Tight Ends and Geno's Time to Throw

[RiverDog]

With nothing else better to do, I've been doing some homework. A good friend of mine, of whom knows a helluva lot more about football than I do, has been lamenting our seemingly ignorance of our tight ends in our passing game this season. I've also noticed that Geno seems more hesitant than last year, that he's not throwing when he hits his back foot as he has in the past. Are both observations true, and if so, is there a relationship?

It turns out that Geno's increased hesitance is no illusion. Through 8 games this season, his time to throw is 2.95 seconds, or 8th slowest amongst quarterbacks. Last year, he averaged 2.91 seconds, or 19th slowest. To massage those numbers a little further, Tua gets the ball out the fastest at 2.38 seconds, Deshaun Watson the slowest at 3.06.

If you use the difference between the fastest and slowest QB TT times as the denominator, or .68, and use the difference in Smith's TT from 2022 to 2023, or .14, as the numerator, Geno is approximately 20% slower in his delivery this season than he was last year. That's significant.

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So how about our tight ends? Their absence from our passing game is real. Last season, we targeted our tight ends on 147 passes out of 553 attempts, or 26.6% of all passing attempts. This season through 8 games, we've targeted tight ends 42 times on 244 passing attempts, or just 17.2% of the time. That, too, is a significant difference.

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I haven't watched to see if we're holding our tight ends in to block more often this season than we have in the past, but could it be that our OL problems are such that we're having to call on our tight ends to pass block, chip, play more inline, or whatever, which has manifested itself in Geno having fewer options and created more hesitancy?

Or is there some other explanation for these apparent variances? Have we intentionally changed our scheme to feature the wide receivers more? Or is Geno starting to do the RW3 thing and make his first look for the home run ball and use the tight ends only as a check down when the WR's aren't open?

Like I said, I don't have the answers, but it's clear that something has changed. Anyone else want to take a shot at it?

 

[Seahawkfan80]

If it is Flying, He usually is spot on. I think we have been using them more as actual TE type since the line just got normal possible. Maybe they need to go back to the TE blocking when we lost our linemen earlier this year. That would be my guess. Thanks for the thoughts and wisdom my friend.

 

[LeveeBreak]

I was wondering why the TE's have been absent the last several games. Seems like a wrinkle they should still be able to use effectively.. I dunno.

 

[renofox]

Stat lines for TEs:
LAR 3/4 25y
DET 9/10 132y
CAR 7/9 75y
NYG 2/3 63y
CIN 5/7 37y
ARI 3/3 51y
CLE 2/3 32y
BAL 1/3 6y

From ESPN player pages (+ PFR snapcounts):
Fant 14/17 226y 0TD (52.2%)
Parkinson 12/18 138y 0TD (50.6%)
Dissly 6/7 56y 0TD (36.8%)

Looks like we used them a lot in the DET and CAR games, our two highest scoring games this year, and then said "nah, let's do something different".

I remember lots of 12 and 13 personnel early, but I haven't seen it much lately and we're at 1.3 avg TEs per snap now.

I wonder who decided that the 12/13 personnel groupings shouldn't be used anymore, and that 3 targets per game to TEs was plenty?

You would also think TEs would be getting lots of targets in our troubled RZ offense. Nope. 0TDs.

 

[LeveeBreak]

I wonder who decided that the 12/13 personnel groupings shouldn't be used anymore, and that 3 targets per game to TEs was plenty?

DK?

 

[RiverDog]

Stat lines for TEs:
LAR 3/4 25y
DET 9/10 132y
CAR 7/9 75y
NYG 2/3 63y
CIN 5/7 37y
ARI 3/3 51y
CLE 2/3 32y
BAL 1/3 6y

From ESPN player pages (+ PFR snapcounts):
Fant 14/17 226y 0TD (52.2%)
Parkinson 12/18 138y 0TD (50.6%)
Dissly 6/7 56y 0TD (36.8%)

Looks like we used them a lot in the DET and CAR games, our two highest scoring games this year, and then said "nah, let's do something different".

I remember lots of 12 and 13 personnel early, but I haven't seen it much lately and we're at 1.3 avg TEs per snap now.

I wonder who decided that the 12/13 personnel groupings shouldn't be used anymore, and that 3 targets per game to TEs was plenty?

You would also think TEs would be getting lots of targets in our troubled RZ offense. Nope. 0TDs.

Good comments. I hadn't related our TE absences to our red zone difficulties, but it makes complete sense. I also hadn't realized how much we used our tight ends in the Carolina and Detroit games.

The big question is why. Are defenses taking them away? Are we holding them into block more? Or is it something Geno is doing or not doing?

 

[Xxx]

DK?

That’s funny

 

[renofox]

Good comments. I hadn't related our TE absences to our red zone difficulties, but it makes complete sense. I also hadn't realized how much we used our tight ends in the Carolina and Detroit games.

The big question is why. Are defenses taking them away? Are we holding them into block more? Or is it something Geno is doing or not doing?

I don't know the why, I just know the what.

In the magnificent 3 yard 2nd half of the Rams game, Geno and the O-line looked a lot like the Ravens game. And we didn't do much 12/13 on the fly to counter.

From what I remember, the next week against DET (and the following week against CAR) we went with A LOT of 12/13 and the Offense looked great. We thought they had it figured out and started our premature celebration.

Then...

Nothing. The 12/13 went away and we've seen sketchy to bad offense since.

We aren't holding TEs in to block. We're not putting them on the field, and we aren't throwing them passes.

Who knows why? Not I.

 

[Xxx]

Good comments. I hadn't related our TE absences to our red zone difficulties, but it makes complete sense. I also hadn't realized how much we used our tight ends in the Carolina and Detroit games.

The big question is why. Are defenses taking them away? Are we holding them into block more? Or is it something Geno is doing or not doing?

The Carolina and Detroit games were two of our best games too. I think they have so many weapons they are scrambling to use them effectively and in the process they are using them all ineffectively. Especially cause they’re struggling so bad they can’t stay on the field long enough to get any rhythm. Sometimes it’s like they refuse to call the plays that will work and they try to force what they want to do. We got beat on some inside slants that were so bang bang there was no way to get to the quarterback. We face immense pressure and run weird draws and roll outs where geno forgets to check the outside blitzes and runs right into them. Van noy coming up the middle though that was just a bad dude beating our line

 

[Xxx]

Our tight ends get open quickly over the middle too

 

[Xxx]

I don’t remember Tom Brady having five wide receivers. He would have one or two and some tight ends. Larry Fitzgerald would take over games by himself. I was a wrestler and I did my best when I focused on just a few moves well instead of every move from every direction

 

[DJ_CJ]

Where is the TE usage? We have a solid core. What happened to the multiple TE sets with misdirections? I don’t understand why we go away from using them and the schemes.

 

[renofox]

I think they have so many weapons they are scrambling to use them effectively and in the process they are using them all ineffectively.

That sounds like it may be a really good explanation. Maybe they're too focused on spreading the touches to certain players instead of focusing on what is actually working.

With PC and his zen-psych-cheerleader thing he has going on, it's completely plausible.

 

[toffee]

Three characters: J S N.

His snap counts kept increasing, and our offense kept going the other direction.

 

[Mizak]

Three characters: J S N.

His snap counts kept increasing, and our offense kept going the other direction.

Don’t blame JSN. He doesn’t have say so like that. He’s a rookie. There’s another WR, however, that does.

 

[Xxx]

Don’t blame JSN. He doesn’t have say so like that. He’s a rookie. There’s another WR, however, that does.

DDon’t Kknow who your talking about

 

[Ozzy]

Three characters: J S N.

His snap counts kept increasing, and our offense kept going the other direction.

Strangely they aren’t using JSN rightly either. With our line issues he should lead our team in targets in the short areas of the field where he excels. Baffled that he isn’t highlighted more in the offense.

 

[Xxx]

Strangely they aren’t using JSN rightly either. With our line issues he should lead our team in targets in the short areas of the field where he excels. Baffled that he isn’t highlighted more in the offense.

right? Screens and crossers.

 

[RiverDog]

Our pass distribution from last night vs. the Niners:

Wide Receivers

DK Metcalf 9 targets, 3 catches, 32 yards, longest catch 11 yards.
Tyler Lockett 5 targets, 3 catches, 30 yards, longest catch 11 yards.
JSN, 3 targets, 2 catches, 41 yards, longest catch 34 yards
Jake Bobo 1 target, 1 catch, 6 yards.

Total WR's: 18 targets, 9 receptions, 109 yards, 0 TD's.

Running Backs

Zach Charbonnet, 4 targets, 4 catches, 11 yards, longest catch 7 yards.
DJ Dallas, 1 target, 1 catch, 5 yards.

Total RB's: 5 targets, 5 receptions, 17 yards, 0 TD's.

Tight Ends

Will Dissly 1 target, 1 catch, 21 yards.
Colby Parkinson 1 target, 1 catch, 9 yards.
Noah Fant 2 targets, 2 catches, 25 yards, longest catch 16 yards.

Total Tight Ends: 4 targets, 4 receptions, 55 yards, 0 TD's.

Without looking at anything else, it would appear that we're forcing our offense through our wide receivers, specifically DK Metcalf. Every single one of Geno's 9 incompletions, he was 18-27, were targeted for a WR.

And by watching the game, we took several low percentage deep shots into coverage to Metcalf down the left sideline. We hit on just one deep shot, the 34 yard pass to JSN, and that one required an incredible, one handed grab to complete.

The other thing is that our tight ends have virtually disappeared from our offense, seem to be used for nothing more than a safety valve when the WR's aren't open.

Is it Geno? Waldron? We have some very capable tight ends but we're not utilizing them.

 

[Xxx]

And worse than forcing the ball downfield, the forces were doomed cause he threw the ball out of bounds and when he did keep it in bounds it’s cause he under-threw it for a near pick