In the wake of Davante Adams’ all-out 13-catch eruption on Thursday Night Football, I decided to scrap the player profile I planned for tonight and hit on a larger topic related to Reception Perception. This stream of consciousness should not only help you in making dynast roster decisions going forward, but also in viewing the Reception Perception series going forward.
“Don’t die on bad take hill.” The imploring words of caution and wisdom espoused by my friend, Eric Stoner, quickly became a motto for me in this industry as soon as a I read them. While it’s and applicable philosophy to any field of life, it is painfully relevant when studying player development.
One of my axes to grind with the football observation world is the utter unwillingness of some to accept that players change. Especially when it comes to human development from a maturity or off-field perspective, a little growth can go a long way. We often forget that these sports titans are people, susceptible to their own personal short-comings but capable of developing as human beings down the line.
It seems that no better time in recent NFL history exemplifies why I feel this way than the 2016 season, one I’ve dubbed as “the year of the wayward soul running back.” Mercurial personalities like Isaiah Crowell and LeGarrette Blount started the season off hot. Spencer Ware, legitimately performing like one of the best running backs in the NFL, was bounced from the Seahawks roster and was arrested for a DUI back in 2014. Castoffs Christine Michael and Terrance West have grabbed feature back roles in well-known offenses after getting past early maturity issues. Those two in particular illustrate the publics widespread unwillingness to accept that players change. You couldn’t tweet about Michael or West’s improved play in the preseason without multiples responses like, “it’s Christine Michael…” or “Terrance West couldn’t hang in Cleveland, he sucks” and much worse. Those who followed the drumbeat that began way back at the early onset of the offseason that these players were reborn and grew as men, then tracked it into the preseason, have been validated with strong play from both.
The lessons that these running backs are in the middle of teaching us is that we should always hold onto our belief that player is not up to snuff. Things change and most notably, players evolve. The danger of putting a player into a box is the assumption that they’ll always remain there. This is a reality we can always keep in mind when perusing Reception Perception results.
Going into the 2015 season, nothing preached that Davante Adams would not meet the ever growing optimistic expectations than Reception Perception. Despite two strong games in prime time against the Cowboys in the playoffs and against the Patriots mid-season in the 4:25 pm EST slot, Adams’ route-to-route consistency was uninspiring. His Reception Perception scores across the board were not only some of the worst among the 2014 rookie class, but also throughout the entire sample of NFL receivers.
Davante Adams #ReceptionPerception Pessimism #Packers pic.twitter.com/4XGe4zBI0T
— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) May 6, 2015
The caution Reception Perception preached turned out to be needed and correct. By any measure, Adams was one of the worst receivers in the NFL during the 2015 season. He dropped passes, he couldn’t get open and was just flat out unproductive. Reception Perception was right; he wasn’t ready for what he would be asked to do that season.
However, this year, and rather quietly among groans from countless fantasy owners that he burned in the year prior, Adams is establishing himself as a fine contributor. Obviously his Thursday night performance against the Bears is a high-water mark on the year, but he’s been productive all season. Right now, Adams is one pace for 933 yards and already have five touchdowns to his name. As long as he stays healthy, he’ll shatter his two-year career best numbers from 2014 and 2015.
Davante Adams flopped as the Packers top outside receiver in 2015. Yet, this year, while being asked to bear less of a burden he’s showing he’s a capable No. 3 target in a passing game. Even with Jordy Nelson playing at well under 100 percent of what we’re used to, he’ll draw the opponent’s top coverage. Randall Cobb is picking up the pace in the slot once again. With the current structure in place, Adams is free to work against the oppositions weaker corners. It’s a role that clear suits him much better than having to tackle top competition like he did last season.
The Reception Perception numbers heading into the 2015 season and the product he put on the field that year looked bad. Did that mean that Davante Adams would always be a worthless player, someone incapable of growing once placed into a more comfortable position? No, it certainly did not. I don’t think the goal of Reception Perception has ever been to tell you “this player is bad,” but rather, be a tool in deciphering just how much you can ask of a wide receiver or how to best define their role. Adams is living proof right now of the latter being a better utility for the methodology’s results.
So, going forward, it’s important to remember that it’s important to look for the deeper meaning with some of these players that test out poorly in Reception Perception. Two current sophomores, Devin Funchess and DeVante Parker, aren’t coming close to meeting the lofty expectations their true believers held for them. Neither has come close to usurping Kelvin Benjamin or Jarvis Landry for the team-lead in targets, as some optimists opined they might. Both Parker and Funchess were pegged as letdown candidates by Reception Perception, mostly due to their historically poor scores against press coverage. Rookie Tyler Boyd looked like he landed in situation ripe for him to contribute right away, but he’s crossed 75 yards receiving in just one game. Boyd had bottom-two scores in success rate vs. man and press coverage, and didn’t perform well on any particular route in his pre-draft Reception Perception evaluation.
While through the early portion of the year it looks like Reception Perception correctly predicted negative outlooks for the 2016 season with these players and some others, it would be foolish to assume they are “bad players” or will always remain unproductive. Perhaps what Reception Perception truly illuminated about these three and Adams before them was just that they might not be suited to contribute in the big roles that their teams and those projection breakout seasons hoped they might. That does not, however, mean they will forever remain career flops or will never be productive at the NFL level. Perhaps it just means it is up to their respective teams to find the proper role for them or surrounding talent to help free them up, and for the public to properly contextualize expectations. If those things come to pass, and they grow their games over times, underperformers in Reception Perception like Parker, Funchess and others can follow in Davante Adams’ footsteps.
The lessons of 2016, whether it be Adams or the reborn wayward soul running backs should be to always keep an open mind. Not only do human beings and football players change, but situations and surroundings do too. That’s why we should never completely close the book on someone just because they struggle in Reception Perception turning in a productive NFL career in the proper context. We would not, after all, want to die on bad take hill.