll be a force to be reckoned with.

01-16-2018, 07:52 PM	#1
SaintGnome 500th Post Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: Bradenton,FL Posts: 642	Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? OK, I get it, everybody would like a TE with gaudy Jimmy Graham (with NO) stats, but is that either necessary or required for a healthy offense? Over all it seems to be consensus that we need an upgrade at TE, apparently this years group hasn't shined enough to make most of the posters here happy. I'm going by eyeball, so please you film study guys, and or super stats guys if you can set me straight please do. First off, and this is hard to quantify, but from my naked eye I saw a ton of RB's huge runs and WR's RAC directly impacted by all of our TE's downfield blocking. People keep harping on our third down percentage which by whatever BS stat method you apply to means our TE's suck , but how many times has our TE's been targeted and not caught the ball. Again, not stat guy but I haven't seen a lot of TE drops. Quite the opposite I've seen a ton of good catches by our TE's. I get Coleman had butter fingers (after catch) the last five or six catches, but over all our TE's (especially Hill, and our Hawaiian TE) have done damn well, and so I hope we don't spend much on a TE. As I said on a previous post : if you don't throw a pass to one of our TE's, don't complain about our TE's receiving. hagan714 likes this.

01-16-2018, 08:04 PM	#2
The Dude 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 9,055	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? I don’t think they are bad, I thing blocking as a whole has been great. It’s just the lack of the receiving threat. Maybe that was by plan. Payton did vow to run the ball more. Maybe he wanted to utilize other threats and comfortable with our guys blocking ability
The Dude 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 9,055

01-16-2018, 09:26 PM	#3
WhoDat!656 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Shreveport,Louisiana Posts: 16,085	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Originally Posted by The Dude I don’t think they are bad, I thing blocking as a whole has been great. It’s just the lack of the receiving threat. Maybe that was by plan. Payton did vow to run the ball more. Maybe he wanted to utilize other threats and comfortable with our guys blocking ability Why wouldn't SP want TEs that could block AND catch? I guarantee you that if Graham blocked like Shockey or any of the other great TEs that he never would have traded him! Beastmode likes this.

01-17-2018, 11:35 AM	#4
The Dude 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 9,055	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Originally Posted by WhoDat!656 Why wouldn't SP want TEs that could block AND catch? I guarantee you that if Graham blocked like Shockey or any of the other great TEs that he never would have traded him! I’m sure he does, I’m just thinking he thought we were good enough there and wanted to spend resources on other areas he thought were of greater concern. Remember Fleener looked really good in preseason. Unfortunately didn’t carry into regular season
The Dude 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 9,055

01-16-2018, 10:02 PM	#5
saintfan Donated Plasma Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 18,556 Blog Entries: 5	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Yes. Not horrible. Not great. We really need a play maker at that position. K Major likes this.

01-16-2018, 10:07 PM	#6
Beastmode 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 9,126	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Very difficult to find a good TE. They are all about the same, only like 3-4 in the whole NFL that create real problems. Hill is alright. Probably better than most of them and will likely be better next year. It takes a while for most of them to develop anyway. Ertz and Kelce are great but that did not happen over night.
Beastmode 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 9,126

01-17-2018, 08:59 AM	#7
saintfan Donated Plasma Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 18,556 Blog Entries: 5	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Originally Posted by Beastmode Very difficult to find a good TE. They are all about the same, only like 3-4 in the whole NFL that create real problems. Hill is alright. Probably better than most of them and will likely be better next year. It takes a while for most of them to develop anyway. Ertz and Kelce are great but that did not happen over night. I'm always (almost) pulling for the underdog. With that in mind, I like Hill. He's not a bad player. But he's not a play maker either, unfortunately. Love him on the roster, but would really like to see us upgrade TE. I'd even warm up to bringing Jimmy back at the right price, but I know that's not very likely anyway.

01-17-2018, 05:14 AM	#8
hitta 1000 Posts + Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1,331	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? We need a TE. I see it very hard to rationalize it otherwise. Hill has been ok as a quick fix, but we need to upgrade the position. It is one of the prime reasons our third down conversion rate is so bad.
hitta 1000 Posts + Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1,331

01-17-2018, 06:31 AM	#9
jeanpierre Site Donor 2018 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Thibodaux Posts: 43,543 Blog Entries: 39	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Short memories 'round here... We throw to that playmaker at TE and we're 7-9, 7-9, 7-9... We start running the ball, putting that money into the lines, we make a strong showing in the tournament... We ran out of horses on the offensive line (Mr. Glass aka Armstead can't seem to play an entire season)... We ran out of horses on the defensive line (Rookie Hendrickson never had chance to get healthy and then Okafor)... We ran out of horses at linebacker (We finished with our No. 5 and 6 LBer with a FA signed off street 6 weeks ago)... Finish fixing the offensive line and the front seven on defense, replace Vaccaro if necessary, then worry about TE... Rugby Saint II and frydaddy like this.
	It's not that my way is the right way, I just make the right way my way...

01-17-2018, 09:40 AM	#10
hitta 1000 Posts + Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1,331	Re: Are our tight ends as bad as most seem to think? Originally Posted by jeanpierre Short memories 'round here... We throw to that playmaker at TE and we're 7-9, 7-9, 7-9... We start running the ball, putting that money into the lines, we make a strong showing in the tournament... We ran out of horses on the offensive line (Mr. Glass aka Armstead can't seem to play an entire season)... We ran out of horses on the defensive line (Rookie Hendrickson never had chance to get healthy and then Okafor)... We ran out of horses at linebacker (We finished with our No. 5 and 6 LBer with a FA signed off street 6 weeks ago)... Finish fixing the offensive line and the front seven on defense, replace Vaccaro if necessary, then worry about TE... Those 7-9 teams weren't complete teams, so we threw to the TE all the time to compensate for bad play in other places. I agree we want to keep running the ball... we also want to be able to throw the ball as well(especially on third and longs and in goal-line situations). We sucked on third down this year, and it wasn't some random event that occurred. Adding a TE would help quite a bit to alleviate some of the concerns. We add a TE and we'll go from being in the mid 30% range to in the 40%s. We do that and we'll be a force to be reckoned with. Rugby Saint II and The Dude like this.
hitta 1000 Posts + Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1,331

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