I’m not a big fan of Cleveland’s decision to sign Ben Tate. He’s OK (I guess). I just don’t think he’s a big-time back. My gut feeling is that he’d be a backup on the vast majority of teams.
Is he any better than Toby Gerhart? I’m not sure he is.
Tate has had a lot of injuries, and he really hasn’t been that productive the last couple of years.
He’s been particularly bad as a pass catcher. Tate averaged only 4.1 yards per catch last year. That’s not 4.1 yards per RUSHING attempt, which is about average, but 4.1 yards on plays where he caught a pass. You don’t see many running backs below 7.0 in that area.
In his four years in the pros, remarkably, Tate doesn’t have a catch of 15 yards. His long is just 14. That’s in 48 career receptions.
His long last year was 10 yards. He caught 34 passes, and he didn’t take any of them more than 10 yards. That seems unusual.
So I dipped into the old database. In the last 20 years, 609 backs have caught at least 30 passes in a season. All of them (except Tate) had a pass play over 10 yards.
| RUNNING BACKS WITH SHORTEST "LONG" RECEPTIONS | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Player | No | Yards | Avg | Long |
| 2013 | Hou. | Ben Tate | 34 | 140 | 4.1 | 10 |
| 2004 | Oak. | Amos Zereoue | 39 | 284 | 7.3 | 13 |
| 2000 | Clev. | Travis Prentice | 37 | 191 | 5.2 | 13 |
| 2006 | Ariz. | Edgerrin James | 38 | 217 | 5.7 | 14 |
| 2006 | Car. | DeShaun Foster | 32 | 159 | 5.0 | 14 |
| 2002 | Tenn. | Eddie George | 36 | 255 | 7.1 | 14t |
| 2012 | Det. | Mikel Leshoure | 34 | 214 | 6.3 | 15 |
| 2006 | Hou. | Wali Lundy | 33 | 204 | 6.2 | 15 |
| 2005 | G.B. | Tony Fisher | 48 | 347 | 7.2 | 15 |
| 2004 | S.F. | Kevan Barlow | 35 | 212 | 6.1 | 15 |
| 2002 | NYJ | Richie Anderson | 45 | 257 | 5.7 | 15 |
| 1998 | G.B. | William Henderson | 37 | 241 | 6.5 | 15 |
| 2005 | Balt. | Jamal Lewis | 32 | 191 | 6.0 | 15t |
—Ian Allan