The Washington Redskins felt pretty confident about their receiver corp heading into the 2014 season. The team had just signed former Philadelphia Eagles star receiver DeSean Jackson to go alongside Pierre Garcon, who caught over 100 balls in 2013. The thought was that new head coach Jay Gruden was going to have plenty of weapons at his disposal. Some even suggested the Redskins receivers were the best in the NFL.
Let’s take a look inside the numbers at the Redskins receivers and see if they lived up to their billing. Keep in mind that these stats will also show the receiving numbers for running backs as well.
A few things jump off the page in these stats:
It’s important to remember that these numbers are also based on the fact that the Redskins had three different starting quarterbacks and an offensive line that underperformed as a unit in 2014.
The numbers that don’t appear in this stat breakdown are drops and numbers of times targeted versus the number of actual catches; that breakdown is below.
The above breakdown by Sportscharts tells us a little different story. According to this chart, the Redskins have two of the top 25 worst in the NFL in dropped passes, and Andre Roberts appears inside the top 10. Roberts was targeted 73 times but only hauled in 36 catches, dropping 8 of them. Roberts was clearly the least efficient Redskins receiver, only catching 49.3% of passes and dropping the ball 11% of the time. If Roberts has another year like that in 2015, there shouldn’t be a 2016 for him in burgundy and gold.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this breakdown is that Alfred Morris drops passes 23.1% of the time, which is bad enough for 7th worst in the league and the worst among all starting players. This is an area of concern for Morris and has been since coming into the league; it’s also one of the reasons the team is targeting another running back in this year’s draft. Jay Gruden’s offense depends on a pass-catching back; he doesn’t need to be the best in the league but certainly must improve.
Only three players on this list are not returning in 2015 (Leonard Hankerson didn’t catch a pass in 2014), and they are Santana Moss, Logan Paulsen, and Roy Helu. The Redskins are looking to draft a player to replace Helu; his production in Gruden’s ‘pass-happy’ system was impressive for a player that didn’t start. Helu was targeted 47 times and hauled in 42 catches, dropping two for an 89.4% completion ratio (tops in the NFL among players who caught more than 11 passes), dropping only 4.3% of passes. Those numbers are why Helu was targeted by other teams in free agency, which ultimately led to him signing with the Oakland Raiders for a salary number the Redskins weren’t interested in matching.
Moving forward, the team will be looking at Silas Redd and Chris Thompson to fill the pass-catching-back role Helu vacated. Neither dropped a pass last year in the small amount of time they were on the field. Gruden has already stated the team will select a RB in this year’s “back-heavy” draft, those are his words, so there should be some competition for the position.
The jury is still out on if Santana Moss will return in 2015; he’ll be 36 when the season starts. The Redskins receiver who should get the most opportunity to blossom in 2015 will be Ryan Grant. If Andre Roberts doesn’t improve next season, Grant could be in a position to take his job.
One could easily say the Redskins probably threw the ball too much last season as a result of a first-year coach still feeling his way out. Gruden needs to learn to adjust that in year two and take more advantage of the Redskins rushing game to set up the pass. The top two receivers did live up to their billing, though…one can only wonder just how well they could have done with consistent, injury-free play at the quarterback position.
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