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| Gronkowski won't reproduce monster numbers again this season. |
Fans must first understand that
Joel Dreessen and
Jacob Tamme
were back up TE’s and neither IMO can be considered to be in the elite just
yet. Dreessen has just 13 career TD’s in his 7 year career for 1352 yards. Tamme
has a measly 5 career TD’s and for 885 yards and was signed for the league
minimum. Tamme is a small TE at 236 pounds so he won’t start many games
because he doesn’t have enough bulk to be an effective blocker. Blocking isn’t
as sexy as yards or TD's but if a TE can’t block his role will be limited.
Yes, hopefully since Peyton Manning throws to TE’s in his offense
they’ll see more balls but calling them a great one two punch without any games
yet being played would be laughable to any objective 3rd party but a Broncos
Fan homer.
The inconsistent amount of times even a good TE contributes
from game to game from season to season is even rarer still. The Patriots TE’s Rob
Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez are talented Receivers and both had a great
season last year in part because Brady’s only other weapon at WR was Wes Welker.
So many times since they couldn’t run the ball effectively Brady was forced to
check down to the TE. Gronkowski had monster stats last year but if I’m a
betting man he won’t reproduce those numbers this year and the Defensive
Coordinators he'll face will be targeting him in their game plans.
Many times a team that relies heavily on a TE is weak at WR
and at RB like the Patriots. Brady won games with these guys but didn’t have a
run game nor any consistent WR’s other than Welker. Since the Patriots were a
weak team defensively with no run game they couldn’t win the final game.
For years Tony Gonzales and Shannon Sharpe put up great
stats because their team was not deep with good WR’s. Comparing Dreessen
and Tamme to Sharpe is a bad one to make; he was the best who ever played the
game. Not only was he a clutch receiving TE he was a good blocker. Gonzales was
even better at being a blocking TE.
The good TE’s in the league must be able to block, putting
up stats is important and helps the team win games but it’s just as important
that they can block in the running game and pass protect. Tamme and Dreessen as
of yet have not proved to be consistent in all 3 phases of the game or they
wouldn’t have been on the bench.
The Broncos should be better at TE than what we had last
season but predicting this early that they’ll be big contributions is premature
even in Manning’s offense. Taking the optimistic view is great but throughout
the NFL there historically have been only a hand full that end up being major
contributors to winning games or championships.
