That's a stupid statement
Are you saying Boldin would not ave more productivity catching passes from Brady than a struggling Flacco?
Think about it......Brady made Reche Caldwell look good,I am sure Boldin would have has more than 482 yards here,especially as a main downfield threat.
I like Boldin as a receiver, and there's no doubt he'd have been better with Brady throwing to him than Flacco. But I think you need to review Boldin's season before blaming it all on Flacco.
For one thing, Boldin is not a main downfield threat. He averaged 13.1 yards per catch last season. That's actually slightly above his career average of 12.9, so that's clearly not Flacco's fault. In fact, in his past 3 seasons in Arizona, he averaged 11.9 YPC.
In comparing his first season with the Ravens to the rest of his time in Arizona, one could argue there was a clear drop due to the type of offense and QB and all sorts of other variables. At the same time, he benefited greatly from having Larry Fitzgerald on the field with him. So it's not a clear apples to apples comparison. Sure, he got fewer passes. But he averaged more yards per catch. And he got more attention without a world-class WR on the field with him.
I was hoping we made a move for Boldin as well, but I'm happy with the production we got out of Branch. Consider:
Anquan Boldin cost the Ravens a 3rd and a 4th (they did receive a 5th in the deal).
Deion Branch cost us a 4th round pick.
Boldin got a contract extension with the Ravens as part of the trade for 3 years, $25M.
Branch was paid $5.5M in 2010, and agreed to reduce his contract to around $2.2M with another $2M in incentives for 2011.
Boldin caught 64 passes for 837 yards and 7 TDs in 16 games, averaging 13.1 YPC.
Branch caught 61 passes for 818 yards and 6 TDs in 15 games, averaging 13.4 YPC.
Again, not apples to apples. If I had to guess at how much better Boldin could be playing with Brady, I'd start with the catch to target ratio first. If we look at Boldin's last 3 Arizona seasons, this number was around 69%. However, last year with the Ravens and Flacco:
Boldin caught 64 of 109 targets for 59%.
Branch caught 61 of 92 targets for 66%.
Targets are tough to decipher because they can mean many things. Obviously part of that is that Brady is more accurate than Flacco. But it clearly also shows Boldin got plenty of opportunities.
As for comparing to Boldin's last 3 seasons in Arizona, I picked those because Kurt Warner was the starter for those seasons. Obviously Warner is a much different type of QB than Brady, but they both have excellent accuracy. During this time, Boldin never averaged more than 12.1 YPC though, which suggests a lot of catches were in the short to intermediate passing game.
At the same time, Branch's season with the Patriots is based on 10 games. He missed the last week to rest an injury, and the first few weeks with Seattle, he wasn't a primary receiver. If you calculate his numbers across an entire season, you end up with similar results.
Boldin (69% completion)
75 catches, 983 yards, 109 targets
Branch (65% completion)
77 catches, 1032 yards, 118 targets
Or you could argue Boldin gets more targets here and catches a higher percentage. But he has a lower YPC historically so it still doesn't work out to much of a difference. In terms of TD ratio compared to catches, there's a slight difference of around half a catch last season, and around 0.75 catches over the course of a career.
Which is all a long way of saying there really wasn't much of a difference no matter how you want to slice this up.
You can argue Boldin is a better receiver than Branch. And maybe after exhausting tons of statistics, you might be right. But the difference won't be by much, and certainly nowhere near enough to justify $6M/season the next 3 years or the continued longing for Boldin in the line-up. I just don't get why this is such a big deal still.
