AndyJohnson said:
What? Boldin fell in the draft because of a terrible 40 time. He is not fast. Branch has possibly the best hands in the NFL. There have been posts on this board, if you have been paying attention saying he has among the fewest drops, and one of thehighest caught/thrown to ratios in the NFL.
If Boldin caught 102 out of 670 pass attempts in Arizona how do you figure he catches 100 here when we threw it 106 fewer times?
Again, this is a case where stats are deceptive.
If the Chargers were as a bad as the Cardinals, and were far behind every game, so that Tomlinson only got 200 carries and ran for 900 yards, is he a worse player? You have to consider how stats are arrived at not just what they are.
How do you account for the value of Branch being on a team that won 54 games in 4 years vs Boldin playing for a doormat? Surely the ability to make plays that WIN games must factor in right?
Let me guess, you are one who believes Vinatieri being let go is a disaster becuase he had made kicks that won games, but at the same time place zero value on Deion Branch being part of a winner, because you gawk at the stats Boldin put up while losing games by 20 points.
Yes, he put up a slow 40 time. We know how much that means in the real world. The 40 is a useless measurement, period. Boldin is plenty fast on a football field, and I've seen him run away from defenders on numerous occasions. Neither guy has eye-popping straight line speed, and I've not seen any appreciable difference in terms of gameday speed between them. As for hands, Deion does have excellent hands, I've never disputed that. I think Boldin's are better. He snatches the ball as well as any receiver in the NFL, he's not a body catcher at all, he has large enough hands to reach back and catch the ball one-handed, and he doesn't put the ball on the ground much at all from what I've seen, which is quite a few Cardinals games (living in Texas and New Mexico these past few years... ugh). I personally believe his hands are equal if not superior to Deion's, but regardless, it's not something that would put distance between the two.
And I agree that context of the stats matters - I've often advocated the use of situational stats to get a real picture of how a player is performing. Here's the thing though - despite more throws by the Cardinals, Boldin has another 100 catch receiver opposite him snagging passes, which surely cuts into his production, and he's had at best a mediocre QB throwing to him most of his career. How do you adjust his stats for those facts? Give him Tom Brady and not Josh McCown or Jeff Blake or Kurt Warner and you really think his stats would regress, even with Brady's propensity for spreading the ball? Boldin is fantastic at just getting open and finding holes in a defense, and we all know Brady's favorite receiver is the one that is open. So how do I account for the fact that Branch has played on a winner and Boldin hasn't? That's pretty easy, Branch is a good player on a great team, Boldin is a great player on an awful team. Just look at the rosters. And Boldin has made most of the plays for the Cardinals in recent history that have won them games, because he's one of the few players that team has had.
And I don't appreciate your insinuation that I think losing Adam was a disaster. From day one, I've said letting him go was the right move, especially in light of Gostkowski being drafted, because he wanted too much money. Stop being a homer on this subject and throwing out attacks like that, you lose credibility on the subject when you do.
