Is our receiving situation really that bad? (1 Viewer)

[Winter]

I'm just not convinced our receiving situation is as dire as people are claiming. I've seen posts about how "if we only had Team X's receivers, we'd be unstoppable". I took a look at some teams receiving production and I gotta say, we aren't as bad as people make it sound.

The Packers and Vikings are two teams we are often compared to and it's believed they have the superior receiving corps to the Saints. "If only we had the vikings receivers". But when looking at the stats for this year, all 3 offenses are almost identical in receiving production.

Saints


Packers


Vikings


All 3 offense produce almost identically with the exception of Green Bay spreading the ball around more evenly. We are actually eerily identical to the Vikings. Both use the RB and the TE is in top 4 in production. Both teams have key contributors missing games this year as well.

Now the Cowboys have, statistically, the best passing attack in the league and legit WR1 and WR2, but they are one of the few teams that can claim to have that. The Chiefs? Their best receiver this year is Kelce, the TE, by a long shot.

So there are arguably a couple teams (Cowboys, Falcons) with better receiving corps overall than the Saints, but to say we are only Michael Thomas and have no passing threat outside of that is just not true.

 

[St.Fury]

I said in a thread yesterday or day before, I believe Saints fans are used to us distributing the ball more evenly and to more receivers. But MT13 has just been balling out. He’s getting the bulk of the load. It probably has less to do with the other receivers and more to do with MT13 being that good.

 

[TribuneUK]

And I agree with both of you. People don't really consider the total targets on offer, somehow thinking that adding 'better' players will somehow increase the targets on offer.

Mike Thomas is a target hog. Alvin gets plenty of them too. Whatever morsels are left get distributed between 5-7 other players. And we pass the ball less now that we did earlier this decade. So there's little to go around and that's fine.

 

[David Robbins]

126 catches by WR's. Mike Thomas has 74% of those catches. Wow.

 

[David Robbins]

Player	Rec	Yds	Yds/Rec	Long	TD
Michael Thomas	94	1141	12.1	42	5
Alvin Kamara	51	373	7.3	41	1
Latavius Murray	27	165	6.1	17	1
Jared Cook	23	275	12.0	31	3
Ted Ginn	22	310	14.1	45	2
Josh Hill	17	168	9.9	29	1
Taysom Hill	10	102	10.2	36	3
Tre'Quan Smith	6	88	14.7	28	1
Zach Line	6	36	6.0	12	0
Deonte Harris	3	10	3.3	9	0
Dan Arnold	2	25	12.5	19	0
Austin Carr	1	9	9.0	9	0
Dwayne Washington	1	6	6.0	6	0

OK. Look at this list of receiving options. Mike has caught 94 balls. The next WR on the list is Teddy with a whopping 22 receptions. The disparity is off the charts!

Heck, Jared Cook, whom we all thought was not living up to his free-agent signing status has caught more balls than any of our other WR's!

Murray and Kamara have combined for 78 receptions, and they are RB's. Yes, this is a problem for our team.

 

[TribuneUK]

126 catches by WR's. Mike Thomas has 74% of those catches. Wow.

I am taller than 100% of my children. Wow.

And just as irrelevant

 

[BCK30]

Well put me in the "I'm concerned" pack. I just believe that when you get in the Playoffs you're playing better teams that are capable of taking your bread and butter away. Can you honestly say you're comfortable with the Saints chances if say the 49ers or Vikings can take away MT13 and our running game struggles against a stout front? How will the Saints move the ball then without a capable receiver who can catch and get reasonable separation? In my opinion, I believe this is a legitimate concern. Think about it, There are a huge group of Saints fans calling for the team to sign Dez Bryant...a guy who hasn't played in years. That should tell you how most fans are not confident in the receiver corps after Can't Guard Mike.

 

[csg1027]

The concern is more about balance and distribution, not overall passing production or efficiency. The issue, I think, is what happens when a good defense can limit CGM and AK? Who steps up and can make that clutch catch? (Don't say Dan Arnold...)

 

[David Robbins]

Well put me in the "I'm concerned" pack. I just believe that when you get in the Playoffs you're playing better teams that are capable of taking your bread and butter away. Can you honestly say you're comfortable with the Saints chances if say the 49ers or Vikings can take away MT13 and our running game struggles against a stout front? How will the Saints move the ball then without a capable receiver who can catch and get reasonable separation? In my opinion, I believe this is a legitimate concern. Think about it, There are a huge group of Saints fans calling for the team to sign Dez Bryant...a guy who hasn't played in years. That should tell you how most fans are not confident in the receiver corps after Can't Guard Mike.

Yea, some people take the Half-Empty, Half-Full argument too far. I'm not dissing on my team, just expressing a concern. Most of the people who are going the other way are probably some of the same who was expressing the opinion that we needed to do something in Free-Agency or the Draft in the off-season to address this situation. The numbers don't lie. We need to consider this a problem area. I'm not saying that Dez will come in and fix the situation. I'm saying that we need to knock all the tires, just to see if some of the bad air can come out. It couldn't hurt. And, if it could help, then what have you lost?

 

[SonOfNOLA]

I don’t know why it’s so hard to accept that Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara are our top two receivers. We’re no longer a pass-heavy offense that makes a #2/#3 WR on paper relevant.

Listed “WRs” is not how our target pecking order works. Thomas, Kamara, and Cook are our top 3 receiving threats. We’re winning over 80% of our games the last 3 seasons with the formula of targeting the best pass-catchers on the field. Everyone else on the WR depth chart gets in where they fit in if they able to make themselves noticeable via getting open to consistently make plays

 

[TribuneUK]

Player	Rec	Yds	Yds/Rec	Long	TD
Michael Thomas	94	1141	12.1	42	5
Alvin Kamara	51	373	7.3	41	1
Latavius Murray	27	165	6.1	17	1
Jared Cook	23	275	12.0	31	3
Ted Ginn	22	310	14.1	45	2
Josh Hill	17	168	9.9	29	1
Taysom Hill	10	102	10.2	36	3
Tre'Quan Smith	6	88	14.7	28	1
Zach Line	6	36	6.0	12	0
Deonte Harris	3	10	3.3	9	0
Dan Arnold	2	25	12.5	19	0
Austin Carr	1	9	9.0	9	0
Dwayne Washington	1	6	6.0	6	0

OK. Look at this list of receiving options. Mike has caught 94 balls. The next WR on the list is Teddy with a whopping 22 receptions. The disparity is off the charts!


Heck, Jared Cook, whom we all thought was not living up to his free-agent signing status has caught more balls than any of our other WR's!

Murray and Kamara have combined for 78 receptions, and they are RB's. Yes, this is a problem for our team.

No, not a problem. Sean Payton doesn't care what position you play, only if you can help move the offense.

In 2006 our top receiver was a RB. The second guy was our #1 WR and caught 70 balls. And the #2 WR that year caught just 37. We reached the NFC championship game, ergo those big bad playoff defenses didn't do diddly to stop us without a 'real #2 WR'

Stop trotting out this flawed argument about #2 WR, puh-leese.

 

[sammymvpknight]

We have a HOF caliber WR and a bunch of guys who wouldn’t even make our 2011 team. If you want to call that a good WR Corp, whatever. I call it a mediocre at best WR Corp with a legendary WR that covers up a huge deficiency.

 

[BCK30]

Yea, some people take the Half-Empty, Half-Full argument too far. I'm not dissing on my team, just expressing a concern. Most of the people who are going the other way are probably some of the same who was expressing the opinion that we needed to do something in Free-Agency or the Draft in the off-season to address this situation. The numbers don't lie. We need to consider this a problem area. I'm not saying that Dez will come in and fix the situation. I'm saying that we need to knock all the tires, just to see if some of the bad air can come out. It couldn't hurt. And, if it could help, then what have you lost?

I just have a no nonsense approach to things like this bro...If Dez Bryant at this point of his career isn't better than Austin Carr who maybe has 3 catches the entire season, then I'll leave this subject alone.

 

[TribuneUK]

We have a HOF caliber WR and a bunch of guys who wouldn’t even make our 2011 team. If you want to call that a good WR Corp, whatever. I call it a mediocre at best WR Corp with a legendary WR that covers up a huge deficiency.

Are you judging them based on the number of targets they get? Because they aren't getting them due to the guys wearing #13, #41 and to a lesser extent #87. It's less targets, not necessarily less talent.

 

[meily]

it's not that bad because of the offensive design, but I think people would feel more comfortable if we had another receiving threat outside of Thomas, which in a lot of cases is Kamara which makes people uneasy because our other receivers are catching 1 or 2 balls a game if that.