Yeah, that explosive 10- and 20-yard split speed really shows up when he accelerates after the catch.

Just keep feeding him the ball.

It's really my major concern with him. I don't see many of these as concentration drops at this point - they're looking like technique drops.

Now maybe, as happens with a goalie having a bad game, he's "fighting the puck" and his hands are just a little too tight as the ball is coming in. But he's getting his hands up and the ball's just bouncing off them. That's a technique problem in that he's just not absorbing the ball with his hands.

Now in complete fairness - I've never caught a 50 mph football and I'm sure that's ****ing hard. There's probably a lot more to it that 'put the point in the window' as I was always taught. But man, that always seems to fix any issues because when you do that, your hands really don't have a choice but to wrap around the ball.

It's odd.

Then again, I take some comfort in the stat that I believe CD put up around here somewhere - drop rates almost always stabilize for 95% of receivers in the league. Some are truly remarkable, some are truly bad. But 95% of receivers have drop rates within the margin of error of each other. And over large enough sample sizes, pretty much all of them regress/progress to the mean.

I'm fairly confident that Rice will do the same. He's just fighting the ball a bit at the moment.

Feed him snaps. The ball will come naturally.

We have the only system where guys have to take a year to "learn to be pros and adjust to the level of competition"?

Like OTWP was saying last week, there's no reason Puka can come out his rookie year and set rookie receiving records, meanwhile Rice can't even play the majority of snaps. Especially when the players in front of him produce less than him. Keep him out there. He'll make mistakes, but he clearly will make more plays than the rest of the WRs.

Eh, I do feel like they're bringing Rice along at about the normal rate you'd see a rookie.

Puka is the exception, not the rule. It happens.

Who said they have to take a year?

I'm simply explaining why he's not a starter 4 weeks into the season.

And Puka is the epitome of an outlier. Even the best WR in the game took several weeks to become a starter and break out.

He has the 2nd lowest snap count % of the WRs drafted in the 1st and 2nd round. And again, it's not like we're in a situation where there are proven players or star players in front of him preventing him from getting snaps. From what we've seen, there's no reason he shouldn't have been getting starter snaps since game 1.

Look at this year's 1st round WRs.

Addison: still WR3 behind Osborn.

JSN: WR3 on a team that runs a lot of 12 personnel.

Johnston: was WR4 until Mike Williams went down. Still behind Joshua Palmer.

The only 1st round WR that's getting starter snaps is Flowers. That's it.

Rice is probably getting targeted more than any of those guys, except maybe Addison (who just put up a dud this week).

Yes Puka is the exception which is why I only pointed to Rices snap count not production. I wouldn't expect him to start setting receiving records, but Puka is playing 88% of snaps. Rice can't even get 51%?

Now do targets and target share.

Who cares what his snap count is right now? He's getting more usage than any other WR on the team. The snaps will clearly increase. JFC you guys are so impatient.

Even with Rice's snap count, he's still been our most targeted WR.

You're ignoring his actual usage to complain about his snap counts, which are pretty much guaranteed to go up.

...that helps prove the case that he should have been getting more snaps.

And it should also give you confidence that the snap count increase that you are waiting anxiously for is coming.

Do you think it's an accident or happenstance that he's been our most targeted WR, despite the snap count?

It's not like they don't clearly realize he's one of their top 2-3 WRs.

But of course, per usual, you know better than Andy and Veach.

They're doing the whole "you must know better than Reid" argument in another thread. You should join in. You'd feel right at home.