good response nygiants
I suppose adding .5 catches per game, your projections/predictions make you not the type person I was referring to in the original or on the low end of that.
Reply to last paragraph first-Gates is more likely to take a dive than improve right? Wasn't that a record setting year for him? 1101 yards is awesome for a TE and, top of my head guess, that's a top 5-10 all time TE yardage total. 10 TDs, OK. 89 catches is high but still I'd be OK with that because he is great. Discussing the yards, wouldn't you say it's tough for any player to stay at that very very high level of production?
Gates, too, is young and relatively inexperienced as a TE probably less than Cooley having been a hoops player but what's a ceiling for those yards?
Gonzo(IMO a HOF or on pace to be a first ballot TE) got 1200 yards twice but in the 3 seasons between those he didn't even get a K. 102 and 93 catch seasons but between them were 63, 72, and 71...not even close to 90-100. My point is it's very hard to achieve an especially great season. I'm not saying Tony G was bad between those seasons, one of those years was 71 916 yards and 10TDs, who wouldn't like that TE production in FF?
But it's very hard to match that top top level of production.
Gates "only" had 10 TDs last year but 13 the year before. 3 is a somewhat big drop in a way. Avg per game is small .3 or .4 per game but it's also roughly a 30% drop. I'd say 2 years ago his TD total was super and last year he was excellent. (Not insulting not bashing a player, bear with me) He just found it difficult to repeat on one of the best TD totals for a TE ever.
Which IMO is expected and my point here.
Back to cooley-
You bring up Coryell and to be candid, that's laughable and a common prob/issue I have with people's projections. Gibbs too credits Coryell as a major influence. To compare the two as if Saunders is better is what I find laughable. Saunders has coached in the NFL for a long long time. Gibbs has won Supes and is a HOF coach. Gibbs is eons better at coaching than Saunders.
If you want to compare Vermeil's offenses and Gibbs' then we've got a good debate. Saunders, however, has a ton of years coaching in the NFL and his O's did not perform as well without Vermeil. #### Lebeau's Ds weren't as good without Cowher around and he too has a zillion years experience coaching Ds in the NFL. Saunders is an ol' dog that knows some tricks, he's not some young coaching prospect like a young Martz or Mariucci or Shanahan.
Back to Gibbs/Saunders-
see this WR production
http://www.profootballreference.com/teams/was1989.htm
with Randel-El and Lloyd coming to town, what's to say Saunders isn't at Gibbs' side asking him how he did that?
I could "see" that discussion taking place. Saunders' WRs weren't anywhere near as productive in KC. Why wouldn't he want to learn how Gibbs pulled that off? He is a pretty good at sponging(which is a compliment) off his HC as evidenced throughout his career.
a HOF coach allowing Saunders to call plays this year is no guarantee that this O improves upon what a HOF coach got out of it. Before Saunders, last year, the Skins had 2000+ yards rushing out of their backs and Portis had 1500. Moss had almost 1500 yards receiving plus Cooley's stats. I can't recall Saunders ever coaching a WR with as high production as Moss.
With these two WR's, the Washington receivers are going to get more targets and catches this year than they did last year. I fully expect Portis & company to see at least the same amount of carries as did they last year. Not that Fauria is a big deal, but he will probably steal a couple goaline looks out of two TE sets.
