Figured with bye week boredom setting in and no desire to do actual work on this stormy day in the northeast, I’d take a look at all of Moogs’ first year acquisitions via draft, free agency and trade. He’s definitely not perfect (or we wouldn’t be the worst team in the league) but a lot of his guys are panning out, at least the ones that will be here for a while. Draft Class Armand Membou – absolute homerun. Not sure how you could argue otherwise so far. Mason Taylor – very much looks the part of an all-around TE that we can have around for years. AZ Thomas – questionable pick at the time based off needs, but when given the opportunity he’s shown he can play in this league. It’ll be at least another two years before he has the shot to be a starter, barring injury. Hence why it was questionable at the time. Arian Smith – I have no idea what to make of this pick yet. By the numbers, he’s created the most separation of any receiver in the NFL. But he’s also had a TD drop which was a big concern when we drafted him and the QB play has been horrific. Hard to judge him so far. Malachi Moore – thrust into a starting role and for the most part, has looked like a starting safety. The things he struggles with will probably come with experience and better coaching. Kiko Mauigoa – Horrible start, really turned into a solid LB in the following weeks. I could see him having a much bigger role next year with Quincy undoubtedly gone (maybe this year) Tyler Baron – a true turd. Does nothing well. Swing and a miss. Free Agents/Trades Justin Fields – a failure, no two ways about it. He’s been the worst QB in the league for all but two games. The only reason it doesn’t really matter is because he was always meant to be a bridge guy that has no future here. Doesn’t cripple the franchise but we look significantly worse because he’s our QB. Brandon Stephens – what a whirlwind. Literally unplayable the first month of the season, now is PFFs top graded corner since. Still a wild gamble that has no resolution in terms of payoff but at least the guy is positively contributing now. TBD Andre Cisco – I’d say this is closer to a thumbs down than a thumbs up. He tries to hit homeruns and ends up striking out more often than not. Serviceable, and there’s definitely going to be a dropoff with him out and Adams in, but this was a bust. Josh Reynolds/Tyler Johnson – I’m lumping them together because to me they are the exact same signing. Journeyman WR3 and 4’s that have no future here beyond this terrible season. MAYBE one of them is back as part of a hopefully deeper WR room Jay Tufele – could be a rotational guy moving forward but he’s done nothing of note. Not bad, but not a starter or high end backup either. Stone Smartt – what happened here? Thought he’d have a role, he’s got none at all except ST. Josh Myers – this accidentally worked out great. He’s been highly serviceable and we were able to move Tippmann who has been just as highly serviceable. Sucks it’s the result of another AVT injury but this is why you look for solid OL depth. Harrison Philips – not much bad to say here. Stand up guy, been doing what he needs to do on the field. Run D has been eh but you can contribute that to plenty or things. This move is a result of bad draft strategy though. But a win is a win, and this is a W for Moogs Jowon Briggs – another result of bad draft strategy, but also another W that I can’t take away from Moogs. He’s playing well this year and looks like he could be a piece for us for the foreseeable future. Well worth the day 3 pick swap. Jarvis Brownlee – homerun so far. He’s provided such a spark to a terrible unit and he factors into our longterm plans. Also allowed us to trade MC2 for a 8 game WR tryout and a pick swap that works in our favor. Can’t find a bad word to say about this one. All of this to say… while it’s been a painful year and it’s hard to find anything good, the GM has shown an ability to identify talent in the draft and through trade albeit with a small sample size. His market value barometer is quite off but the recognition of talent isn’t. Building blocks. Can’t fly before you crawl and our GM at the very least can walk. Low bar but he’s above it.
I have no beef with Mougey yet. Personally I wanted to draft Tyler Warren and Aerontae Ersery in rounds 1 and 2 vs Membou/Taylor, but this will need another couple years to determine what would’ve been best. I don’t fault him for Fields, pretty clear that’s who Glenn wanted and Mougey had to make it happen. I hate what we paid but ehhh……
Nicely done and I love the idea, so thanks! You can also maybe add Lazard to the list…we kept him but made him take a pay cut (and honestly he’s STILL overpaid, but hey). What about the receiver Williams (#18)…not sure when we picked him up but I think he fumbled a KR earlier but since then has looked pretty good on KR and also looked pretty quick and decent at WR against the Bengals. I think it’s clear to all that our WR room sucks…we have one legit starter in GW and the rest of our guys are more like WR4 and WR 5 types, maybe WR3 if we’re feeling generous. So the handling of that room has been pretty poor…just feels like we should have done more in free agency to shore it up, but without going back and looking to see who was available and for what price, I can’t really speak to specifics. I also agree that having Fields as our QB makes it difficult to really assess our WR group, and I hated the Fields signing from Day 1, so that’s a big negative in my book…I get the logic and I get the (far fetched) hope in signing Fields as a bridge, but still, just feels like if we REALLY wanted to win this year, it probably would have been better to go get a guy like Jacoby Brissett or similar…though honestly I would not have been excited much by that at all…so yeah, we took a flier on a guy but to me, the success rate expectation on Fields was VERY low…like less than a 10% chance that he would ever develop into a legit QB. So bridge or no, this was a bad choice as you’ve said. I do like that our OL seems to have been handled (finally!)
Great work. I am going to give him another year before I judge him fully but so far he seems average. Not excellent, not terrible.
Excellent analysis. I think Mooge has done a good job as well. While I am not happy with AG's coaching overall so far, I thought Mooge did pretty decent. The biggest problem was not addressing DE. WR2 also is a problem, but I think I can understand why he hasn't addressed it yet. WR2 requires a significant investment (unlike DE depth) and is not that easy to do right away. I am OK if he saved that for the second off-season given we are a run first team and he did draft a good pass catcher in Taylor. Plus he spent the 4th on Arian Smith. Now, I agree with your assessment that we can't make this pick yet, but it is encouraging the guy leads the League in separation. I do want to make a small correction, that drop in the end zone you are referring to was not a drop. Smith beat his guy like a drum and it is an easy TD if Tyrod throws up a little farther. This pass is underthrown and the defender catch up last moment and sticks his right hand right before Arian was about to grab it and deflects it. Arian never touches that ball. This is not a drop, this one is on Tyrod. Freeze frame at 3:41.
Yes the separation stat is nice to see but I’m not putting all that much stock in it honestly…until it turns into catches and yards it’s just a nice talking point. I do get that a lot of it is on the bad QB play, whether Fields doesn’t see it or does see it and either doesn’t throw it or fucks up the throw. So yes, nice to see he can get open, but it’s still kind of subjective and needs to turn into actual catches
Especially considering the main knock on him coming out of Georgia was catching the football during games.
Right…now I do get that having Fields as our QB definitely skews the picture and makes it hard to really know how good a receiver Smith (or any of our other guys as well) can be. But I don’t know, soft stats like this that require a lot of judgement, for example, when in the route is the guy open, how do you define separation, etc….a lot of these kind of things just feel like a nice way to puff up a guy … reminds me of all the “hidden production” discussions we’d have around guys like Leonard Williams…well he didn’t get the sack, but he occupied two guys and let the other guy get the pressure…things like that. Sometimes I feel like we can get down rabbit holes of 2nd level stats, and sometimes you can just watch the game and see who makes plays consistently. Again, I’m happy that this stat is showing up the way it is, but it’s also a kind of small sample size as he hasn’t played all that much (which tells us something right away), and honestly it doesn’t mean shit until it turns into, you know, actual production. So yes glad that he’s apparently getting open, and presumably a better QB would be getting him the ball more and he’d be turning those opportunities into catches, but until we see that, this is all just a bit esoteric.
Fair enough, he definitely needs to make the catches. He has 0 drops thus far, but it's a small sample size. Which is why I agreed with @BroadwayAaron that it is to early to tell. For that though he needs to be accurately thrown the ball to. In the example I gave he showed he can separate, just like the stats indicate, but the ball was underthrown and the defender caught up and deflected. Still, I like to see more of these throws. Arian needs to be either 1st or 2nd read on the offense. If he is beyond that the QB will never get to him and that's on both the QB and also Tanner. But still, you have to be at least encouraged that our 4th round pick WR actually leads the whole League in separation.
The sample size of reps is not THAT small. He actually had 276 total snaps and 201 passing snaps so far. It just feels small since he is never thrown the ball and we don't really see him on broadcast. We also cannot say he is not getting open, given he actually leads the league in separation. He hasn't dropped the ball yet. It's time for Tanner and Fields to involve him a bit more and let's see if the kid can actually produce.
Yes good that he does and I haven’t see the stats but I’m guessing it’s a WAY small sample size, which you can’t really compare to starters in the league… However, I’d be WAY more encouraged if he was doing so well in practice that they were inclined to play him more and get him the ball more. He’s currently sitting behind scrubs like Reynolds or Lazard or Taylor so THAT discourages me more than this stat encourages me. It tells me he’s not blowing anyone away in practice, or the coaches don’t trust him, or whatever other reason we can think of. After all, our receiver room sucks balls, and it’s not like he’s sitting behind Chase and Higgins here, you know? If he can’t beat out a guy like Reynolds or Taylor then what is he doing?
Good point…I wonder how many targets he’s had. Just watching the games casually, it doesn’t feel like a lot. But it would be interesting to see total targets vs. total catches. Of course, with a guy like Fields, I’d put a low catch rate more on the QB than on our receivers…as sad as that sounds Ok, so I went and looked it up…Smith has 6 catches on 10 targets for 47 yards and a 7.8 YPC average Talk about irrelevant Until he can show he belongs on the field consistently and makes plays, kind of a wasted draft pick Again…caveat is understood that Fields is not the QB to make any receiver look good
I agree, he hasn't shown anything yet. But he is playing as much or more as these other WRs. In fact he is 2nd after GW. Again you cannot see it because QB never throws him the ball, but still he is a 4th round rookie who is getting some playing time and again separates and so far hasn't dropped. I suspect route running could be an issue and also he is not as big/good a blocker as the others, but I do want to see him targeted more as a 1st or 2nd read when GW is not 1st. Total Reps/Pass Reps Smith 276/201 Reynolds 271/172 Lazard 183/124 Johnson 211/137
Ok yeah so looks like he’s playing more than the other scrubs, but he’s not drawing throws his way…which I think like you said that has a lot to do with Fields not being able to go through his reads as I’m guessing GW is typically the first read, then either Hall or Mason Taylor then maybe Smith…but Fields can’t see shit so again, it comes back to needing a real QB to be able to really judge our WR corps. Mason Taylor on the other hand, does stand out…he makes plays. I actually like him quite a bit and if we had a decent QB I think he’d be making some noise.
Good assessment and I think most of it is pretty well thought out. Tufele jumps out to me as giving guards fits even in a limited capacity. Sometimes this can work against him if he gets too far up field. Stephens and Brownlee both tackle really well. I wonder if there’s any aspirations to move one to safety if they think AZ can really play. Mougey has a wild uphill battle next year. Very limited mid-round draft capital and an owner that’ll probably demand a QB be taken at the top of the first round. There also realistically isn’t a real stopgap QB to go get in free agency at the moment. So you’re almost going to be forced into another year of Fields as the starter or tossing the top of the first rookie in there/pretty much being forced to take a first or second round QB.
Yeah I’m curious as to how they will approach this offseason…we realistically CAN’T go into the season with Fields as our starter. Unless he has a miraculous 2nd half of the season and crushes it, he’s gotta go. Sad that there’s no real options available, but that’s typically the case…you don’t often see good QBs come available. Maybe a trade for a stopgap kind of guy can happen, I don’t know, but I sure as shit don’t want another year of Fields. I’d sooner take a rookie and have at it. Fields sucks…the sooner they admit it and move on the better. We need a huge overall on the WR room as well, and at least one starting caliber DE/Edge player.
I still can’t tell if that was a drop or not. That play happened directly in front of me. I’m probably on the screen somewhere. It looks like a drop that hit him right in the hands in person but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a replay of it and this one is way too wide to figure out what’s happening. Either way you’re right, if that ball is thrown where it needs to be it it’s a much easier catch. Point being on him in general, we have absolutely no clue what he is.
One target per game is the guy you let run free because he’s unlikely to be targeted. At least, that’s how I’d look at it, especially against a team averaging more yards per run than per pass.
