Why is he best suited to a possession role? He gets open downfield with regularity. He currently leads the NFL with 7 deep receptions and also happens to have the best catch rate on deep passes among those who have a significant number of deep receptions. And it's not just this year. Last year he was in the top 30 in the NFL in deep receptions even though Marshall was getting a lot of the targets. He has also shown a penchant for getting CBs to commit pass interference, which is often as good as getting the reception. He has a career ypc of 15.8, which is very good. A few yards per catch better than Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald or Roddy White. Why would you want to take away that deep production and make him just a possession receiver. I guess it takes more than a Ted Ginn and a Clyde Gates for people to grasp that great speed does not equal great deep pass production and that average speed (for an NFL WR) does not mean you can't have great deep pass production. Hartline's 14 deep receptions for 531 yards since the start of the 2011 season is more than Ted Ginn, Darius Heyward-Bey, Clyde Gates, Devin Hester and Jacoby Ford COMBINED (12 receptions for 415 yards). It is also more than guys like Roddy White, Desean Jackson and Andre Johnson. So we should definitely stop sending Hartline downfield and should make sure we draft whichever WR posts the best 40 time at the combine.
Okay, fun new challenge. Name ten black guys known as great possession receivers and ten white guys known as deep threats. Then trace their family histories back and figure out who owned whom. (The history of mankind is so ****ed up.) Seriously though, I wish people would drop the assumptions and just look at the numbers and the play on the field.
If you're going to add a third receiver and move Bess to the slot, I think you're better served by having that new guy be someone with elite speed, since neither Hartline nor Bess have that, if only because it inserts someone into the offense who can outrun everyone on the opposing defense. Of course that person would also be the one who runs your fly routes and other deep routes.
It's still not clear to me why you would do that. If the guy "who can outrun everyone on the opposing defense" is like Ginn, Heyward-Bey, Clyde Gates or Jacoby Ford, or the sum of all of those guys, he will be still be less productive than Hartline on those routes.
I don't think of either of those guys as fast or even great deep threats, per se. They are rather in the mold of the big, physical WR's (ala TO). There's also - for the rest of the discussion on going - a difference between saying "Hartline can be effective on deep routes" and saying, "Hartline is fast" (relative to other NFL WR's). That said, Hartline is pretty physical at 6'2, 199.
Hartline isn't fast in terms of straight line speed. He is however quick. He ran one of the best 3-cone times at the combine the year he came out. It'd be nice if he could outrun defenders once he got behind them instead of getting caught from behind but I'm not going to complain about a guy who's catching 30 yard passes and getting run down. He gets open deep by running good routes, typically a double move. Something he's very good at. For those saying we need a guy with elite speed to complement Bess/Hartline I'd say our bigger need is a big WR who can be a mismatch in the redzone. That's the main thing we re missing. Give me a 6'4 4.5 guy who will go up and fight forsure the ball over a 5'11 4.4 guy any day. We ve had and have a guy still with great speed (Armstrong) and he hasn't done anything. Just like Ginn and Gates before him. I'm all for having a speedster if he can also run good routes and catch. We re in desperate need of a te/wr who can create a mismatch in the redzone at the moment.
Well of course the goal would be to have someone better than them. At that point you'd have someone who ran those routes more or less as well as Hartline, while increasing the overall speed of the offense. Hartline could then continue to do what he does best, which IMO is run possession routes, while continuing to frequently run double moves off of those and go deep, which he clearly also does well. The difference of course is that the safeties' attention would then be diverted to someone with great speed, rather than the all too non-threatening in that regard Davone Bess. It'll be interesting to see whether Hartline continues to be sufficiently productive deep as he becomes a stronger blip on other teams' radar in that regard. He may have had the YPC numbers to suggest he's always been productive in that way, but I think it's only this year that he's doing what will put him on DCs' radar. It could be that the best way to keep him productive that way going forward is to make teams pay for bracketing him by having a speedster on the opposite side.
I'm not big on throwing jump balls in the red zone. I think the better tack is to get the mismatch receiving tight end with the height you're talking about, so that he can become the big red zone target in the middle of the field, which is where I think plays are more efficiently run in a compressed field.
I don't disagree with that at all. I just meant we need a big bodied strong guy who can out fight someone in the redzone. I don't care if it comes from WR or TE. We just need a redzone mismatch. In a perfect world we draft or sign a playmaker at WR and draft a TE who can catch tds in the redzone.
Sure, I suppose if we can find the guy who runs a 4.3 and has size, runs great routes and has great hands we should get him. Those guys are very, very rare. And often, those guys don't end up distinguishing themselves as especially productive deep receivers even if they are productive receivers overall. Neither Hartline nor Bess need a speedster next to them to keep the safety away. Much of Hartline's intermediate work is nowhere near a safety and while Bess works the middle of the field very well, part of his talent there is finding where the safety isn't. As I have said a few times before, Hartline is very good at getting open deep, whether via speed, craftiness or otherwise. If we can add more guys who are also good at it, great. But it would be stupid to take away that part of Hartline's game and make him just an intermediate route guy.
I don't think he needs to have size. The model I'm talking about is the Tim Brown/James Jett one, where Brown was the go-to guy (commonly referred to as the "number one receiver"), and Jett was the downfield threat because of his speed alone. And I wouldn't take away that part of Hartline's game. I would simply add the speedster on the other side, while continuing to have Hartline do the possession stuff he currently does, and make double moves off of that. The difference would be that if teams gameplan to stop his double moves, you could make them pay deep and score with a James Jett/Lee Evans type, rather than having to simply move the chains with a shorter/intermediate passing game involving only Hartline and Davone Bess. In other words, if teams start putting a safety over the top to guard against Hartline's double moves, I want to burn them to a crisp and make game-changing plays with a 4.3 guy, rather than being relegated to a shorter, move-the-chains passing game all day.
I think Brian Hartline is a guy that can do anything you need him to do from the perimeter except score long touchdowns. Yes he scored an 80 yard touchdown on a completely busted play but he very, very nearly got caught from behind and prevented scoring the touchdown even though he had a tremendous lead to start out with the ball in his hands. And on other plays, such as another one against the Cardinals, he gets a couple of steps on a corner from the double move, catches the ball in stride, should be a 55 yard touchdown, but gets caught from behind. This is just something you're going to have to live with, with him. The other thing you're going to have to live with is that when you get inside the 20 he's not really helping you a whole lot because he doesn't have scary tangibles (strength, speed, size, or explosiveness). I don't know why there has to be such a big argument about this. His strengths and limitations are pretty readily apparent. His production will depend on who else you've got and what kind of system you run, how good your QB is. But his production will tend to be more yardage heavy than touchdown heavy.
LOL! This whole thread is so out of whack... and hillarious! How about this possibility. People are not robots, and make mistakes that cost milliseconds (WR's and/or CB/S). That is the difference between being a deep-threat or not. A receiver who runs good routes, and has one or two-cut-routes are far more likely to get open, as opposed to the "true deep threat" who just runs a Go route and beats his man. How many burners are good route runners? How many "deep threats" are true burners? I can think of a couple: Mike Wallace, and DeSean Jackson. IMHO, any given day, the difference between running a 4.3-40 and a 4.6-40 is a big lunch... Hey... White guys can't jump... how did Hartline do hurdles anyway?
He keeps playing like he's been lately they can call or describe him anyway they want. We've been waiting for him to consistently get open and make plays and he seems to have turned the corner. If we can get someone opposite him that really can command double teams we'd have a very nice WR group.
Hartline actually got open a fair amount, but Tanny almost never even looked his way. I think the game plan was to really dink-and-dunk in the middle of the field.
