Jake Ferguson suffered a sprained knee in Dallas' game at Cleveland. There have been wildly conflicting reports on the injury, from one saying Ferguson could miss extended time to Jerry Jones saying that he's optimistic Ferguson will play this week. Either way, Luke Schoonmaker (pictured) needs to be rostered just in case.
It's hard to know what to believe; sometimes initial reports are too alarmist, and maybe that's the case here. At the same, there's some evidence that Jones is not in full possession of his marble collection these days, so him saying that Ferguson will be fine to play should be taken with a grain of salt.
If Ferguson is out, Luke Schoonmaker would fill in. Schoonmaker was the team's second-round pick a year ago, but one school of thought holds that Dallas was locked in on drafting Dalton Kincaid in the first round, only to have Buffalo trade ahead of them to select him. (Ferguson, of course, had not yet had his breakout season.) Thus Dallas overdrafted Schoonmaker as a panic move.
I don't know if any of that is true, but I do know that Schoonmaker has struggled with his opportunities -- not that there have been many -- thus far.
As a rookie, he had 15 passes thrown his way. Not only did he catch only 58 percent of them (8), but he dropped 20 percent of them (3). I know: small sample set. But that's what we have to go on with the second-year tight end.
| TOP TE DROP RATES, 2023 (15-PLUS TARGETS) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Tgt | Rec | Yds | TD | Ctch% | Drop | Drop% |
| Luke Schoonmaker | 15 | 8 | 65 | 2 | 53.3 | 3 | 20.0 |
| Robert Tonyan | 17 | 11 | 112 | 0 | 64.7 | 2 | 11.8 |
| Irv Smith Jr. | 26 | 18 | 115 | 1 | 69.2 | 3 | 11.5 |
| Dawson Knox | 36 | 22 | 186 | 2 | 61.1 | 4 | 11.1 |
| John Bates | 28 | 19 | 151 | 0 | 67.9 | 3 | 10.7 |
| Elijah Higgins | 19 | 14 | 163 | 1 | 73.7 | 2 | 10.5 |
| Harrison Bryant | 20 | 13 | 81 | 3 | 65 | 2 | 10.0 |
| Tyler Higbee | 70 | 47 | 495 | 2 | 67.1 | 7 | 10.0 |
| David Njoku | 123 | 81 | 882 | 6 | 65.9 | 11 | 8.9 |
| Jordan Akins | 23 | 15 | 132 | 0 | 65.2 | 2 | 8.7 |
| Chigoziem Okonkwo | 77 | 54 | 528 | 1 | 70.1 | 6 | 7.8 |
| Isaiah Likely | 40 | 30 | 411 | 5 | 75 | 3 | 7.5 |
| Donald Parham | 41 | 27 | 285 | 4 | 65.9 | 3 | 7.3 |
| Josh Whyle | 15 | 9 | 94 | 1 | 60 | 1 | 6.7 |
| Cole Turner | 15 | 11 | 120 | 0 | 73.3 | 1 | 6.7 |
| Luke Musgrave | 46 | 34 | 352 | 1 | 73.9 | 3 | 6.5 |
| Hayden Hurst | 32 | 18 | 184 | 1 | 56.3 | 2 | 6.3 |
| Kylen Granson | 50 | 30 | 368 | 1 | 60 | 3 | 6.0 |
| Connor Heyward | 34 | 23 | 167 | 0 | 67.6 | 2 | 5.9 |
| Colby Parkinson | 34 | 25 | 247 | 2 | 73.5 | 2 | 5.9 |
| Travis Kelce | 121 | 93 | 984 | 5 | 76.9 | 7 | 5.8 |
| Jonnu Smith | 70 | 50 | 582 | 3 | 71.4 | 4 | 5.7 |
| Juwan Johnson | 59 | 37 | 368 | 4 | 62.7 | 3 | 5.1 |
Table compiled using the search tools at pro-football-reference.com.
Glancing at the table, which shows all tight ends to drop at least 5% of the passes thrown their way last year, I notice that while Schoonmaker is by far the worst with his small number of chances, another notable youngster also shows up fairly highly. Baltimore's Isaiah Likely, who will be the top waiver pickup in most leagues this week, dropped 7.5 percent of his chances last year. And another potential Week 2 starter, Jordan Akins in Cleveland (with David Njoku dealing with a high ankle sprain), dropped almost 9 percent.
So nobody should be writing off Schoonmaker. He struggled as a rookie, but lots of players do, and he's presumably developed some since then. And nobody thought very much of Ferguson, or predecessor Dalton Schultz, before they stepped into Dallas' offense and started putting up good numbers.
In any case, I'm not expecting Schoonmaker to set the world on fire. He should be rostered for those in need of a tight end, perhaps those with Ferguson especially, to make sure they have the Cowboys' starter this week. But it remains to be seen if he'll be a reliable, heavily targeted player, or just holding the lineup spot and catching the occasional pass until Ferguson is ready.
--Andy Richardson
