Question for David. Dodds... (1 Viewer)

[12punch]

This thread is kind of funny 'cuz when they had moss people were saying moss made welker and wes was gonna drop off when moss left.

So, now wes is gonna drop off when they add a guy.

 

[Banger]

another thing I think a lot of people are missing is that Lloyd was brought in to be a deep threat and stretch the field so he won't need as many catches to be productive. 2 years ago when Lloyd led the league in receiving he averaged 18.8 ypc and while he may not average those gaudy numbers it's not out of the realm of possibility since Brady is arguably the best QB in the league, they have the best underneath weapons in the league which will make covering Lloyd VERY difficult. He's likely not going to need 85 catches to have a very good year...he may be able to do it with 65-70 receptions.

Maybe, but the argument in this thread is not about Lloyd's productivity, but rather Welker's productivity. Your statement above reinforces the argument that Welker will still get his points because (I would argue) that even if Lloyd gets alot of catches (which you are arguing against above), Welker will still get his.

I think of it like this....Without a deep threat the Pats were forced to basically walk the ball up the field through short passes and that's where Welker excels like no other. The field is a specific length and if Brady hits Lloyd for a 25 yard pass that's essentially 2 few opportunities/passes that Welker may recieve. It's not that Brady doesn't like Welker anymore or that he won't throw to Welker any more, he will....they will need to keep throwing short to effectively be able to use Lloyd over the top. I think it's undeniable that the Pats have lacked a downfield threat and have brought in Lloyd to be that downfield threat. They will use him and if you've read the camp reports he and Brady have had excellent timing and Lloyd is obviously well versed in the offense since he's played in derivations of it a couple times. I think that the Brady-Lloyd connection will click and such have an adverse reaction on others with Welker being the largest since he has the most to lose.Apologies for bringing Lloyd into it but this is essentially largely about Lloyd and the impact he will have on Welker. I'm probably not explaining it as well as I see it playing out in my mind.

I understand what you are saying, but I would respectfully disagree that Welker has the most to lose for two reasons. One, it has been argued that Gronk was being used as the deep threat so it would stand to reason that he would lose those targets. Also, it seems to me in general that Gronk would have the most to lose since he had gained the most. Welker is steady Eddy regardless of the deep threat or not - he has the repeatable stats in my mind. Gronk, a TE that gets 17 TD's? A TE with 1,300 yards. Yes, he could lose 30% of his production and still be the best performing TE. But, gosh, sure seems to me that he is most arguably the one to come back down to earth as defensives will start keying on him, NE now it is being argued has a deep threat, and even without that deep threat Gronk's numbers could not be repeated.I will not have Gronk on any of my teams! He will fly off he board!! I want to say that Hernandez will out perform Gronk this year. Not quite there yet, but I could see it.

I try not to just guess cold on situations but try to listen to what the team/reporters say publicly but also what they do (who they sign, who they let go, etc.), listen to posters like Yudkin (and others) in this instance and put everything together make my judgements on how the situations play out. I kind of look at it like a puzzle and letting BJGE go and signing Lloyd indicates that the team will continue to chuck the ball and a big factor in my view on Welker and Gronk is what the Pats did this offseason when they chose to lock up Gronk with a huge long term contract while Welker was in the same spot and wanted a long term deal and he got a 1 year deal. Reading the tea leaves it shows a commitment to Gronk and what his impact is on the offense and will continue to be.

 

[12punch]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

 

[Marvin88]

another thing I think a lot of people are missing is that Lloyd was brought in to be a deep threat and stretch the field so he won't need as many catches to be productive. 2 years ago when Lloyd led the league in receiving he averaged 18.8 ypc and while he may not average those gaudy numbers it's not out of the realm of possibility since Brady is arguably the best QB in the league, they have the best underneath weapons in the league which will make covering Lloyd VERY difficult. He's likely not going to need 85 catches to have a very good year...he may be able to do it with 65-70 receptions.

Maybe, but the argument in this thread is not about Lloyd's productivity, but rather Welker's productivity. Your statement above reinforces the argument that Welker will still get his points because (I would argue) that even if Lloyd gets alot of catches (which you are arguing against above), Welker will still get his.

I think of it like this....Without a deep threat the Pats were forced to basically walk the ball up the field through short passes and that's where Welker excels like no other. The field is a specific length and if Brady hits Lloyd for a 25 yard pass that's essentially 2 few opportunities/passes that Welker may recieve. It's not that Brady doesn't like Welker anymore or that he won't throw to Welker any more, he will....they will need to keep throwing short to effectively be able to use Lloyd over the top. I think it's undeniable that the Pats have lacked a downfield threat and have brought in Lloyd to be that downfield threat. They will use him and if you've read the camp reports he and Brady have had excellent timing and Lloyd is obviously well versed in the offense since he's played in derivations of it a couple times. I think that the Brady-Lloyd connection will click and such have an adverse reaction on others with Welker being the largest since he has the most to lose.Apologies for bringing Lloyd into it but this is essentially largely about Lloyd and the impact he will have on Welker. I'm probably not explaining it as well as I see it playing out in my mind.

I understand what you are saying, but I would respectfully disagree that Welker has the most to lose for two reasons. One, it has been argued that Gronk was being used as the deep threat so it would stand to reason that he would lose those targets. Also, it seems to me in general that Gronk would have the most to lose since he had gained the most. Welker is steady Eddy regardless of the deep threat or not - he has the repeatable stats in my mind. Gronk, a TE that gets 17 TD's? A TE with 1,300 yards. Yes, he could lose 30% of his production and still be the best performing TE. But, gosh, sure seems to me that he is most arguably the one to come back down to earth as defensives will start keying on him, NE now it is being argued has a deep threat, and even without that deep threat Gronk's numbers could not be repeated.I will not have Gronk on any of my teams! He will fly off he board!! I want to say that Hernandez will out perform Gronk this year. Not quite there yet, but I could see it.

I try not to just guess cold on situations but try to listen to what the team/reporters say publicly but also what they do (who they sign, who they let go, etc.), listen to posters like Yudkin (and others) in this instance and put everything together make my judgements on how the situations play out. I kind of look at it like a puzzle and letting BJGE go and signing Lloyd indicates that the team will continue to chuck the ball and a big factor in my view on Welker and Gronk is what the Pats did this offseason when they chose to lock up Gronk with a huge long term contract while Welker was in the same spot and wanted a long term deal and he got a 1 year deal. Reading the tea leaves it shows a commitment to Gronk and what his impact is on the offense and will continue to be.

And rightly so - Welker is old and Gronk is young. But as Yudkin argued, why keep Welker if you are not going to still use him. It's about money until they get on the field. Then it's about winning. To argue NE doesn't want Welker because he only got a 1 year is crazy. It's not that they don't want him. It's that they don't want him when he is 35!

 

[David Yudkin]

This thread is kind of funny 'cuz when they had moss people were saying moss made welker and wes was gonna drop off when moss left.So, now wes is gonna drop off when they add a guy.

The main difference is they didn't have two elite TEs like they do now, and suddenly cutting up the pie becomes an issue.

 

[Banger]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

teams speak with their dollars and how they allocate them and maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm seeing something that isn't there.

 

[12punch]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

teams speak with their dollars and how they allocate them and maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm seeing something that isn't there.

You're seeing them lock up a very young record destroying player with a long term team friendly dealWhat is it you think you're seeing?

 

[Banger]

another thing I think a lot of people are missing is that Lloyd was brought in to be a deep threat and stretch the field so he won't need as many catches to be productive. 2 years ago when Lloyd led the league in receiving he averaged 18.8 ypc and while he may not average those gaudy numbers it's not out of the realm of possibility since Brady is arguably the best QB in the league, they have the best underneath weapons in the league which will make covering Lloyd VERY difficult. He's likely not going to need 85 catches to have a very good year...he may be able to do it with 65-70 receptions.

Maybe, but the argument in this thread is not about Lloyd's productivity, but rather Welker's productivity. Your statement above reinforces the argument that Welker will still get his points because (I would argue) that even if Lloyd gets alot of catches (which you are arguing against above), Welker will still get his.

I think of it like this....Without a deep threat the Pats were forced to basically walk the ball up the field through short passes and that's where Welker excels like no other. The field is a specific length and if Brady hits Lloyd for a 25 yard pass that's essentially 2 few opportunities/passes that Welker may recieve. It's not that Brady doesn't like Welker anymore or that he won't throw to Welker any more, he will....they will need to keep throwing short to effectively be able to use Lloyd over the top. I think it's undeniable that the Pats have lacked a downfield threat and have brought in Lloyd to be that downfield threat. They will use him and if you've read the camp reports he and Brady have had excellent timing and Lloyd is obviously well versed in the offense since he's played in derivations of it a couple times. I think that the Brady-Lloyd connection will click and such have an adverse reaction on others with Welker being the largest since he has the most to lose.Apologies for bringing Lloyd into it but this is essentially largely about Lloyd and the impact he will have on Welker. I'm probably not explaining it as well as I see it playing out in my mind.

I understand what you are saying, but I would respectfully disagree that Welker has the most to lose for two reasons. One, it has been argued that Gronk was being used as the deep threat so it would stand to reason that he would lose those targets. Also, it seems to me in general that Gronk would have the most to lose since he had gained the most. Welker is steady Eddy regardless of the deep threat or not - he has the repeatable stats in my mind. Gronk, a TE that gets 17 TD's? A TE with 1,300 yards. Yes, he could lose 30% of his production and still be the best performing TE. But, gosh, sure seems to me that he is most arguably the one to come back down to earth as defensives will start keying on him, NE now it is being argued has a deep threat, and even without that deep threat Gronk's numbers could not be repeated.I will not have Gronk on any of my teams! He will fly off he board!! I want to say that Hernandez will out perform Gronk this year. Not quite there yet, but I could see it.

I try not to just guess cold on situations but try to listen to what the team/reporters say publicly but also what they do (who they sign, who they let go, etc.), listen to posters like Yudkin (and others) in this instance and put everything together make my judgements on how the situations play out. I kind of look at it like a puzzle and letting BJGE go and signing Lloyd indicates that the team will continue to chuck the ball and a big factor in my view on Welker and Gronk is what the Pats did this offseason when they chose to lock up Gronk with a huge long term contract while Welker was in the same spot and wanted a long term deal and he got a 1 year deal. Reading the tea leaves it shows a commitment to Gronk and what his impact is on the offense and will continue to be.

And rightly so - Welker is old and Gronk is young. But as Yudkin argued, why keep Welker if you are not going to still use him. It's about money until they get on the field. Then it's about winning. To argue NE doesn't want Welker because he only got a 1 year is crazy. It's not that they don't want him. It's that they don't want him when he is 35!

I expect that they'll use Welker and it would be assinine/needlessly reckless to let him go without even knowing what Lloyd was going to bring to the table, if it is actually going to work in practice, if Brady has chemistry with him, etc.. Again, I'm not saying that I think Welkers going to get 65 receptions...I think he'll likely get in the 90's which is a lot but it's not 120+ that he got last year.

 

[David Yudkin]

I try not to just guess cold on situations but try to listen to what the team/reporters say publicly but also what they do (who they sign, who they let go, etc.), listen to posters like Yudkin (and others) in this instance and put everything together make my judgements on how the situations play out. I kind of look at it like a puzzle and letting BJGE go and signing Lloyd indicates that the team will continue to chuck the ball and a big factor in my view on Welker and Gronk is what the Pats did this offseason when they chose to lock up Gronk with a huge long term contract while Welker was in the same spot and wanted a long term deal and he got a 1 year deal. Reading the tea leaves it shows a commitment to Gronk and what his impact is on the offense and will continue to be.

I have a bit of a different take on this. Gronk is clearly much younger than Welker and also has much more value league wide. By that I mean, ANY team could add Gronkowski and he would make them that much better and would be successful.The Pats tried to sign Welker and could not work things out. From what I have heard / read /ssen / and neen told, Welker wanted more years and more guaranteed money than the Pats wanted to give. His age played against him, as did his his unique role. Welker would net get the same level of interest as Gronkowski would if he hit the open market. While he may be the perfect slot receiver for the Pats, he may not be worth $10 million a year elsewhere as most teams don't run anything like the Pats offense.Similar to Jason Varitek on the Red Sox. He was worth more to the Red Sox than he was to any other team. Boston sucked it up and payed him more than they wanted, probably a fair amount more than he would have gotten elsewhere. I suspect that same phenomena is at work here. I don't see Welker being as successful or posting the same numbers anywhere else.It makes sense to sign a universally revered and coveted early 20s TE to a 5-6 year deal. It doesn't make as much sense to do that with a 31 year old undersized slot receiver that fills a specialty role. I suspect that Welker asked for a 5 year deal with 40-50% guaranteed. I don't think the Pats ever budged off of a max 3 year deal. Welker likely went down to 4 years, and the Pats wouldn't add a year. When they finally settled on a 3 year deal, IIRC, the difference was like a total of $6-8 million that they were apart. Welker also wanted to be paid like an elite outside receiver, which muddied the waters.Bottom line, it's not like the Pats made no effort to resign him. If they really had no use or interest in him they could have let him walk this year . . . but didn't. If Welker has another solid season like last year, I would not put it past NE from franchising him again. While $11.5 million seems like a big number, it still would cost them less in real dollars than if they resigned him and had to shell out a ton of bonus money.Either way, if he is on the team (which he is currently), I don't see where it helps the team to "phase him out" and explore other options. They are paying him too much money to just have him play less and less of a role.

 

[brewer]

This is quickly becoming my favorite thread of the year. Thanks to all who are contributing to this interesting debate.

Count me on the side that thinks Welker will have a fine year. As long as he is on the field, Brady will find him. I would be shocked if Lloyd finished higher than Welker so long as Welker(and Brady for that matter) stays healthy all season.

 

[David Yudkin]

This is quickly becoming my favorite thread of the year. Thanks to all who are contributing to this interesting debate.Count me on the side that thinks Welker will have a fine year. As long as he is on the field, Brady will find him. I would be shocked if Lloyd finished higher than Welker so long as Welker(and Brady for that matter) stays healthy all season.

I think it depends on the scoring system. Lloyd might beat out Welker in 0 ppr leagues and vice versa in PPR leagues.

 

[Banger]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

teams speak with their dollars and how they allocate them and maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm seeing something that isn't there.

You're seeing them lock up a very young record destroying player with a long term team friendly dealWhat is it you think you're seeing?

I see a team allocating and investing long term dollars in one player and not in another. I see that same team having other options that are very effective in the same region as Welker is (Gronk/Hernandez). I could see the team transitioning some of the offense to those players as well as their new deep threat that they signed in the offseason.

 

[David Yudkin]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

teams speak with their dollars and how they allocate them and maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm seeing something that isn't there.

You're seeing them lock up a very young record destroying player with a long term team friendly dealWhat is it you think you're seeing?

I see a team allocating and investing long term dollars in one player and not in another. I see that same team having other options that are very effective in the same region as Welker is (Gronk/Hernandez). I could see the team transitioning some of the offense to those players as well as their new deep threat that they signed in the offseason.

Again, I see that Wlekr's targets have expanded each year since he joined the team. If they were really trying to go another direction, why didn't they do that last year?

 

[Marvin88]

This is quickly becoming my favorite thread of the year. Thanks to all who are contributing to this interesting debate.Count me on the side that thinks Welker will have a fine year. As long as he is on the field, Brady will find him. I would be shocked if Lloyd finished higher than Welker so long as Welker(and Brady for that matter) stays healthy all season.

I think it depends on the scoring system. Lloyd might beat out Welker in 0 ppr leagues and vice versa in PPR leagues.

Yes, and I personally haven't specifically differentiated, but this does need to be qualified as you say.

 

[Banger]

Gronk and welker were not remotely in the same contract situations

teams speak with their dollars and how they allocate them and maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm seeing something that isn't there.

You're seeing them lock up a very young record destroying player with a long term team friendly dealWhat is it you think you're seeing?

I see a team allocating and investing long term dollars in one player and not in another. I see that same team having other options that are very effective in the same region as Welker is (Gronk/Hernandez). I could see the team transitioning some of the offense to those players as well as their new deep threat that they signed in the offseason.

Again, I see that Wlekr's targets have expanded each year since he joined the team. If they were really trying to go another direction, why didn't they do that last year?

well last year the whole pie expanded and Brady threw more passes than he has entire career so everyone essentially got more last year. So the Pats had gone from a 1 and 2 man show to now a 3 man show. This year they move to a 4 man show but will the pie continue to grow? it's possible that it does a little bit but probably not too much...I just think that there will be more of a natural distribution due to the course of the game and Brady being able to read defenses and have mismatches he's never had before in his career.

 

[Marvin88]

:IBTL:

If I might re-iterate my previous post:

I understand what you are saying, but I would respectfully disagree that Welker has the most to lose for two reasons. One, it has been argued that Gronk was being used as the deep threat so it would stand to reason that he would lose those targets. Also, it seems to me in general that Gronk would have the most to lose since he had gained the most. Welker is steady Eddy regardless of the deep threat or not - he has the repeatable stats in my mind. Gronk, a TE that gets 17 TD's? A TE with 1,300 yards. Yes, he could lose 30% of his production and still be the best performing TE. But, gosh, sure seems to me that he is most arguably the one to come back down to earth as defensives will start keying on him, NE now it is being argued has a deep threat, and even without that deep threat Gronk's numbers could not be repeated.

I will not have Gronk on any of my teams! He will fly off he board!! I want to say that Hernandez will out perform Gronk this year. Not quite there yet, but I could see it.

AFTER 6 GAMES

Welker 48-622-2

Lloyd 34-401-1

Gronk 29-356-3

Hernandez 12-89-2 (only 2 games)

INTERPOLATED FOR 16 GAMES

Welker 128-1658-5

Lloyd 90-1069-2

Gronk 77-949-8

Hernandez 96-712-16

I would not assume 16 TD's from Hernandez, but nor would I assume Gronk's stats above either as I think that Hernandez coming back will take away from Gronk and not Welker. It may have seemed early that Hernandez would eat into Welker, but I think this last game is indicative of what we will see going forward.