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Did we really have 3 of the top 6 leaders in dropped passes?


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Have to consider how many of the passes were catchable. Dobson has nine dropped passes. only three were the result Dobson's hands, Three others were back-shoulder passes, and two more were the result of poor throws. The others fall in the "difficult play" category. I found the data from Nick Underhill.
 
I get that stats don't tell the whole story and I did watch the games - this all came up from a debate on reddit about how good Dobson's hands were. I was just surprised to see how many names on our team were high up the list.
 
Vereen caught 47 in a year where we didn't have many decent receiving options, so I'm not quite as convinced as you that he'll definitely be topping much more than 60.

Woodhead snagged 40 his last year here (2012) when we had better receiving threats, and Faulk had something in the high 50's the year Brady was hurt and Cassel was doing things a bit unconventionally in 2008.

I feel that something around 55-60 is reasonable to assume myself, under "reasonable" receiving and quarterbacking circumstances. It's possible that he ends up with more, but that may point to injuries or a lack of production from our WRs/TEs again (much like Woodhead's 76 this year with SD and their limited options/production outside of rookie Keenan Allen).

As we'll all agree--as long as the team goes far, we won't care too much "how" they specifically do it.

You realize the 47 receptions Vereen had was in 8 games, right?

That's a pace of 80-90 receptions over 16 games.
 
You realize the 47 receptions Vereen had was in 8 games, right?

That's a pace of 80-90 receptions over 16 games.

That happened in a year where we had absolutely no effective or even reasonable receiving targets due to several different situations, which was 100% my whole entire point.

Once again....our high in the past with "normal" circumstances was Faulk with 58 (which happened the year where Brady was injured and Cassel was doing his own thing somewhat differently). Many of those years saw Faulk and Woodhead catching about 40-45-50 passes, so I would assume an upgrade in those numbers. 90 catches though? No...that would mean that Vereen would be receiving about 120+ targets. That isn't likely to happen under normal circumstances at all.

We could see something in the range of Woodhead's 76 this year with SD, sure. I understand that. My point is that if that happens, then there's a decent chance that we're either experiencing injury or having a somewhat poorer year again from our TE/WR production again.

As I stated in the concluding sentence = I don't think it really matters how we get the production, as none of us will care about fantasy stats from specific players, but if you're actually expecting Shane Vereen to have more than about 60-65 catches, there's a high percentage of odds that point towards ineffectiveness in other areas; and that's exactly what we saw this past season.
 
I get that stats don't tell the whole story and I did watch the games - this all came up from a debate on reddit about how good Dobson's hands were. I was just surprised to see how many names on our team were high up the list.

If you recall, there was a nice media surge questioning whether Brady was past it by game 5 and the declining numbers were entirely on him and the effects of age. A genuinely ridiculous discussion if one actually watched the first six games.

On the up side, the rookies did show improvement, and frankly it would have come as a big surprise if they were catching everything thrown in their vicinity as rookies. I expect they will look significantly better next season.
 
You realize the 47 receptions Vereen had was in 8 games, right?

That's a pace of 80-90 receptions over 16 games.

But do any of us really think he will play a 16 game season? He isn't very durable. If we had him for 16 games a year..this O would be even more deadly
 
I get that stats don't tell the whole story and I did watch the games - this all came up from a debate on reddit about how good Dobson's hands were. I was just surprised to see how many names on our team were high up the list.

The names & numbers on the dropsies list should not surprise anyone in the least.
And it shouldn't surprise anyone to see the same names on the list next season either.
 
Mitigating circumstances notwithstanding we weren't the only team starting a rookie or playing a vet who had injury issues. Just a surprise, really, and hopefully something we won't see repeated next year.
 
Stone's Dropson moniker was SPOT ON apparently.

And why would back shoulders be excluded.
 
Dobson's numbers are skewed. He had four dropped balls in his first game of his career. He had three to five dropped balls the rest of the season (depending on which stat aggregator you want to look at since the OP's link says he dropped 7 balls and Stats Inc says he dropped 9). Once he got acclimated to the offense, his dropsie problem went away.

This is the problem with these numbers. They don't tell the whole story. You take away his first game of his career and he really didn't have a lot of dropped balls at all. You include that one game and he becomes Aaron Dropson.
 
Here is Nick Underhill's analysis of each of the nine drops by Dobson this season. He seems to have a pretty good analysis and unbiased. He blames three clearly on Dobson, three back shoulder throws which he says Dobson struggled with (more of him needing to work on technique than a hands problem), and two on bad throws (not sure where he puts the ninth).

1. Week 2 against the Jets, pass on the sideline: There are no excuses to be made for this one. Dobson ran an out to the left, got open and simply let the ball go through his hands. Cornerback Dee Milliner was on his back and the pass caused Dobson to leave his feet, but the catch should have been made.

2. Week 2 against the Jets, deep pass down the right sideline: This one was tough. Dobson got open and was in position to make a play – and would have if the pass had arrived a few inches shorter. But as it was, the rookie had to stretch to get his fingertips on the ball. He managed to pull it in to where he could make a play, but he lost his balance and fell. The ball came loose as he rolled on the turf.

3. Week 2 vs. Jets, pass on the sideline: In what was a common theme early in the season, Dobson failed to corral a back-shoulder catch. He and quarterback Tom Brady struggled with this connection until finally hooking up for a touchdown during a Week 9 game against the Steelers. On this one, Dobson let the ball go through his hands with Darrin Walls in coverage.

4. Week 3 vs. Buccaneers, pass over the middle: This one gets scored as a drop, and Dobson should have made the play, but Brady didn't make it easy. The pass was thrown behind Dobson, which caused him to stop his route and lunge upfield to make a play on the ball.

5. Week 6 vs. Saints, pass to the left: Dobson ran a route over the middle and was wide open. The ball hit him in the hands, but he turned upfield before gaining control. Better concentration would have prevented this inexcusable error.

6. Week 6 vs. Saints, pass over the middle: Dobson attempted a body catch on a short pass and the ball fell to the turf after it hit him in the numbers. A reception likely would have resulted if he extended his arms a bit.

7. Week 7 vs. Jets, pass down the left sideline: Tough to call this one a drop since Milliner provided such good coverage and the pass came in close to Dobson's knees. But he got his hands on the ball and again failed to reel in a back-shoulder pass.

8. Week 9 vs. Steelers, pass down the right sideline: Another back-shoulder botch with tight coverage from William Gay.

9. Week 9 vs. Steelers, pass over the middle: With more tight coverage from Gay, Dobson got his hands on the ball but failed to pull it in. The pass appeared to come in behind him.

Every one of these plays could have resulted in a catch. But upon review, three were inexcusable, three were back-shoulder passes – with which Dobson struggled – and two others were the result of iffy throws.

It's hard to put much blame on Dobson for the deep pass against the Jets, since it would have taken an incredible effort to make the play. A couple of the back-shoulder passes, however, could possibly be placed in the inexcusable category.
A look back at the 9 passes Aaron Dobson dropped this season | masslive.com

EDIT: Looks like Underhill missed one of the official drops in the first Jets' game since he had four and counted one that was not given to him as a drop.
 
I'm not going to fault Vereen too much, it was pretty clear that the cast that he was wearing on his wrist was messing with him.
 
I expect Dobson to make a big leap forward next season. Coming out of Marshall his best attribute was suppose to be his hands after not dropping a pass his entire senior season and making a number of circus catches. As others have pointed out most of his drops came early in the season which I attribute mostly to nerves. Early on you could see he wasn't comfortable or confident in what he was doing. Hopefully year 2 he will have the confidence and belief that he belongs and we will see the type of player he was in college, a smooth, soft handed athlete that caught everything thrown his way.
 
I'm not going to fault Vereen too much, it was pretty clear that the cast that he was wearing on his wrist was messing with him.

I agree, FTW. As others have pointed out, the problem seemed to continue once the soft cast was removed however, and that is a bit of a concern for sure. There were still at least a few solid examples of those wheel routes at the end of the season where he continued to flat our drop balls in exactly the same manner.

As I said in another post, maybe there's a possibility that he was so used to having it on for so long that he still felt like it was there or something? We won't know until next season, of course. Personally, I'm not as concerned, seeing as how he'll have a ton of looks and make plenty of nice plays (if healthy). It would be nice to see that it was a 2013 thing, though.
 
I expect Dobson to make a big leap forward next season. Coming out of Marshall his best attribute was suppose to be his hands after not dropping a pass his entire senior season and making a number of circus catches.

Not meaning to nitpick, but this is a popular misconception that has been proven incorrect many times.

As a matter of fact, he had a game where he dropped multiple balls, although it may have been in a bowl game or senior bowl, etc. I honestly didn't follow Marshall closely enough to remember, but I know the subject has been brought up a ton of times.

Your point is quite valid however, so that's what matters. Hopefully he makes the year two leap that we're going to need.
 
I'm not going to fault Vereen too much, it was pretty clear that the cast that he was wearing on his wrist was messing with him.

Vereen had similar kinds of drops last year, without the cast. It may just be who he is.
 
We don't really know who led the league in dropped passes because the drops stat is done so poorly.
 
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