Does SP Finally have Legit #1 WR Weapon in Thomas? (1 Viewer)

[dutar76]

It's hard for me to compare Thomas to Colston for many reasons. They belong in different eras of the Payton/Carmicheal/Brees offense with different supporting casts. Colston's rookie year, he was an anomoly. Now days we've had OBJ, Landry, Cooks, Green, Bryant, Demaryius, Cooper etc... come out their rookie season and just flat go off. Back when Colston came into the league, it was 3rd year WRs that were considered potential break-out guys.

Colston was clutch. Thomas looks like he's gonna be clutch for us. I think their roles in our offense are similar. Much easier for me to compare Snead and Lance Moore... Until Snead bleached his hair at least.

 

[Swimmer]

Demaryius Thomas 4.38
Dez Bryant 4.52
AJ Green 4.5

Overrated stat. 40 yard dash isn't always an accurate way to determine football speed. A lot of players get with track guys before the combine to work on their "take off" for this test. What makes the 3 guys listed (and Michael Thomas) so good is their routes, ability to get separation, and their hands. What pads their stats is the offensive system. If Julio were a Saint, he'd probably be about a 1,200 yard guy. If he were a Ram he'd be a 750 yard guy.

I remember Colston's rookie year that he was listed as a WR/TE in fantasy football. I tore 'em up that year. Back then, you didn't have TE's that made anywhere near WR stats, so he was ridiculous good.

Thx a bunch for the stats. So bottom-line, Thomas has enough speed to be an elite WR and a long-ball threat.

Edit: Oh yeah, now I remember the FF implications. The guy who won the league that year had Colston as a TE. That was the only position Yahoo had him listed. He killed it in FF.

 

[bobad]

Overrated stat. 40 yard dash isn't always an accurate way to determine football speed.

Sure is! A big guy like CGM or even Fleener are hard to run down if they get a step on the 4.4 smurfs.

 

[sfidc3]

They have different types of physicality. Colston's most productive spot was generally in the slot where he could use his size to create matchup problems against typically smaller slot corners, safeties, and linebackers. That he certainly had few issues going over the middle all the time knowing he was likely to take a big hit is a testament to his toughness.

However, the weakness of our receiving corps for years (Colston included) was that if a defense had the corners and safeties to come hit the receivers in the mouth and disrupt their timing, the offense sputtered badly. This was why we had trouble against teams like the 49ers, Rams, and Seahawks during that period. That's also the area where Thomas's physicality is clearly superior to Coltson's. Thomas handles that physicality at the line better. That's why we kept hearing that the quick slant is is 'best route' early in the season before we took him off the leash; he beats his guy consistently at the line of scrimmage to get into his route quickly, even if that guy is an excellent physical corner like Richard Sherman.

So it's not a slight against Colston is 'more physical'. I think he just meant that Thomas appears better suited to play against more physical corners than Colston was.

I guess that is why Colston had 11 for 144 and a TD against the Seahawks in the 2013 playoff game...and Sherman was covering him most of the time in that game, sorry, but you are dead wrong on this IMO.

They are different WR's no doubt, they both have their own skill sets that work for them, but to say Thomas is more physical than Colston is wrong...

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

I guess that is why Colston had 11 for 144 and a TD against the Seahawks in the 2013 playoff game...and Sherman was covering him most of the time in that game, sorry, but you are dead wrong on this IMO.

They are different WR's no doubt, they both have their own skill sets that work for them, but to say Thomas is more physical than Colston is wrong...

Actually you are wrong and about 88 of those yards came in garbage time while they were giving up certain routes. He won out of the slot a lot and we moved Colston around that game. You are remembering it how you want to remember it.

Your bias is showing

All this physical blah argument is boring me.

Colston was effective in Zone Thomas is more effective in man. Both were/are good at getting off press coverage but Thomas is faster out of breaks and gets more Separation in man. That's it..

/end argument

Regards,

 

[Mackenzie]

One thing I notice is that he's getting more confidence as he goes. He reminds me of Lance Moore at times in the way he knows he's going to catch it. He's not a jerk about it but just has more swag than most of our receivers including Colston.

 

[Swimmer]

Actually you are wrong and about 88 of those yards came in garbage time while they were giving up certain routes. He won out of the slot a lot and we moved Colston around that game. You are remembering it how you want to remember it.

Your bias is showing

All this physical blah argument is boring me.

Colston was effective in Zone Thomas is more effective in man. Both were/are good at getting off press coverage but Thomas is faster out of breaks and gets more Separation in man. That's it..

/end argument

Regards,

LMAO - Tell it like it is EJW!!! It's hard to fight what you presented.

There's a lot of us Who Dats who just love MC- and from your posts you have undying respect for Colston. And why not. I don't think I've ever heard any WhoDat say anything but praise and respect for MC.

What I tried to begin a conversation about in this thread is not whether Thomas is better than Colston, but does Thomas have the ability to be better than Colston. Does he have the ability to take over a game like Dez, or AJ Green, or D Thomas or Julio against top defenses.

I agree with you. Thomas upside appears to be immense. This kid is playing some of the top CBs in the league like pet toys, imho. And he's a freakin rookie.

 

[Vermont Saint]

Actually you are wrong and about 88 of those yards came in garbage time while they were giving up certain routes. He won out of the slot a lot and we moved Colston around that game. You are remembering it how you want to remember it.

Your bias is showing

All this physical blah argument is boring me.

Colston was effective in Zone Thomas is more effective in man. Both were/are good at getting off press coverage but Thomas is faster out of breaks and gets more Separation in man. That's it..

/end argument


Regards,

No. The game was physical and close, there was no garbage time. Next.

 

[sfidc3]

Actually you are wrong and about 88 of those yards came in garbage time while they were giving up certain routes. He won out of the slot a lot and we moved Colston around that game. You are remembering it how you want to remember it.

Your bias is showing

All this physical blah argument is boring me.

Colston was effective in Zone Thomas is more effective in man. Both were/are good at getting off press coverage but Thomas is faster out of breaks and gets more Separation in man. That's it..

/end argument

Regards,

Garbage time? in a game that ended in a one score difference? Who exactly is remembering it how they want to again?

Sure we moved him around but the majority of the time I remember Sherman covering him, does anyone else remember differently?

 

[saintsfan20]

Colston's stats his rookie year: 70 catches 1038 yards and 8 touchdowns. And he missed 3 games.

Colston's rookie year ('06) was also Drew Brees' first year in New Orleans, coming off a shoulder injury to his throwing arm. Brees and Colston instantly had a connection in Training Camp, Preseason, and right into the
06 season.

I am really loving what I'm seeing out of Michael Thomas for sure. I do feel like he could become a better WR than Colston. But we'll have to see what happens, because Michael Thomas isn't going to be playing Drew Brees his entire career like Marques Colston did (literally, his entire career).

I do feel the Thread Title is a little misplaced. "Finally have a #1 weapon?" We HAD as good a #1 WR you could ever ask for with Colston, and could line up ANYWHERE on the field. We also had this guy named Jimmy Graham, which most people would easily consider a "#1 weapon" in our Offense, just the same as Gronk is #1 in New England. Really, we only had last year that anyone could point to and say "we didn't have a true #1 target", and Cooks couldn't step up and be that primary target all day every day. Benjamin Watson's numbers were pretty good that year, and watching the games, you could tell he was Brees' go-to man in crunch time

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

Garbage time? in a game that ended in a one score difference? Who exactly is remembering it how they want to again?

Sure we moved him around but the majority of the time I remember Sherman covering him, does anyone else remember differently?

Are we talking about the playoff game where we started to make a push with like 3 min left when they were up two scores and playing prevent D and colston had the long catch and run?

Lol what game are u talking about because I was on a cruiseship for that game and while Lethe end score was close they had us in check for most of it and Colston got the majority of those yards on the series or two b4 the end of the game.

I could be sooo wrong but yeah I think u are trumping that up

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

GameDay: New Orleans Saints vs. Seattle Seahawks - NFL Videos

Here's the game.

We were down 16-0 in the 4th 24-8 in the last 3 min.

Drew had under a hundred yards at half.

Colston was targeted from the slot a lot. The two catches he had previously were not in Sherman and finally he had the long yardage play where he didn't go out of bounds. The TD was out of the slot looks like as well. He was lined up in the slot on a lot of those plays but we already know this about Marques...it's where he made his money.

Funny how some of us remember that game.


Regardless I'm not here to argue over a game. The prime objective was to point out how Thomas/Colston differ and Colston was used as a mismatch out of the slot. Thomas is used on the outside nearly 90% of the time. Both are physical/tough but Thomas has more suddenness and thus is much better against man to man than Colston was. Meanwhile Colston had the bigger catch radius and boxed out extremely well.

When Thomas figures out the slot..if we ever decide to use him that way he'll become dangerous capable of beating man and zone equally.

 

[StudioSaint]

GameDay: New Orleans Saints vs. Seattle Seahawks - NFL Videos

Here's the game.

We were down 16-0 in the 4th 24-8 in the last 3 min.

Drew had under a hundred yards at half.

Colston was targeted from the slot a lot. The two catches he had previously were not in Sherman and finally he had the long yardage play where he didn't go out of bounds. The TD was out of the slot looks like as well. He was lined up in the slot on a lot of those plays but we already know this about Marques...it's where he made his money.

Funny how some of us remember that game.


Regardless I'm not here to argue over a game. The prime objective was to point out how Thomas/Colston differ and Colston was used as a mismatch out of the slot. Thomas is used on the outside nearly 90% of the time. Both are physical/tough but Thomas has more suddenness and thus is much better against man to man than Colston was. Meanwhile Colston had the bigger catch radius and boxed out extremely well.

When Thomas figures out the slot..if we ever decide to use him that way he'll become dangerous capable of beating man and zone equally.

That Seattle game happened after Colston had been beat up for several years and by that point in his career he was mostly a zone beater that boxed out with his body.

However, early in his career he was very effective against man coverage as well. He had as good a 20 yard split time as any WR in his draft class and could beat press man coverage with both explosion and his size. He slowly lost some of that explosion after taking so many hits. It was a while back, so it's easy to forget that he routinely got past press man coverage to catch a lot of medium passes.

 

[sfidc3]

GameDay: New Orleans Saints vs. Seattle Seahawks - NFL Videos

Here's the game.

We were down 16-0 in the 4th 24-8 in the last 3 min.

Drew had under a hundred yards at half.

Colston was targeted from the slot a lot. The two catches he had previously were not in Sherman and finally he had the long yardage play where he didn't go out of bounds. The TD was out of the slot looks like as well. He was lined up in the slot on a lot of those plays but we already know this about Marques...it's where he made his money.

Funny how some of us remember that game.


Regardless I'm not here to argue over a game. The prime objective was to point out how Thomas/Colston differ and Colston was used as a mismatch out of the slot. Thomas is used on the outside nearly 90% of the time. Both are physical/tough but Thomas has more suddenness and thus is much better against man to man than Colston was. Meanwhile Colston had the bigger catch radius and boxed out extremely well.

When Thomas figures out the slot..if we ever decide to use him that way he'll become dangerous capable of beating man and zone equally.

Fair enough, but hardly "garbage time"....I mostly agree with your last 2 paragraphs...I believe Colston in his prime was good against any coverage ...