Sorry; meant to make one more point - I mostly agree on the TDs, too - for whatever reason, AJ has been criminally underutilized in the RZ. (It'll be interesting to see if it changes under BoB, or if it's more a component of it simply not being a strong part of AJ's game.) On the flip side, Andre Johnson is not, nor has he ever been, a WR that can, with any degree of (relative) consistency, turn a 10-yard slant into a 70-yard TD. Calvin Johnson can; Josh Gordon can; Jerry Rice could. But I've watched Andre Johnson for 10 years and he is not that guy. Texan fans *think* he's that guy, which is why we get all these wild "if only..." scenarios - but he's not. He wasn't under Capers; he wasn't under Kubiak. Neither, frankly, is Larry Fitzgerald. They're both possession receivers who are bigger and stronger than "normal" possession WRs - and when I say that, people get *really* upset - but I mean no insult by it at all. The current prototypical possession WR is Wes Welker: ton of catches; not a lot of TDs (this year was his first to hit double digits). Johnson is obviously a physically more gifted receiver - but I think his game is much closer to Welker's than C. Johnson's, which is why I always struggle with this idea of, "Man, if he just had a better QB, he'd be (so-and-so)." I don't see it. Could a better QB/system generate more TD opportunities? Maybe. But I really and truly believe we're seeing Andre Johnson's talent pretty close to maxed out.
I don't believe Calvin Johnson has ever done anything like this before. He wins jump balls in the redzone and outruns people down the sideline. He is not very agile and lacks elite acceleration, but his sheer size and straight line speed are unmatched. I think it's pretty obvious that Andre's TD numbers would be vastly different if he were put into a more vertical offense. It's not a knock on his QB situation as much as it is a knock on his OC situation. The Lions are an extremely vertical offense (as were the Cardinals during LFitz's heyday), the Texans are anything but. I wonder what Johnson's TD numbers per game are in games with Carr/Keenum vs. Schaub.
Right - one is a playmaker; the other isn't. People do not like me saying that about AJ (which I understand) - but I do not mean it as a knock one bit. I think Andre Johnson is an incredible talent and has been a remarkably great NFL WR. *I* think he's Hall of Fame worthy; I just think the vast majority of voters, in addition to having a backlog of equally worthy WRs to elect, are going to see those TD totals and (lazily) ding him hard for it.
Good luck to Kubiak. Hope he gets the job. Clean up that town's act. Maybe...just maybe Suh won't be a punk anymore.
EingTA: playmaker, in this case, means touchdowns. That's very simplistic, I know - and generally, Andre Johnson absolutely makes plays. But he doesn't score TDs. And you can blame it on Kubiak and Schaub all you want (and I don't think they're innocent by any means) - but he didn't score TDs with Capers and Carr, either. So the idea "if only..." just doesn't land with me.
This is simply not true. The Texans do not use Andre vertically nearly as much as his peers. This is not because of lack of ability, it is by design. We've had this argument before, so I already know where you stand, but it should be pretty obvious to most now that opportunities down the field, in the Kubiak era, were more rare for Texans WRs than almost any other franchise in the league.
Just ran the numbers. Since 2007 AJ w/ Schaub - .43 touchdowns per game AJ w/o Schaub - .57 touchdowns per game Maybe it is slightly more QB related
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ISl4EXQI3zU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The takeaway is that neither of these guys are known for their T.Y. Hilton-ish ability to rip off massive plays from near the line of scrimmage.
There are more examples, however it takes only one example to disprove your statement that he has NEVER done anything like it before. By the way, YAC average this season: T.Y. Hilton: 4.9 Calvin Johnson's: 5.9
FFS. I said "I don't believe". As in, from my memory. Not a matter of fact. I'm guessing that after catching close to 600 passes, you're probably going to have a short one that busts for a long gainer. If you want to be a mega-doucher about it, we can add-in the qualifier of it being a 70 yard touchdown, which it wasn't. But focusing on minutia and trying to win the internet penis measuring contest doesn't really contribute to the discussion. So, let's stay with the general topic at hand here, aye? Not sure what your point is about YAC. If you're Calvin Johnson, getting more deep balls thrown your way than any probably any other WR in the NFL, chances are your YAC would be big. And if you're T.Y. Hilton, often tasked with short and intermediate routes on the inside, chances are you're going to get tackled more often than not. Calvin's size gives him excellent ability to break tackles, as well, but I don't see the controversy in the claim that there are people better suited to taking short routes to the house than him.
Interestingly, in just 2 more career games, LFitz actually has fewer 30+ yard TDs than AJ. Calvin, of course, have more than both (in 50 fewer games than LFitz). BUT... Calvin has MANY more RZ TDs than AJ; 57 to 39. There's no question, AJ was underutilized in the red zone; I'm just not 100% sure AJ isn't *an* issue (ie it's not his forte). No idea...
Sometimes things happen a certain way just because they do. Aaron Rodgers almost quit football at one point. Kurt Warner was sacking groceries. As it relates to Andre, there are certainly things you could look at, analyze and point to... he hasn't caught as many TDs in his career as he should. But is he not otherwise on pace to be one of the greatest receivers ever? He is likely to finish his career top 5 in receptions, maybe top 5 in yards, currently 2nd all time in yards per game. He rarely fumbles the ball. He catches a huge % of passes thrown his way. 6'3, 220... solid speed. My point... he's done virtually everything else that you could point to to be an all-time great WR. He's had plenty of times where he's shown true "playmaker" ability, even resulting in touchdowns, both by virtue of being a tall, big receiver, or by outrunning a guy. So when you factor all that in, and say "why hasn't he caught more touchdowns?"... isn't the most obvious answer that it's something that is NOT Andre Johnson related? That it's QB, playcalling, play design, whatever? We can at a high level say it definitely seems like playcalling. I still have a hard time thinking about many (or any) instances where the team is within the 10 yard line and they just do the back corner route that other teams have a ton of success on. I think the easiest stat would be to just look and see "thrown to in the end zone" stats for AJ versus other receivers. Maybe that stat doesn't exist, but since we know AJ has a very very high catch % every year, we can theorize that he just doesn't get the ball thrown to him in the end zone as much as other wide receivers. If you want to say that's because he's not a TD playmaker...well, ok... every other WR stat he excels in, and he has prototypical size and WR skills to be a perfect end zone receiver, so it is somewhat illogical that he would be fantastic otherwise, but get him in the end zone and he shrinks. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe there's a period early in his career, and again early in Kubiak's coaching career, where the team was trying to fee Johnson the ball in the end zone and his normally otherwise great production, etc. wasn't happening there so the coaches made a conscious effort to say "this dude just isn't a great WR for catching TDs, let's go a different direction"... but I don't think that's the case. The Texans offense seemed to stink for years with Carr, seemed to be even worse in the red zone, and wasn't ever really a great red zone offense with Kubiak until Foster started dominating, at which point Foster became the go-to crutch. If you go back and look at Broncos stats when Kubiak was the OC, they had a couple of years where guys would grab 10-14 TDs, but for the most part they didn't have any prolific WR touchdown guys... especially considering Sharpe (a TE... another thing Kubiak seems to prefer in the end zone) was one of those 10+ TD guys for a few years. TL;DR... As for Kubiak, I can't imagine why another team would want to hire him as a HC. It's not just that he was at best average as the Texans HC, it's that his strengths as a coach seem to be more and more marginalized given the direction the NFL is heading.
Considering the Cardinals offense hasn't been worth a damn since 2009, I don't think anybody is surprised by this.
I think you make good points. Agree with most of them. I still think Dre is a great solid receiver who needed better QB play. And of course practically any receiver would be better with better QB play... But the same can be said about Calvin. Stafford may be better than Schaub at his best but not by much, IMO. Josh Gordon had a great year and he had nobodies throwing to him.
Wondering if Kubes gets HC will he also be given playcalling duties? If so its gotta suck to be a lions fan for the next few years.
I'm, like, 88% with you - the system runs (essentially) horizontal and looks for spaces to "sit" - I get it. But he hasn't spent his entire career in Kubiak's system - he wasn't a vertical threat 2003-2005, either - and that was playing for a QB, if nothing else, had a significantly better arm than anyone Kubiak has employed, post-2006. (Smaller sample size, I know; inferior coaching, too - nothing here is absolute, and I'm not trying to suggest it is. I'm just pointing out that, in 11 NFL seasons spanning two regimes/QBs, the one constant in AJ not being a vertical threat is... well, AJ.) Further, Rice played in a very similar offense – and was listed as one of AJ’s “if only” scenarios in an earlier post – and he scored a TD every 7.8 receptions. AJ, who has caught more passes than (virtually) every other WR in football during the Kubiak era, has a ratio of 1:14.7 catches, which is pretty atrocious. Doesn’t he shoulder *some* of that burden? (Again, not as much as Carr/Schaub and Kubiak - but is it none? I just don't buy it.) Looking at other past/present peer WRs: Moss - 1:6.8 Owens - 1:7 Calvin Johnson - 1:8.7 Fitzgerald - 1:9.7 Gordon - 1:9.7 Marshall - 1:12.5 (9.5 w/ Chicago) Green – 1:8.9 Dez – 1:7.3 D. Thomas – 1:8 D. Jackson – 1:11.1 (higher than I would have guessed) And lastly. Wes Welker – 1:15.8…….
