Steve Smith and Cameron Wolfe discuss Bryce and the Receiving Corps

[Soul Rebel]

6 hours ago, shaqattaq said:

Because Smitty told him to sit down and STFU, the grown ups were talking, lol.

Real talk....who is the "other guy". I know he's Smity co-host, but I've never seen him say anything worth a $hit. He always seems in over his head. Does he have a history or past that merited being paired up with Smitty.....I'm not seeing it.

I do like this piece though. Great insight from 2/3 of the podcast.

[jfra78]

1 minute ago, Soul Rebel said:

Real talk....who is the "other guy". I know he's Smity co-host, but I've never seen him say anything worth a $hit. He always seems in over his head. Does he have a history or past that merited being paired up with Smitty.....I'm not seeing it.

I do like this piece though. Great insight from 2/3 of the podcast.

I think he is there for a fantasy point of view, I've heard Smith ask him a few times about fantasy stuff

[stratocatter]

Kelsey was the guy no one had an answer for in the playoffs. They couldn’t defend him. 

[TheSpecialJuan]

6 hours ago, jfra78 said:

The best part was that the third guy didn't say much

brutal 

[panthers55]

3 hours ago, CarolinaRideorDie said:

You're pointing out individual games that a receiver was shutdown, look at their season in it's entirety where they put up numbers and contributed to their team. Stud receivers are "game changers," they may not dominate every single game of the entire season but they make you game plan for them. No one on the Panthers WR needs to be game planned for, this makes it easier to shut down our offense. 

I don't agree that one great player and several JAGs are necessarily better than 3 or 4 good guys in a game. That was the original premise.  Of course I pointed out specific games to point out players can be shut out. Obviously they aren't going to shut out all the time or they wouldn't be considered a great player. And given that we haven't played any games with this team yet it might be a little soon to say that no receiver has to game planned against. Let's see the offense first.

Edited July 11, 2023 by panthers55

[panthers55]

1 hour ago, CRA said:

if they could easily be shut down.....Devante Adams wouldn't sleepwalk to 1300+ yards and double digit TDs every year.   Justin Jefferson wouldn't be flirting w/ 2k last year after a historic start to his career.  

I mean, we went to the NFCCG in 2005 with 89 catching 103 balls and being a one man show.   2nd leading WR had 25 catches.   Seattle finally stopped him.   Which took an all time historically great defense focusing all their attention on him in order to stop. 

I mean, we got what we got this year.  But no GM/coach wants a cast of average joes at WR thinking it is some way to game the system and be more productive because no one knows where the ball will go. 

 

During the regular season it is often hard to key on particular players as you don't have the time and often the personnel to match up if injuries occur.  You think Evans goes nuts on us if our secondary was healthy.

And yeah in big games with time to prepare you can shut down any player even 89.

And of course if you can afford great receivers you get them. But teams absolutely choose to avoid high priced guys and instead play WR by committee. The whole money ball thing was about replacing production instead of a player. So is Adam's worth more as a single player than 3 guys who all average 500 yards and collectively score the same numbers of TDs at a cheaper price?  I would say at 31 years old, Adam's is beyond the age when most decline and live with injuries. If he gets hurt he takes most of the receiving talent with him whereas  a good receiver getting hurt doesn't screw you up. 

And lastly does the player make the system great or does the system make the player great? I tend toward the latter so no I think 3 good guys in a good system is more valuable than a great player who is most of what the team has for weapons.

Edited July 11, 2023 by panthers55

[CLG]

I like that Steve likes Mingo. 

[rayzor]

8 hours ago, CarolinaRideorDie said:

I think the biggest question mark about our WR room is that we don't have an alpha to take over games. Sure maybe we can spread the ball around but you need a clutch receiver to make the big plays when it matters most too. Allen without Diggs is nothing, Kirk without Jefferson is nothing, Mahomes without Kelce is above average. Even Rodgers without WRs is mediocre this past year and Rodgers is a HOF QB. 

If you've got a clutch intelligent playmaker QB, he turns the WRs into big play WRs. It's all about opportunity and a QB like Bryce sees and takes advantage of opportunities in clutch situations.

[CRA]

3 hours ago, panthers55 said:

During the regular season it is often hard to key on particular players as you don't have the time and often the personnel to match up if injuries occur.  You think Evans goes nuts on us if our secondary was healthy.

And yeah in big games with time to prepare you can shut down any player even 89.

And of course if you can afford great receivers you get them. But teams absolutely choose to avoid high priced guys and instead play WR by committee. The whole money ball thing was about replacing production instead of a player. So is Adam's worth more as a single player than 3 guys who all average 500 yards and collectively score the same numbers of TDs at a cheaper price?  I would say at 31 years old, Adam's is beyond the age when most decline and live with injuries. If he gets hurt he takes most of the receiving talent with him whereas  a good receiver getting hurt doesn't screw you up. 

And lastly does the player make the system great or does the system make the player great? I tend toward the latter so no I think 3 good guys in a good system is more valuable than a great player who is most of what the team has for weapons.

89 one man showed the entire 2005 season.  People were most definitely game planning to stop that and couldn’t.  It was probably one of the most exaggerated one man shows in modern history. 

same thing happened in the post season.  Dominated the Giants first round.  Completely embarrassed the Bears in probably his most dominant game of the season.    But stopping him was suddenly easy in the playoffs vs regular season… 

….because an all time historical defense doubling and triple teaming him in the 3rd playoff game finally pulled it off?? Not many all time historical defenses around to lock freaks down week to week.  Regular or post season. 

give me a prime 89 all day every day…..over 3 average/decent WRs.   

I think Justin Jefferson is a dominant freak that people can’t stop despite knowing it’s going to him.   Not the system. 

[panthers55]

2 hours ago, CRA said:

89 one man showed the entire 2005 season.  People were most definitely game planning to stop that and couldn’t.  It was probably one of the most exaggerated one man shows in modern history. 

same thing happened in the post season.  Dominated the Giants first round.  Completely embarrassed the Bears in probably his most dominant game of the season.    But stopping him was suddenly easy in the playoffs vs regular season… 

….because an all time historical defense doubling and triple teaming him in the 3rd playoff game finally pulled it off?? Not many all time historical defenses around to lock freaks down week to week.  Regular or post season. 

give me a prime 89 all day every day…..over 3 average/decent WRs.   

I think Justin Jefferson is a dominant freak that people can’t stop despite knowing it’s going to him.   Not the system. 

No one said they wouldn't want an all pro over a good player or two. The point was there are many ways to win and having receivers by committee is one way teams spread the ball around and become less predictable. It doesn't mean you dont want prime Smitty on your team who pound for pound may have been one of the toughest guys I'm the league. 2005 was the triple crown for him.

[WhoKnows]

11 hours ago, panthers55 said:

Actually there are several strategies to shut down a great offense with stud receivers and good defenses know these. How many yards did Kelsey get in their superbowl loss to Tampa in Superbowl 55 ( 31-9).  Yeah Kelsey had 10 catches for 133 yards which is great right. But no TDs and only a few first downs and Hill had 73 yards. So they shut them both down from scoring which is the point. If your offense puts up 400 yards but only a few points you are going to lose. Belichick will often target the number 2 receiver with their best corner and double your number 1 guy. The point is that Football is a team game and the goal is to shop the opposition from scoring. But he isn't the only coach who uses the strategy of targeting the defense to shut down players.

Many coaches will let one receiver get his catches and then shut other folks down knowing that one player can't carry the offense and the goal is scoring points not counting yards or catches. 

How about in 2005 when Smitty reeked havoc on teams and Seattle often triple teamed him because we had no other stud receivers and no running game. 

You can shut down any player you want as long as other guys don't step up. 

If you are going to use individual games as an example, you might want to remember the actual game. Do you recall that KC’s OL was pretty much all backups? They didn’t score because Tampa’s DL was going through backup OL like a hot knife through butter. There’s a reason why KC drafted Smith and Humphrey and traded for Brown to rebuild their OL in 2021.

As I already posted, Belichick averaged having 1 or 2 pro-bowl DBs every year he’s been coaching. Of course top Ds with a top coach have a better shot at shutting down top guys, but it’s not that easy to shut down elite guys. Having Revis, Gilmore or Talib helps too.

[WhoKnows]

7 hours ago, panthers55 said:

I don't agree that one great player and several JAGs are necessarily better than 3 or 4 good guys in a game. That was the original premise.  Of course I pointed out specific games to point out players can be shut out. Obviously they aren't going to shut out all the time or they wouldn't be considered a great player. And given that we haven't played any games with this team yet it might be a little soon to say that no receiver has to game planned against. Let's see the offense first.

Sorry, but you can’t just say 1 elite guy and 2 JAGs (let’s be honest only top 3 WRs have a real impact) are worse than 3 good guys as if the elite guys has to have shitty guys. If you look at our WRs, we have the 50th, 84th and 88th guys in receiving yards and a 2nd round rookie. I liked the signings and draft because having Marshall as our WR1 would have been really rough, but based on recent stats we have a bunch of JAGs so having a stud would be great. Hopefully, Bryce will elevate everyone but we don’t have the WRs to say we’d be better with 3 500 yards guys instead of Adams. Math wise that makes no sense as that would mean you’d need over 2000 yards from TEs and RBs to have 4k+ passing yards. 

[CRA]

1 hour ago, panthers55 said:

No one said they wouldn't want an all pro over a good player or two. The point was there are many ways to win and having receivers by committee is one way teams spread the ball around and become less predictable. It doesn't mean you dont want prime Smitty on your team who pound for pound may have been one of the toughest guys I'm the league. 2005 was the triple crown for him.

I mean, maybe I’m missing someone but what QB is out there winning with a receiving corp by committee?   MVP caliber QBs?   And even a Brady or a Cam had dominant TEs in the passing era years they did great with bland WR corps. 

[Toker Smurf]

Anxious to see Mingo and what TMJ can do with real coaching.