Devil's Advocate: Success at the Wide Receiver position

An addendum. I was looking at Domino’s basic numbers from last year (ESPN’s), and without the YAC, to me it looks like, aside from the Illinois game, Gabbert locked on to him at the Colorado game. Again, I don’t have his YAC numbers, which I assume are high. But what this limited information tells me is that Gabbert TRIED to start out the year spreading it around, then figured out that Alexander was money. Honestly, I see this next season playing out a bit like that, though I do believe the spread will be distributed to 2-3 specific individuals…but I also believe this will be accompanied by a more balanced rushing/passing numbers. Not more rushes, but I believe more out of the rushing attempts.

If one or two of Moe/Woodland/Washington/Egnew/Stricker/any of the freshman don’t play well, then they get replaced by the next in the line. It’s more certain that we’ll get acceptable production from that area, even if the attrition takes a little time. On the other hand, Jackson and Kemp are pretty entrenched, and save injury, are going to play the vast majority of snaps. If they underperform, then they have the capability to drag down the passing attack moreso than a guy who will simply lose his spot if he drops a couple balls.

In 2007 and 2008, it wasn’t an either-or situation. The ball was still getting spread around a lot, but Maclin in particular was a threat to break a huge play at any given moment, but the fact of the matter was that we had other receivers (and tight ends) all over the place who had no problem coming down with the ball and making some plays.

That being said, I feel pretty good about the possibility of both of those things happening again. That is, that at least one player will turn into that big play threat, and that everyone else will be at least able to play possession. In general, I have every confidence in this coaching staff’s ability to assemble a high-scoring offense, especially if Gabbert makes the jump we all hope he does in terms of the mental game and the running game comes together like we all thought it would last year.

but balanced poor performances get you nowhere. You need several high level performers paired with a couple of very high level performers.

I thought it was funny as hell.

If there are individuals stepping up every game, and we have a difficulty predicting who that receiver is, than I feel pretty confident about Mizzous chances.

How many times in 2009 was Danario Alexander able to bail out Blaine Gabbert? On several occasions, Gabbert seemed locked in on Alexander, and thanks to Alexander’s superior speed and ability to make plays on the ball, it wouldn’t matter. Was it explosive? Absolutely. Was it efficient? Not really.

To Gabbert’s credit, he did have one receiver with exponentially more talent than the others. I remember Chase Daniel, on several occasions, locking in on a certain player. -———>#9

With some transcendent players you can trade explosiveness for efficiency and make for a successful gameplan.

Although if Gabbert can get the ball to two wide receivers instead of half of his yardage going to one guy, I’m willing to consider that balance.

If you had just one of them performing superbly, I’d take the corps as a whole, but two standout receivers gives you double the reliability. Imagine if Gabbert had the confidence he had for Alexander in Kemp, or Perry as well.

spreading the ball so we’re not predictable. We need to be better at running the ball than we were last year, but we also have to have the TE back in the mix. I think that killed a lot of opportunity for the WR’s since it didn’t take long for D’s to figure out that we weren’t throwing to our ends.

 TJ Moe will be known now as “Mr. Automatic”. Drops are a thing of the past and he’ll be the clutch guy who will get the yards we must have to sustain a drive.

 Gabbert has to develop the touch to drop a pass on the tall TE’s like Daniel did. I don’t recall a single fade to the corner from him last year. Our ends are 6’5"+ and we need to use that to our advantage. But in 2009, Jones caught 8 passes and Egnew snagged all of 3 and between them they had 0 TD’s. That has to change if we want to keep defenses honest.

guys like Moe, Washington, Woodland, Egnew, etc.? If the defense has put more effort into shutting down Jackson/Kemp, wouldn’t that open up more space for the secondary guys?

Of course, that’s assuming Moe can catch the ball…which doesn’t seem to be a given.

It could be anybody that steps up to be a number 1 guy, and we do need a go-to receiver. Daniel had Rucker and Coffman as his go-to pass-catchers his first year as a starter, then he got Maclin to go along with them. Last year, Gabbert really only had one guy that he knew could make a play: that was Alexander. Gabbert is a very good quarterback, but he needs to have at least one or two guys that he knows will make a play for him. It could be Jackson or Kemp, it might be a younger receiver like TJ Moe, but there needs to be somebody to step up into a playmaker role.

Mizzou is in it. And Kemp has 75 Speed. Compared to Gabbert’s 79 Speed. Anyone feel like this is inaccurate or is it just me?