I’m not a big DeVante Parker fan. Nice player, but I don’t like the landing spot. He’s a receiver who lived on the deep ball at Louisville, and I have very little confidence Ryan Tannehill can get him those ball.
Tannehill is coming along fine and on the right track, or so it seems, but he can’t seem to throw a deep ball worth beans. They’ve had Mike Wallace the last two years, after all, and Wallace is one of the better deep threat receivers in the league. In two years with Tannehill, Wallace averaged under 13 yards per catch in both of them. He had one touchdown last year outside the red zone.
So now Tannehill is going to start hitting Parker on 50-yard bombs every other week? Don’t see it.
Considering this little chart I cooked up. It shows every quarterback who’s thrown at least 40 touchdowns in the last five years. Of that group, Tannehill is the only one whose scores have come from an average of under 14 yards.
The other notable name on this list, I think, is Sam Bradford. In Chip Kelly’s offense, they like to hit on those deep balls. But Bradford has been a dink-and-dunker thus far.
| TOUCHDOWN PASS LENGTHS (2010-14) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Player | TD | Avg |
| Robert Griffin III | 40 | 23.8 |
| Michael Vick | 59 | 22.6 |
| Nick Foles | 46 | 22.4 |
| Eli Manning | 134 | 21.6 |
| Cam Newton | 82 | 21.6 |
| Carson Palmer | 96 | 21.0 |
| Colin Kaepernick | 50 | 21.0 |
| Aaron Rodgers | 167 | 21.0 |
| Andrew Luck | 86 | 20.6 |
| Matt Cassel | 57 | 20.2 |
| Tony Romo | 135 | 20.1 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 124 | 20.0 |
| Joe Flacco | 113 | 19.8 |
| Andy Dalton | 99 | 19.8 |
| Chad Henne | 46 | 19.2 |
| Ryan Fitzpatrick | 102 | 19.0 |
| Alex Smith | 85 | 18.8 |
| Philip Rivers | 146 | 18.3 |
| Kyle Orton | 50 | 18.1 |
| Matthew Stafford | 118 | 17.9 |
| Matt Schaub | 71 | 17.8 |
| Russell Wilson | 72 | 17.5 |
| Drew Brees | 194 | 17.3 |
| Matt Ryan | 143 | 17.0 |
| Jay Cutler | 102 | 16.8 |
| Mark Sanchez | 70 | 16.4 |
| Tom Brady | 167 | 16.3 |
| Peyton Manning | 164 | 16.2 |
| Josh Freeman | 70 | 15.8 |
| Sam Bradford | 59 | 14.8 |
| Ryan Tannehill | 63 | 13.8 |
Anyway, I’m not a big DeVante Parker fan. I need to get together with Andy and debate with his findings, but for dynasty purposes, I don’t think he’s anywhere close to Amari Cooper and Kevin White.
I’d go Cooper No. 1. White has way better measurables, but Cooper is miles ahead of him in terms of route running. On a lot of White’s catches at West Virginia, there was no route – it was just turn and catch the quick screen at the line of scrimmage.
I’m not sure I’d even make Parker No. 3. I don’t really like Nelson Agholor. He’s not as big or fast as I would like. But Chip Kelly has shown some ability to use receivers effectively. He got big numbers out of Riley Cooper, for crying out loud, in 2013. Jordan Matthews came in as a rookie and played well last year. DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin have put up gigantic numbers the last two years, and that’s the role they want Agholor in. So I am leaning Agholor over Parker.
—Ian Allan