AKAChip

Well Ottawa also lost their best offensive lineman. They are very bad.

As bad as Jennings was in BC, he at least had some receivers. In Ottawa, he will be even worse. Beyond Sinopili, they have the worst receivers in the league.

Leonard is bad, too. They can have him.

Good. He’s bad.

Dominique Rhymes is really good. Could be the next Adams as a guy who was very under the radar with less looks on their first contract but is now ready to break out.

I don’t disagree but you said we were way behind, which just isn’t true. Plus, if we sign Walker or Roosevelt, we’re ahead of where we were last year.

No, it still is. But the overall QB situation in the league is scary bad. Four teams have Arena League level QBing.

This is professional football, you don’t get to have multiple years of middling play. Lots of guys don’t even get one season. It’s attitudes like this that keep guys like Greg Peach starting for multiple seasons in this league. The point of about his age is, he’s not getting any better than this so unless he’s dominant, why waste time with a guy who even as a rookie is outside his athletic prime?

Offensive line, maybe but receivers? Dressier is the only one not currently signed and no one else seems to want him, so...

If you can’t see the difference between a perennial all star who has proven he’s a top tier player in this league and a 30 year old rookie with 421 receiving yards, I don’t know what to tell you pal.

That would be his father, Rory.

Bowman was actually a low production AND low quality guy and had been for an additional year before he even signed here but that's beside the point. I suppose it depends on your definition of what a "short" pass is. He had four catches of over 20 yards last year. My argument isn't that he's catching screens, it's that he's catching balls around 10 yards past the line of scrimmage give or take and those are far easier to complete than the deep passes to Adams. Especially with Nichols throwing them. I'm not even saying that Thompkins can't play at this level. As I said, he's average. I just have expectations that finding someone better than him shouldn't be a big challenge.

I saw the games you did. He's good at catching balls over the middle and holding on after contact. He was running a lot of slants with open field in front of him so while I'm happy he got decent YAC, he was running routes conducive to that while a guy like Adams was running the run long, catch the ball and fall down routes. He had some long catches and is capable of breaking one but so was a guy like Ryan Lankford, and no one was clamouring for him to come back. Not to mention, at this point in his career his upside is essentially zero. He's not getting any better. In the last six games he played last year, his BEST yardage output was 25 yards. Do you honestly mean to tell me that this has nothing to do with his ability?

Hey, if you want to crap on Nichols, I'm all for it. I think he kills the value of every receiver we have outside his number one option. But the fact remains, a dynamite receiver doesn't get 2.1 catches per start solely because he's not being utilized properly in the offence. He's just not that good.

Forgive me if I'd like production from a slot receiver beyond 35 yards per game. I think you're underselling how truly abysmal production that is. It's shocking to me that this guy has so many staunch supporters. The main retort seems to be, he caught the balls thrown his way. Okay, he's a slot receiver that ran most of his routes very close to the line. Granted, we've had a lot of receivers that couldn't even do that but just because he's better than the immense number of total disasters this team has trotted out at the receiver position, doesn't make him anything beyond painfully average. It's not ridiculous to expect more out of that spot.

And that obviously has nothing to do with Adams being an outside deep threat and Thompkins hardly running routes more than 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Good lord.

You can't just say "give Thompkins Adams targets and he'd have 1200 yards!" Things don't work that way. In your opinion, he lacked targets because he was ignored in the offensive scheme and had a struggling QB throw to him. I agree that's part of it but let's be honest with each other, if he was good enough to match Adams' production with the same number of looks, he wouldn't have been largely ignored for a stretch of the season.

Resistance to replacing guys like Thompkins makes no sense to me. Why wouldn't you want to improve a spot where talent is relatively easy to find when a guy is hardly producing? We're defending a receiver who got 35 yards per start. That's not good regardless of how many targets he was getting.

Why would we want a 31 year old receiver who isn't getting targeted? Whether it's because he struggles getting open or he just isn't been thrown to, what's the point?

I disagree. Sutton is 32 with his best days WAY behind him. Lemon is fine, I guess but he's in the Odell Willis mold of overrated and extremely one-dimensional as a defensive lineman. Fogg is pretty bad, Timmis is not a difference maker and Rainey's days are numbered too. This is a team that one three games last year. They are extremely not good.

If you're happy with the production that he provided in 12 starts, that's great. The point is, if you're going to use a roster spot on a 31 year old rookie, he better be a gamebreaker. Even with his limited targets, Thompkins is at best average. We've just been condition to be used to even worse than average from our rookie receiver "finds".

I get that his position is largely ignored in a LaPolice offence and was playing with a struggling QB but if he’s going to give you essentially zero, play a Canadian there. Or someone with upside that a 31 year old import doesn’t provide.

He had 29 catches for 421 yards in 12 games. Saying “all he did when given the chance is make plays” is insane.

If Thompkins is starting to start the year, something is horribly wrong.

Winston Rose is pretty bad. Gets a lot of picks because he gets targeted a LOT.