Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.
I;m definately taking Rivers over Romo.
I'm a homer so take this with a grain of salt.....and I've used essentially the same argument for Emmitt....tough guy, longevity, etc...blah blah blah
I'm with you 100%.
Not everyone is doing that. I have specifically singled out Witten as a top 10 TE in large part due to his blocking. I also mentioned it as a plus for Gonzo.
It's refreshing to see. Ever since Witten has retired all I hear about from all the analysts is how he was a compiler and he only had this many TD's, etc.......nothing about his blocking his toughness his leadership.....tight ends are not wide receivers. It's irritating to me when talking about the greats most people focus solely on receiving stats
IMO, someone doesn't get points for leadership in this kind of discussion if they were never on a winner (his teams had a grand total of 2 playoff wins in 15 seasons).
While I understand that Witten is a better blocker than say, Gates, its not like he's some elite blocker. I certainly don't think he's a better blocker than Gronk.
While I do think players like Gronk, Witten, and Gonzo are rightfully viewed as good to great blockers and deserve some credit for that, I am also reminded of some of the old Hines Ward for HOF discussions around here.
Last year, the NFL saw a large uptick in fullbacks. I forget the #s but something like 5 to 15.travdogg said:
![[icon]](/data/avatars/m/5/5167.jpg?1660313464){kind=avatar}
I don't see why the fullback position being fazed out, makes blocking by TE's more important. Some of the reason fullbacks are fazed out, is because they are replaced on the field by WR's. Most of the NFL runs 3-WR 1-TE sets as their base offense, and defenses have countered that by mostly being base nickel. Which basically means instead of a FB blocking a LB, on runs we are getting another WR/CB matchup in its place.
Man, I'm not sure who you're listening too, but most of what I heard right after Witten hung em up was he is very good, but not a first ballot HOF'er, and in many instances, not a HOF'er at all.travdogg said:
When there was a fullback, there were tight ends like....Jets guy....that couldn't block well and would even line up as a slot fairly often. That type seems to be gone.
Just curious if you care anything at all about run blocking (sometimes even pass blocking) from a TE. A good blocking TE is like having another offensive tackle.
I agree was just talking catchs/yards.
Gronk is a tough call in a thread like this. At his peak, Gronk was both the greatest receiving TE and greatest blocking TE that I have seen (and I go back 40 some odd years of watching football). That being said, Gronk has been hurt a ton and likely will have a much shorter career than some of the other great tight ends. Does a much shorter peak period for Gronk trump longer peaks for other players (but at a lesser rate of efficiency or production)?
What is really interesting to me, is how Gronk is the guy getting punished for a short career, even though if he were to retire today, he played longer than Kellen Winslow.
Back when I worked at FBG, I put together the Top 5 seasons for players at each position as a barometer to basically illustrate that the truly great performers were pretty far ahead of mere mortals and demigods. I would much rather see guys that had great numbers for 5 years than a guy that hung around forever and was essentially above average for most his career and average or worst the rest of the time. But we are all different and most of us like to debate each other (others would say we have a penchant to argue).
Well, if you had read through the thread, you would see that I have complimented Witten for his run blocking multiple times.
You said he was "the number two TE stat wise" which is clearly incorrect. To move the goalposts to "top 4ish, not real important exactly where" remains questionable but is so vague as to not be worth debating.
The three most important :"stats" when it comes to TE...catchs/yards/TD's. Only Gonzalez his superior if we combine the three.
Says who? I would venture to guess that all NFL people (coaches, players, GMs, etc.) would say replace receptions with first downs. IMO this is the order of importance:
