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dnc
Member Posts: 56,812
But every other day I just shake my head at another delusional post about John Ross as a receiver.
The last we saw of John Ross he was such an offensive weapon that they moved him to defense. He's an explosive athlete without question, but all he's demonstrated this far is a) phenomenal return ability b) an ability to beat people deep c) nice elusiveness on reverses, bubble screens etc. Despite playing on a team painfully devoid of receiving talent he caught 17 balls his sophomore year. 17! Dane Looker calls that the Arizona State game and he couldn't beat PLSS in a footrace.
OTOH Ross only caught 16 balls as a frosh, so progress!
In my amateur analysis, one of two things explains Ross' lack of production (and probably both): 1) He's a terrible route runner who can't be trusted to get open or be where he's supposed to be except on a full sprint deep or a dead stop for a screen 2) Smith can't figure out how to get him the damn ball. SmithFS is still here. Has Ross learned to run a route in his year off? It's possible I guess, but doesn't seem especially likely.
Now obviously Ross has never played with Jake, but I'm not sure that helps. Jake's biggest weakness by far is the deep ball. Hopefully he takes a big step forward as a sophomore and maybe Ross creates more separation which gives Jake more margin for error and perhaps Smith pulls his head out of his wrinkled polish grandmother looking ass but I'm not optimistic about any of those three things let alone all three. Ross will certainly be an upgrade at kick returner, but if he is more productive as a receiver next year than Mickens was this year I'll be shocked, and Mickens fucking sucks. I'd guess around 35 receptions for 500 or so yards unless we? just forcefeed him the bubble screen 5 times a game in which case kill me now.
As Race once said, it's been a bad decade for saviors. Ross isn't going to be one this time either.
The last we saw of John Ross he was such an offensive weapon that they moved him to defense. He's an explosive athlete without question, but all he's demonstrated this far is a) phenomenal return ability b) an ability to beat people deep c) nice elusiveness on reverses, bubble screens etc. Despite playing on a team painfully devoid of receiving talent he caught 17 balls his sophomore year. 17! Dane Looker calls that the Arizona State game and he couldn't beat PLSS in a footrace.
OTOH Ross only caught 16 balls as a frosh, so progress!
In my amateur analysis, one of two things explains Ross' lack of production (and probably both): 1) He's a terrible route runner who can't be trusted to get open or be where he's supposed to be except on a full sprint deep or a dead stop for a screen 2) Smith can't figure out how to get him the damn ball. SmithFS is still here. Has Ross learned to run a route in his year off? It's possible I guess, but doesn't seem especially likely.
Now obviously Ross has never played with Jake, but I'm not sure that helps. Jake's biggest weakness by far is the deep ball. Hopefully he takes a big step forward as a sophomore and maybe Ross creates more separation which gives Jake more margin for error and perhaps Smith pulls his head out of his wrinkled polish grandmother looking ass but I'm not optimistic about any of those three things let alone all three. Ross will certainly be an upgrade at kick returner, but if he is more productive as a receiver next year than Mickens was this year I'll be shocked, and Mickens fucking sucks. I'd guess around 35 receptions for 500 or so yards unless we? just forcefeed him the bubble screen 5 times a game in which case kill me now.
As Race once said, it's been a bad decade for saviors. Ross isn't going to be one this time either.
Comments
BTW, DeAnthony Thomas was never used as a deep threat. Just like I think Ross will be, DAT was more effective with YAC yards than YBC yards. I keep referencing DAT because I think Ross more closely resembles him than anybody else I can think of.
One thing that I think people are overlooking with Browning and the his perceived weakness (deep ball).Is that he was throwing them to receivers who were:
1. Small and fucktarded (Mickens, Hall).
2. Not fast (all except Hall)
3. Fucktards (all)
The deep balls are only an issue going forward, in my mind, because Ross will be the only real threat. Maybe the new guy from Arizona (drawing a blank) will play WR and help a bit. I predict that Browning will throw those just fine, even exceptionally well, when/if he has less inept receivers to throw them to.
There are other things that can be done through formations (i.e. lining him up in the backfield to promote coverage situations against LBs and S with quick swing routes, triangle routes, wheels, etc.
The bashing of Browning on deep throws is ridiculous to me. He wasn't great on them last year. Most of the errors he made on them were by overthrowing them ... I feel better about that than consistently underthrowing them. Considering that when he did "underthrow" them so that his receivers had a chance to go win the ball they failed miserably, I don't blame Browning for erring on the side of overthrowing the ball. I expect that he'll get better next year throwing the ball deep anyway.
I think it's fair to question how much Smith will be able to find favorable positions to get Ross the ball.
Ross doesn't need to be a 70 catch and 1,000+ yard WR for this team to be successful next year. What is needed is for this team to have a number of receiving options that can be trusted for Browning to throw the ball to. Ross needs to take a step forward and improve a bit. Pettis needs to become more consistent. Daniels needs to step in and replace Perkins's production. Ideally need at least one of Lenius or Renfro to take a decent step forward. And ideally, we need someone that is either coming in in this class, was redshirting, or whatnot to take a step forward. Getting the WR grouping to get to 1999 or 2000 levels would be a massive win for this group next year.
The other thing that isn't being talked about that can help a lot in the passing game will be leveraging an improvement from Gaskin in the receiving game as well as taking advantage of McGrew.
When looking at Ross running those routes in 2014, he had Miley Cyrus throwing him the ball who couldn't throw much that was timely or accurate. If you go back and look at a lot of his throws, his completion percentage was propped up on safe throws that weren't requiring timing throws into short windows.
On top of that, Ross's 14 catches as a freshman were 7th on the team. His 17 in 2014 were tied for 6th on a team that only had one player with more than 25 catches. In contrast, the 2013 and 2015 teams had 5 guys with over 25 catches on it.
But tell me again how Miley Cyrus was a good quarterback?
Until Smith and the offense can prove they can consistently grind out drives, we're going to depend on the explosive plays to break the 3 & out funk.
Ross does that 9 or more times, we're looking good. The key is will he go off on Stanford, Oregon, USC or the beavs, cougs, and Cal?
I've given up on WRs until proven otherwise. Our gaskin should just get the rock
Granted all of that isn't likely to happen b/c running the ball as we learned last year is fucking stupid with all our WR talent and accuracy at QB.