Ojaays said:
Sorry to say, I missed on Diggs, outbid.
One thing to keep in mind here,
Wasn't Norv Turner the OC in Cleveland when Josh Gordon blew up and won leagues for everyone that had him?
I can see Diggs being used in the same ways Gordon was that year.
The main difference here is that Clevaland traded away Trent Richardson early on in that season and the other RB Cleveland had at that time was injured. So he had no running game to work with which led to the Brown having 1078 total plays 681 passing attempts to 348 rushing attempts, the bulk of those were handled by McGahee who was let go by Denver and was still a free agent at the start of the season. This is 63% pass to 37% run not including the sacks which could also be put on the passing attempt side.
The Vikings after 6 games have run 381 total plays 181 pass attempts 181 rushing attempts 19 sacks. This couldn't really be more balanced. The offense is improving now up to 63.5 offensive plays/game which over the course of the season would be 1016 total plays. Currently Bridgewater is on pace to throw the ball 508 times. I do think the pass ratio will end up higher than 50% of total plays over the course of the last 10 games but this is a difference of about 150 pass attempts between the two situations.
Diggs is playing the X position which is the same as Josh Gordon. Looking at the history of receivers who played for Norv Truner it is pretty balanced between the X and the Z receiver. What determines which receiver is more targeted depends on the talent of the players moreso than the position they play based on looking at the history of this. Vincent Jackson played Z under Norv which is what balances the useage of the 2 positions out.
I don't think Diggs is better than Wallace to the degree that Gordon was better than Greg Little. So some balance of targets between the 2 receivers is what I would expect. Teddy likes to spread the ball around as well. I do think Teddy has shown a tendency to look Diggs way more than the other receivers in recent games. Not sure that continues for the rest of the season or not.
Kyle Rudolph is being asked to block more and not in the picture as much as other TE under Turner have been such as Jordan Cameron or Antonio Gates. He did have a lot of targets early on in the season, but I don't think Rudolph will be taking opportunity away from the outside receivers the way those TE did.
Norv Turner has been running an offense as an OC or HC 23 of the last 25 years. He has a #### ton of great RBs to work with: Emmitt, Terry Allen, Stephen Davis, the early and then the late LT2 Charger years. Hell, he even squeezed 1,000 yards & 60 receptions out of Lamont Jordan. And through all those great to good RBs, he only has three teams with fewer pass attempts per game than the 2015 Vikings.
(ASIDE - that was through Week 6; the average went up from 29.2 to 30.2, and as we'll see in a moment, they're trending.)
Now you can say the Vikings are perfectly balanced with an equal 181 Rush and Pass attempts, but that ignores that only one team has less PA. On a PG basis, they're around 28th. The league wide average per team after 7 weeks is 173 RA & 236 PA.
HOWEVER, let's be fair & relevant.
Diggs inactive Weeks 1-3: 74 PA, 24.67 per game
Stefon active Weeks 4-7 (3 G): 107, 35.67
35 pass attempts puts them around 15th in today's NFL. Some of the other advances metrics (N/YPA) as well as traditional measures (TD %) point to inadequacy but they're going in a positive direction.
More important, I think, is TB making good decisions. I still think his pocket presence is poor & combined with his slow release he'll continue to be sacked at a higher rate than you might expect. But he is showing progress & I think he may continue to do so.
Definitely feel better about the potential volume in this offense after another week of the trend toward more passing. The Bears give up the sixth most FF points to WRs - for reference KC ranks 1st in most points allowed, Detroit 4th - so we have every reason to believe the production continues.
Tougher row to hoe in 4 of the 5 games afterward, but after seeing the tape versus the Broncos, not overly concerned. And that playoff schedule?
Oh, yeah.