No one is dogging him. He needs to produce.

Tre has been in NO 3 years and runs sloppy routes, rarely gets separation and does not fight for the football. He has confidence issues and is inconsistent.

Smith needs to prove he can be that WR3 after Ginn moving on and the front office not drafting another WR.

He's only shown flashes but going into year 3 he needs to show up (1 catch 4 yards vs TB), cut the mental errors and not disappear for weeks at a time. Period.

I find his case confusing. If he isn't producing to the expectation of Payton and Carmichael, then why do they keep running him out there? Last season he played in 16 games and was in 50% or more of the offensive snaps in 15 of those 16 games. He was in for 65% of the snaps Sunday. So if he's sloppy and lazy and lacks confidence, then why is he such a big part of the offense?

SFIAH

So..... to simplify your logic. Having a uniform and getting on the field = to being a BIG part of an offense?

We should have just kept Garrett Hartley with all his misses... in every FG/Kickoff snap. Productivity is irrelevant.

I agree that productivity is relevant. I also agree that if a player is being unproductive, then they wouldn't be on the field.

Smith is on the field for a significant percentage of offensive plays. Why would the offensive brain trust continue to run him out on the field if they didn't think he was doing his job? They watch the tapes every week. They are in practice every day. They have every opportunity to determine that Tre'Quan shouldn't be out there. Yet he is.

One enlightening story to me is Tre's historic TD catch from Brees. It was pointed out that his route isn't normally targeted on that play. The ball simply isn't designed to go there. So, I figure there must be other plays that are like that in the Saints offense, and that even if Smith doesn't get a target, he's doing his job out there.

If Tre is an unproductive bad player, then why is out on the field?

SFIAH

You are trying to rationalize your position rather than recognize that everything you describe about Smith is also true about nearly all the WR in the league. A QB goes through progressions and if Smith was the only guy open that's where the ball went.

A receivers job is to run his route or block, if he is running his route his job is also to get open and catch what is thrown at him. Its simple yet very difficult in a league of professionals. If Smith did that consistently MT wouldn't have the lions share of the catches. No ones job is to put on a uniform and run around the field as some sort of $900k/year decoy receiver.

MT gets open and catches.
TS can catch but cant get open.
Ginn was able to get open because of his speed but couldn't catch for sh1t.

You keep asking why he is on the field.. in short it is because he is serviceable and had a contract but he isn't taking wear and tare off MT which is what he should be doing.

.... When a WR only has 3 more targets and has fewer catches than a backup QB he is not doing his job reliably. Getting open and catching the ball.

Let me put it a different way. Every time Drew has to throw a pass away, none of our receivers did their jobs. If they all did their jobs every play we wouldn't need a running game.

You have to consider that there is a progression to a play, as you yourself pointed out. There is a first, second, third, etc. option built into a play. Brees will throw the ball to the first open receiver in that progression. I would expect that Thomas would usually be the first option. If he is open, which he almost always is, then the ball will come his way. The other options could be open, as well, yet never see the ball. There are, of course, plays designed for others to be the primary option. If they are successful that's when they see the ball on a team with Thomas as the usual first option.

Smith could be open 90% of the time and only see the ball three times a game if Sanders, Cook, Kamara, etc. are earlier options in the designed play.

A QB seldom looks for the "most open" receiver unless it is a totally blown coverage.

With Thomas out some of these other usually open receivers are going to have their numbers rise substantially.