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Just because you picked the team to win the division does not change the age of the players on the roster. I don't know how you can look at the defense and not say it was rebuilding this year when it often featured 4 rookies and 8 new starters. They played great and expectations were raised exponentially but that doesn't change the roster turnover from 09.
The age of the players is irrelevant. They were expected to win the division/get a wild card by pretty much everyone. The thought was that the defense would struggle early and improve over the course of the year. That's what we saw.
Woodhead was not a rookie and Tate essentially was. Woodhead is catching screen passes and high percentage short passes while tate was asked to go deep.
Woodhead wasn't getting half of his team's snaps the year before, by any stretch of the imagination (15 total rushes and 8 catches), and Tate was able to spend some of his rookie season practicing and all of that season studying. It's not as if the guy went on IR during OTAs, after all. Tate's behind Woodhead in terms of experience, but he's not miles behind.
Tate had a grand total of 24 catches, while playing in all 16 games. That's only 1.5 receptions per game for the team's #2/#3 wideout.
Tate averaged 18 yards a pop in doing so. Again I'm not saying I don't expect more from Tate or Tate somehow had a good year. I'm just preaching patience with his development. Next year will be crucial for him.
You're changing your argument now, and I'm not going to play that one. What his future holds isn't what I'd posted about, since I've not said that the team should ditch the guy. I've simply said that they should bring in other receivers and let them all compete, or get a top shelf deep/speed receiver in free agency. What you posted that I'd originally responded to was I
agree with that. People are really quick to label and I think its because everybody, including myself, is bitter after that loss. I think its funny after one poorly executed gameplan people are immediately going back to the "We need a receiver over six foot' argument. This team averaged over 32 points a game with the current personnel, that's not to say they couldn't be improved upon but its far from a team full of castoffs and JAGs.
Tate was a picture perfect example of a JAG this year. He tallied a whopping 4 more catches this year than Aiken had last year, while playing in 2 more games and getting 3 more starts. I'd love to seem him make a big improvement next year. I'm just not down with the notion of staying pat and relying upon it. The team could certainly find a way to massage the roster and add another wideout, after all.
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