Dave Gettleman/Ron Rivera....comments made me think

I live in Charlotte, so my talk radio is basically Panthers, Panthers, Panthers.

Anyway, if you have watched that team in the offseason you would know that they basically sent all of their WRs out the door this offseason. The coach/GM of the team have been on the record as saying what they need to do is produce the same 10 catches per game they averaged last year from their WRs.

I thought about this for our team. We had 220 catches last year from our WRs. That works out to about 14 catches per game from our WRs.

Last year our current top 5...

Brown 110
Moore 37
Wheaton 6
DHB 29
Moye 1
TOTAL....183

That is 37 WR receptions short. Now I would argue that it is likely that Brown will not have 110 catches again, so the number above (37) needs to go up some. Moore I think is probably good for almost 40 and DHB can probably get 25. Brown, lets project him to 90. That number then is 155 and we need to get 65 more catches from our WRs, or do we? Is that number likely to shrink due to an improved Defense and not needing to throw to stay in the game?

Can Wheaton get 50 of those? Brown went from 16 to 69 in his second year. Where and who do the additional catches come from?

 

I would be surprised if dhb makes the team.

 

We are going to draft a WR somewhere that will give us some production, plus, I really think Heath Miller is going to have a bounce back season and that will offset some of that....

 

he bought the heinz field new lights ..

 

Wheaton and the draft pick will make up the difference, give them 75 catches between the two.

 

heath miller will be back fully.

 

I think we missed the point of the topic. I read it as Wide Receiver core catches, not a combination from all positions. Using that then I would see them either grabbing an early WR from the draft or seeing more from Wheaton and Moye this year. (a Whole lot more)

 

Wheaton had 6 catches last year, playing as a #4 wideout and injured a good part of the year. Playing as a #2, which he is this year unless we draft Evans, he'll be good for 50-60 catches. Or more. Problem solved.

 

I read it as we had 220 wr catches and we would come up short by 37 and where will the other catches come from. I think the wr's don't catch as many and heath and bell make that 220 number go up but not all by the wr's. I believe we threw to them more because we didn't have heath and we didn't know bell was that good at it.

 

I think the WR spot is a huge question mark. Even drafting a high WR, I'd be surprised to see that person make up more than a 12-24 catches. Look back, even A. Brown only had 16 rookie catches. Rookie WR's have a hard time producing in the NFL. We'll pickup more receptions from Heath since he'll be healthy, and maybe we get a stud rookie TE that produces 15-20 receptions? Hard to really say at this point..... but we do know that Ben will throw the ball regardless of who's out there to catch it.

 

Well you already have to factor in TE & RB receptions, 2013 Ben completed 375 passes...... so if you are expecting 200-225 from WR's then you'd expect 150-175 from TE's & RB's, right? No the actual mix doesn't matter, but you do need the WR's to be a threat and with a couple new veterans it's hard to say how much, if any, they'll contribute. Cotchery's first two years only netted 16 & 17 receptions respectively.... hard to really project either Moore or DHB exceeding those numbers in a new offense.

 

That's what I worry about sometimes. Granted Ben seemed like he didn't make as many boneheaded plays as the season progressed, I just hope he can continue that trend

 

I think some of your are missing the point...Ben had 375 completions. 220 of those completions went to WRs, half of which went to AB. Where do we get those kind of completion numbers this coming year?

 

Brown was a 6th rd pick and he had veterans ahead of him like Ward, Wallace and Sanders was a higher draft pick that season. A rookie WR will produce because there is no established #2 WR yet.

 

I'd be utterly shocked if Moore only manages 16 catches this year. He will be in the game a lot, and he is pretty darn good. I look for something like this:

AB - 100
Wheaton - 45
Moore - 40
Rookie - 20

That's 205 from your top 4, and whoever number 5 is should put us close to that 225 mark. I really think people are selling Lance Moore short. He could easily come in and get 40+ grabs for us this year. He's a hell of a wideout.

 

What is #7's winning percentage when he throws
less than 35/game? Get back to Steeler football
and watch the victories mount. Bell is a talent
in both the run game and the passing game.
you would be a fool not to use this talent.
Even out the run/pass ratio and watch the
w's add up.

 

I'd kind of expect the TE's to get more receptions overall anyway. this is the first time in 3 years TH has had a couple of vets healthy at TE since he's been here.

I'd expect him to actually use spaeth when in the game. haley likes TE's and RB's more than BA did. it's a little different with spaeth here under todd than under bruce. add bell and we would have all mismatches underneath if we sent our speed wr's deep to suck the DB's back. spaeth, heath and bell can do some damage against a SS or LB'ers. anyway I think there will be plenty of targets available on any given play. that's not even counting will J. getting used more hopefully.

DHB, wheaton, AB, moore and even moye have speed to get deep. so one on one they are still dangerous deep. these guys aren't slouches. I see one heck of a mix here for ben to pick and choose from.

 

this is an unfair assessment....... first of all, the colts and saints spread the ball around fairly well...second, what were the total receptions for the colts and saints top 5 last yr......... third, we will run the ball a lot more than the saints or colts ever will.......... yes, we'll be drafting a wr, but when was the last time a 1st yr. receiver on our team made a significant impact
I also believe as some have mentioned that a fully healthy heath miller will be much more involved in the passing game, as well as bell, not to mention Wheaton's 2nd yr. development....

everybody relax.............. we will be just fine

 

They are going to a more balanced attack on offense this year, they expect Bell to break a 1000 YDS and Lagarret to get 5 to 600 YDS, more ground pounding time consuming drives and negating the need for 220 catches...

 

Heath will get 55-65 catches and Bell will get around 40 the passing game will be fine, they just need to draft the right rookie WR.