Saints TQS (1 Viewer)

Ok, this got very long, but I think I did a pretty good job on it.

Let's break the offense down, there were 581 passes thrown last year. 418 were caught and 163 were incomplete for a 71.9% completion percentage.

Of those 418 completions, 169 of them went to RBs and TEs (I put Taysom's in as TEs)

That leaves 59.5% of the completions left to go to the WRs.

The problem is, Michael Thomas is so good, he commanded 59.8% of those remaining targets and 35% of the total completions. This only leaves 100 completions to go to every other WR on the team.

Last year, Michael Thomas had 149 completions, not targets. Let's put that into perspective and look at the 2012-2014 seasons.

In 2012, Graham and Colston had a combined 168 completions
In 2013, they had 161 completions
in 2014, they had 144 completions

My point is this, Michael Thomas is quite possibly the best WR in the NFL right now at getting open and he is probably the biggest security blanket as well. He also had the most completions in the history of the NFL in one season. In the 2012 to 2014 seasons when we had Jimmy Graham and Colston, Drew would constantly key on them and we all would agree that it seemed to hurt the offense. In those years, we never blamed the other WRs for needing to step it up, we blamed the offense and Drew (in a way) for honing in.

Now we key to last year, and maybe a little bit of the year before, and we all want to say that it's a lack of a 2nd WR stepping up. The biggest difference between the 2012-2014 years and last year to me isn't the fact that the QBs are "honing in" it's the fact that Michael Thomas is just that good.

You had only 100 completions left to be spread around 16 games and that leaves 6.25 completions per game. TQS had some injuries and only played in 11 of those games. TQS caught 72% of the balls thrown to him. So in his situation, injuries hurt and a lack of completions thrown to hurt his physical numbers.

On the positive side, 20% of his targets and 27.7% of his completions went for touchdowns.

Moving on to this year, Emmanual Sanders will be a better no. 2 WR then TQS because he's simply better. TQS will probably have more catches and probably the same amount of TDs. Jared Cook is only going to be better in his 2nd year. This is probably all going to mean that Michael Thomas just isn't going to set any NFL records this year.
 
He's got the physical tools to be a consistent contributor. Gotta somehow shake the bad luck with the injuries. Mentally, if he couldn't handle the playbook he wouldn't be here at all. And there's precedent in the Payton era with this, Robert Meacham. Didn't play at all his rookie season and only a little bit during his second year. Light came on full-blast his third season, which of course was the Super Bowl year.
 
Moving on to this year, Emmanual Sanders will be a better no. 2 WR then TQS because he's simply better. TQS will probably have more catches and probably the same amount of TDs. Jared Cook is only going to be better in his 2nd year. This is probably all going to mean that Michael Thomas just isn't going to set any NFL records this year.
Which is in all likelihood better for long term success, it's not a good strategy to expect and rely on 1 player to maintain an All-time record breaking pace, it's unsustainable and probably better for the players health to not rely on such a high volume workload and instead spread that out a little more among slightly improved 2nd and 3rd options.

Also you have to plan for Big game Play-Off situations where the best Defensive Coordinators are going to be dead-set on taking away Michael Thomas by doubling him every play.... like Wade Phillips, and Mike Zimmer did.. you can break records in the regular season but it doesn't matter in a One game elimination season if a Defense takes away what you do best and your Offense shuts down because it has no other good answers.
 
I'll just say it's put up or shut up for TQS. He's gotta stay healthy and get it done.

this. This year will make or break him. I have no expectations from him at this point so anything we get will be lagniappe. We were patient with Devery Henderson for something like 4 or 5 years but that is because Henderson had what can't be taught. TQS doesn't have that same skill set.
 
Sorry to be blunt but TQS can not be relied on. We have to act like we will get 0 production from him and be pleasantly surprised if otherwise.
 
Hey, 25% of his catches were TD's. That's not too shabby. Health was his biggest problem last season so let's see if a healthy TQS can keep up the TD% with more targets and catches since he'll likely have one of the opponent's weaker DB's covering him too.
 

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