Ammunition for those wanting WR upgrades... Official Dropped Pass Yardage

[KB_fan]

I've been a bit on the fence about whether to prioritize WR upgrades in the offseason, but this tweet from PFF today quantifies just how bad the damage was in terms of dropped pass yardage by our receivers this past season:

Pro Football Focus ‎@PFF

Panthers QB Cam Newton lost 457 yards to dropped passes, more than any other QB in the league

2:55 AM - 1 Mar 2016

 

Not a huge surprise, and we still won more games than any other team in the league this past year and scored the most points.  But still sobering.  That's a bit above 1 1/2 typical games worth of passing yards for our offense...

 

It would be interesting to see the rankings and details by team.

 

[JawnyBlaze]

Lost 457 yards and, more importantly, one Super Bowl :(

[KillerKat]

This is why I say having KB back is not enough. All of our WRs have drop issues. Even KB himself.

[d-dave]

That is scary...457 yards...

Now the question is where do they come from?  FA?  Draft?  Who goes?

KB, Funchess, Ginn are all locks.  I feel like Philly Brown is pretty close to a lock, I mean he's a 4!  Then who else do we go and get who'd want to fight from the 5th WR position?

Or do we just hope that KB and Funchess have addressed their catching issues?  KB out of a desire to comeback and Funchess because the game has slowed down?

[0115]

b-b-b-b-b-b--b-bb-uut

[KB_fan]

9 minutes ago, d-dave said:

Or do we just hope that KB and Funchess have addressed their catching issues?  KB out of a desire to comeback and Funchess because the game has slowed down?

I'm certainly no expert on WR catch mechanics.  KB looked amazing and wasn't dropping much of anything during the preseason if I recall correctly.  Funchess' drops declined sharply through the season as well, so I'm not too concerned about either of these guys having major long-term drop issues.  They're both so young still, think there's still improvement ahead.  Ginn though, we probably still have to expect drops   He is what he is.  We have to take the bad (drops) with the good (game changing speed)...

There isn't any particular WR in the draft or FA who really interests me at the moment.  But maybe adding a 2nd great pass-catching TE like Hunter Henry could be an option if he's still there in round 2?  I'm doubtful he'd fall that far, but if he did....

[JawnyBlaze]

If Hunter falls to the top of the second, I'd hope Gettleman puts together a trade like he did for Funchess to go up and get him. I'm much more interested in Hunter than I was Funchess. Around pick 10 of the 2nd is where I say we gotta get serious about trading up. 

[SCMunnerlyn1]

One thing that can help is just throwing a more catchable ball at times. Some times those rockets are unnecessary particularly to the running backs whom dropped several as I recall. 

[Ricky Spanish]

4 minutes ago, SCMunnerlyn1 said:

One thing that can help is just throwing a more catchable ball at times. Some times those rockets are unnecessary particularly to the running backs whom dropped several as I recall. 

Yes, these uncatchable "rockets":

 

 

[d-dave]

@Cracka McNasty In all fairness, Ginn still caught 10 TDs, and he made some crazy plays with his hands.  It's maddening how good he could be.  Also, he could have had like a 15 TD season had he caught all of those...  But with a guy like Ginn, you take the good with the bad.

[Daeavorn]

We cant really be mad at Ten Ginn for dropping passes guys. Hes been doing this his entire career. What we can do is expect better from all of the other WRs on our team. KB and Funch need to show improvement in that area, and I have faith that they will. Funch will at least come down from 20% dropped.

Also considering that we have Stephen Hill on the practice squad, with cotchery's contract voided we dont really have a sure-handed guy outside of Bersin and im not sure if he stays on the team next year.

[Ricky Spanish]

2 minutes ago, d-dave said:

@Cracka McNasty In all fairness, Ginn still caught 10 TDs, and he made some crazy plays with his hands.  It's maddening how good he could be.  Also, he could have had like a 15 TD season had he caught all of those...  But with a guy like Ginn, you take the good with the bad.

Oh I know, but that's like half of the yardage on dropped balls right there alone, and none of those were rocket balls by any means. 

[Mvp2014]

We could really use a burner that CAN catch.  TY Hilton would be amazing beside KB and Funch

[d-dave]

1 minute ago, Cracka McNasty said:

Oh I know, but that's like half of the yardage on dropped balls right there alone, and none of those were rocket balls by any means. 

I know, that's the killer thing with Ginn.  Like he made a couple short catches that were extremely difficult hands catches that made me go, WOW!  Then those balls hit his hands and hit the ground...Killer!