Michael Crabtree

[MW49ers5]

Crimson,

Morgan was behind Edwards for the first two games as you noted. When Crabtree came back he shared the starting role with Morgan

Below are their respective #'s During the three games (Cin, Phi, Tam) in which both Crabtree and Morgan were starters.

Note that Crabtree was targeted 54% more than Morgan...also note the production...

...........Crabtree......Morgan
Games..........3..............3
Targets.......20............13
Catches......10.............10
Yards........128...........157
Yds/Gm.......42.7..........52.3
1st Dns.........5.............8
20+ Gains......2.............5
TD's.............0..............1

On October 16th Crabtree started as our undisputed #1 WR as I said.


Now, back to our discussion.

Crimson, as you know support for my position no longer comes from my incompetent use of targets; instead, we are now using your scientifically incompetent use of targets, which, I like even better because, after all, according to you, it's science.

My position here is simple. Crabtree is not 51% better than Morgan, I'm not even sure he is better than Morgan, but if he is, it is certainly not by 51%! I want to switch Morgan & Crabtree on the depth chart which would naturally target Morgan more often than Crabtree - especially within the balance of our offense.

According to your #'s below, and by adding 15 targets to Morgan, we would need to give Crabtree 51% more targets than Morgan to achieve the same or less production. Also according to you, these #'s clearly illustrate that Crabtree was 'more effective' than Morgan.

So what do you see about Crabtree that makes you think it is wise and more effective to continue targeting him at a rate of 51% more than Morgan for potentially the same or less production? Here is your quote;

I will do this a bit more scientifically than the games approach. Smith threw 445 balls this year. In the first five games, Morgan was targeted once ever 6.6 passes. He caught the ball every 8.4 passes, so he was successful once every 8.4 routes assuming he was in on every pass play - again, that might not be true, but this goes back to Crabtree and Morgan missing roughly the same proportion of passing snaps. Crabtree was targeted every 3.6 passes, and caught the ball once every 6.2 passes.

If we extrapolate that rate of targets over Smith's full season, Morgan would have been targeted 67 times. That is a much more accurate number of expected targets in a 16-game season than the 126 you have applied. Crabtree would have been targeted 124 times. Extrapolating for those targets, or, as it were extrapolating for route success, gives us the following:

...........Crabtree......Morgan
Games........16............16
Targets.....124............67
Catches......78............53
Yards........951..........779
Yds/Gm......59.............49
1st Dns.......44............42
20+ Gains....13............14
TD's.............4.............3.52 (didn't seem accurate to round this one up)

 

[MHSL82]

So now we're copy and pasting our argument. A sure sign that one/both sides aren't listening to the other, one/both is getting tired of the argument, and one/both aren't going to budge. If there were any better sign out there that this was a lost cause, I don't know.

Having said that, I think both of you have good points. I'm not going to weigh in my opinion because my rep is too important for this! (By-the-way, I'm not telling you two to stop responding, this is your debate, obviously)

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Crimson,

Morgan was behind Edwards for the first two games as you noted. When Crabtree came back he shared the starting role with Morgan

Below are their respective #'s During the three games (Cin, Phi, Tam) in which both Crabtree and Morgan were starters.

Note that Crabtree was targeted 54% more than Morgan...also note the production...

...........Crabtree......Morgan
Games..........3..............3
Targets.......20............13
Catches......10.............10
Yards........128...........157
Yds/Gm.......42.7..........52.3
1st Dns.........5.............8
20+ Gains......2.............5
TD's.............0..............1

On October 16th Crabtree started as our undisputed #1 WR as I said.

Ok, so they were both starting and apparently "equal." Why, then, did we target Crabtree more? If Morgan is so clearly better, why did we target Crabtree substantially more? Is the coaching staff dumb? The QB?

 

[MW49ers5]

So now we're copy and pasting our argument. A sure sign that one/both sides aren't listening to the other, one/both is getting tired of the argument, and one/both aren't going to budge. If there were any better sign out there that this was a lost cause, I don't know.

Having said that, I think both of you have good points. I'm not going to weigh in my opinion because my rep is too important for this! (By-the-way, I'm not telling you two to stop responding, this is your debate, obviously)

Or a sign that one wants to continue straying from an argument for which he has no defense, while the other just wants to stay on point...

This is a lost cause, Crimson thinks it is wiser to keep targeting Crabtree and I want to slide more of Crabtree's targets over to Morgan. I think my argument better supports my position, meanwhile his argument also supports my position...so like you said, it is a lost cause.

We'll see what happens in a few weeks/months

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Again, I haven't ever questioned that Morgan was more productive per target this year. But if that's the ONLY worthwhile consideration, as you seem to be arguing, I can't think of any reason why we would have kept throwing so much to Crabtree instead of Morgan.

 

[MHSL82]

Or a sign that one wants to continue straying from an argument for which he has no defense, while the other just wants to stay on point...

This is a lost cause, Crimson thinks it is wiser to keep targeting Crabtree and I want to slide more of Crabtree's targets over to Morgan. I think my argument better supports my position, meanwhile his argument also supports my position...so like you said, it is a lost cause.

We'll see what happens in a few weeks/months

Here's my two cents. I'll explain it by way of analogy and you can decide if it helps your case or Crimson's.

People have repeatedly said that Smith doesn't get big yardage games or seasons. It's true. In the running years, I used to think, well if he just were allowed to throw more and for farther routes then we'd know. If he failed with more attempts and further attempts, then we'd know. But as long as we run on first and second, we'd never know (though I 'knew' he wouldn't be out passing Brees). I understood the lack of receiver argument, I knew the running to set up the passing game, I knew we drafted to run the ball, and I of course, knew Alex Smith's struggles. But just let him throw more quality passes (which required better disguises and better playcalls and more creative ordering of run/ass plays)! You never know if you don't try it. Don't refuse to try it and say Smith is incapable! (Paraphrasing my own half-thought starting point argument)

On one side, my argument has some water. Philosophy effects production, incompetency off the coaching staff affects production. On the other end, there were some reasons why Smith wasn't called on to throw more or further, outside of philosophy. Pose those reasons, I may disagree on what outweighs the other, but there are most definitely reasons why Smith wasn't asked to throw more/further. The coaches must have been right sometimes. Some of those reasons were Smith's fault and some weren't. There's more to it than just the games. There's practices, there's personnel, etc. It's much harder than it looks. It's less simple than it looks.

Extrapolate that into the Crabtree/Morgan argument and you'll get a pretty analogous convuluted/complex/copout/confusing/wouldacouldashoulda result. There are reasons why Morgan is more productive than Crabtree, there are reasons why Crabtree is targetted more, there are reasons to see that Morgan would improve with more targets (in the same slot), there are reasons to believe Morgan would be less productive (in another slot, with teams game-planning for him, not Crabtree), and there are reasons, of course, why Crabtree will fail/succeed in the coming season. This is not to say that one of you is wrong, but that neither of you are 100% right. (And neither am I - this basically is a copout answer, because I have no idea what will happen, no amount of extrapolating would help me here.)

 

[MHSL82]

Ran out of time to edit...

Add in the fact that either could surprise us and it's hard to appoint a winner in the argument. One will be right, whether it's for the right or wrong reasons. One will be wrong for the same. Or both could be right/wrong. It just appears that both of you address the other as if your argument is air tight. I applaud the confidence, but we just don't know. But then again, what's the point of these message boards if it isn't to speculate, argue, post news, and responses? So again, I'm not telling you guys to shut up (not that you'd listen if I did).

 

[MW49ers5]

Again, I haven't ever questioned that Morgan was more productive per target this year. But if that's the ONLY worthwhile consideration, as you seem to be arguing, I can't think of any reason why we would have kept throwing so much to Crabtree instead of Morgan.

This is a valid question and one worth discussing, but I have to check out for a few, so I'll come back to this when I return...

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Here's my problem with the targets argument. Let's consider a hypothetical passing play with Morgan and Crabtree are the starting receivers. Morgan is the first read, Crabtree is the second. Smith drops back and looks to Morgan, who is draped by the CB. Because Morgan is not open, Smith goes to his second read, Crabtree, as pressure comes around the end. He rolls out and sees Crabtree with a step on the defender. Because he's on the move, Smith throws the ball high and Crabtree can't bring it in.

Now, if all we're looking at is targets, that's a negative for Crabtree and neutral for Morgan. But really, Morgan's result was worse than Crabtree's because he failed to get open. This is why it's silly to only look at targets. If Morgan only gets open once every 10 routes, but he sees the ball only on that one play, his results per target will be great, as they were this year. But his results per route are very poor.

Take another example: Crabtree is the primary read on a slant. The DL, having studied the film, recognizes the play and gets his hand up, deflecting the ball. The result is a negative for Crabtree, who was targeted but didn't have a catch, and a neutral for Morgan. Because so many things affect incompletions that are outside of the WR's hands (batted balls, poor passes, great defensive plays, etc.), I don't think it's fair to blindly penalize a player for failing to catch a target, which is what MW's proposed system does.

When we threw to Morgan this year, he was great. But I can't recall us forcing many balls to him. I object to the targets approach, and I think an approach that attempts to consider routes instead of targets (either my initial games approach or the subsequent detailed comparison) presents a more accurate level of expectation. Both of these are admittedly flawed since I don't have the resources to do a true routes-run analysis, but IMO they give us a closer picture of what each receiver is likely to produce in a given game/season.

Should we target Morgan more? Probably. He has good physical tools, is a hard worker, and the system seems to lend itself to his abilities. But I've seen Crabtree go out and put up 50+ yards a game consistently. I have yet to see Morgan do that. So for now, I'd rather see Crabtree as our #2 possession type, with Morgan as a more dynamic #3 who can produce good number with fewer opportunities.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Ran out of time to edit...

Add in the fact that either could surprise us and it's hard to appoint a winner in the argument. One will be right, whether it's for the right or wrong reasons. One will be wrong for the same. Or both could be right/wrong. It just appears that both of you address the other as if your argument is air tight. I applaud the confidence, but we just don't know. But then again, what's the point of these message boards if it isn't to speculate, argue, post news, and responses? So again, I'm not telling you guys to shut up (not that you'd listen if I did).

The only thing I'm entirely confident about is that the targets extrapolation has little to no bearing on what we should expect from Morgan if we make him our primary receiver.

Right now I prefer Crabtree as a #2 over Morgan, and as a #1 if it comes to that again. I'm hoping it does not. But as far as I can tell, MW believes that Morgan will be an elite receiver if we just give him Crabtree's targets. I can't agree with that.

 

[Flyingiguana]

if morgan is smith's first read and crabtree is his second....smith is in lots of trouble...

 

[Crimsoncrew]

if morgan is smith's first read and crabtree is his second....smith is in lots of trouble...

Yes, we know. And if Smith is throwing the ball, Morgan and Crabtree are in lots of trouble.

At least we're open to upgrading the receiver positions.

 

[Flyingiguana]

Yes, we know. And if Smith is throwing the ball, Morgan and Crabtree are in lots of trouble.

At least we're open to upgrading the receiver positions.

smith went toe to toe with brees

crabtree's leg was getting humped for 60 mins by webster.

thanks for playing

 

[MHSL82]

Here's my problem with the targets argument. Let's consider a hypothetical passing play with Morgan and Crabtree are the starting receivers. Morgan is the first read, Crabtree is the second. Smith drops back and looks to Morgan, who is draped by the CB. Because Morgan is not open, Smith goes to his second read, Crabtree, as pressure comes around the end. He rolls out and sees Crabtree with a step on the defender. Because he's on the move, Smith throws the ball high and Crabtree can't bring it in.

Now, if all we're looking at is targets, that's a negative for Crabtree and neutral for Morgan. But really, Morgan's result was worse than Crabtree's because he failed to get open. This is why it's silly to only look at targets. If Morgan only gets open once every 10 routes, but he sees the ball only on that one play, his results per target will be great, as they were this year. But his results per route are very poor.

Take another example: Crabtree is the primary read on a slant. The DL, having studied the film, recognizes the play and gets his hand up, deflecting the ball. The result is a negative for Crabtree, who was targeted but didn't have a catch, and a neutral for Morgan. Because so many things affect incompletions that are outside of the WR's hands (batted balls, poor passes, great defensive plays, etc.), I don't think it's fair to blindly penalize a player for failing to catch a target, which is what MW's proposed system does.

When we threw to Morgan this year, he was great. But I can't recall us forcing many balls to him. I object to the targets approach, and I think an approach that attempts to consider routes instead of targets (either my initial games approach or the subsequent detailed comparison) presents a more accurate level of expectation. Both of these are admittedly flawed since I don't have the resources to do a true routes-run analysis, but IMO they give us a closer picture of what each receiver is likely to produce in a given game/season.

Should we target Morgan more? Probably. He has good physical tools, is a hard worker, and the system seems to lend itself to his abilities. But I've seen Crabtree go out and put up 50+ yards a game consistently. I have yet to see Morgan do that. So for now, I'd rather see Crabtree as our #2 possession type, with Morgan as a more dynamic #3 who can produce good number with fewer opportunities.

And some of it's the timing, what if Morgan was the first read wasn't open and then Crabtree was because he had longer to get open as the second option. Flip that, and you see another problem with targets. If Crabtree is the first read but hasn't broken free yet, he may have been open by the time Morgan got open. Then it comes to the design of the play, which is hardly creditted/blamed to the receiver.

I see your second example's point, but some don't give Alex the same defense when it is outside of his control. But we can't all be fair and most of it is subjective. It goes back to how in hindsight, we can always find something that could have been done differently (I'd say better but there are no quarantees other than the result being different). Over time, it levels out to give us better statistical references to make subject-to-change impressions.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

smith went toe to toe with brees

crabtree's leg was getting humped for 60 mins by webster.

thanks for playing

Smith might have outplayed Brees. But Brees was playing the 49ers' D, not the Saints' D.

If Smith had been able to throw a pass to a WR that wasn't deflected at the line or hit the ground three yards before the intended target, I'd be more critical of Crabtree in the championship game. Other than two throws to Davis, Smith was way off in that game.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

And some of it's the timing, what if Morgan was the first read wasn't open and then Crabtree was because he had longer to get open as the second option. Flip that, and you see another problem with targets. If Crabtree is the first read but hasn't broken free yet, he may have been open by the time Morgan got open. Then it comes to the design of the play, which is hardly creditted/blamed to the receiver.

I see your second example's point, but some don't give Alex the same defense when it is outside of his control. But we can't all be fair and most of it is subjective. It goes back to how in hindsight, we can always find something that could have been done differently (I'd say better but there are no quarantees other than the result being different). Over time, it levels out to give us better statistical references to make subject-to-change impressions.

You're right re: primary/secondary receiver, amount of time to get open, etc. There are just far too many variables that go into each passing attempt to only look at targets when comparing two receivers. QBs will throw to one guy when he is covered and not to others, because they have more faith in the one to make a play.

I tend to think I give Smith the benefit of the doubt most of the time - except when I'm playing devil's advocate to Iguana's homerism. Smith picks up more criticism because of the position that he plays, and the way he plays it in today's NFL. I think the jury is still out on him to an extent, but he's just so damn inconsistent. Even this season, he would play like absolute shit for entire quarters. Even in the playoffs, he did nothing in the 2nd and 3rd quarters against NO, and nothing in the 2nd and 4th quarters against the Giants. It will be hard to maintain our winning ways if we don't at least get more consistency from Smith, much less big-time throws.

 

[Flyingiguana]

Smith might have outplayed Brees. But Brees was playing the 49ers' D, not the Saints' D.

If Smith had been able to throw a pass to a WR that wasn't deflected at the line or hit the ground three yards before the intended target, I'd be more critical of Crabtree in the championship game. Other than two throws to Davis, Smith was way off in that game.

smith had to throw them away since crabtree couldn't get open. crabtree couldn't even get seperation on a linebacker who was out of work at the start of the season.

crabtree is pathetic

 

[Crimsoncrew]

smith had to throw them away since crabtree couldn't get open. crabtree couldn't even get seperation on a linebacker who was out of work at the start of the season.

crabtree is pathetic

And Smith couldn't even find/hit wide open receivers.

If you want to complain about guys, that's fine. But stop latching onto anything and everything that could excuse Smith's performance. He had ample opportunities to get us into the super bowl and he couldn't take advantage of them. As said earlier in this thread, any relatively unbiased observer who has watched this team would label our two biggest problem areas as WR and QB. There is not a close third.

 

[ViperVisor]

And Smith couldn't even find/hit wide open receivers.

If you want to complain about guys, that's fine. But stop latching onto anything and everything that could excuse Smith's performance. He had ample opportunities to get us into the super bowl and he couldn't take advantage of them. As said earlier in this thread, any relatively unbiased observer who has watched this team would label our two biggest problem areas as WR and QB. There is not a close third.

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO


O-Line comes before QB.

 

[MW49ers5]

Here's my problem with the targets argument. Let's consider a hypothetical passing play with Morgan and Crabtree are the starting receivers. Morgan is the first read, Crabtree is the second. Smith drops back and looks to Morgan, who is draped by the CB. Because Morgan is not open, Smith goes to his second read, Crabtree, as pressure comes around the end. He rolls out and sees Crabtree with a step on the defender. Because he's on the move, Smith throws the ball high and Crabtree can't bring it in.

Now, if all we're looking at is targets, that's a negative for Crabtree and neutral for Morgan. But really, Morgan's result was worse than Crabtree's because he failed to get open. This is why it's silly to only look at targets. If Morgan only gets open once every 10 routes, but he sees the ball only on that one play, his results per target will be great, as they were this year. But his results per route are very poor.

Take another example: Crabtree is the primary read on a slant. The DL, having studied the film, recognizes the play and gets his hand up, deflecting the ball. The result is a negative for Crabtree, who was targeted but didn't have a catch, and a neutral for Morgan. Because so many things affect incompletions that are outside of the WR's hands (batted balls, poor passes, great defensive plays, etc.), I don't think it's fair to blindly penalize a player for failing to catch a target, which is what MW's proposed system does.

When we threw to Morgan this year, he was great. But I can't recall us forcing many balls to him. I object to the targets approach, and I think an approach that attempts to consider routes instead of targets (either my initial games approach or the subsequent detailed comparison) presents a more accurate level of expectation. Both of these are admittedly flawed since I don't have the resources to do a true routes-run analysis, but IMO they give us a closer picture of what each receiver is likely to produce in a given game/season.

Should we target Morgan more? Probably. He has good physical tools, is a hard worker, and the system seems to lend itself to his abilities. But I've seen Crabtree go out and put up 50+ yards a game consistently. I have yet to see Morgan do that. So for now, I'd rather see Crabtree as our #2 possession type, with Morgan as a more dynamic #3 who can produce good number with fewer opportunities.

Crimson, everything you wrote in this post here can be reversed to make Morgan the victim just as you are portraying Crabtree to be. The truth is, on any given play every receiver can be the beneficiary or the victim of many events; however, over the course of a season those events even out. One way Crabtree can help his cause is to stop dropping passes.

The games denominator you keep referring to would never be used by a serious statistician for measuring production and your routes run idea is so highly complex that I doubt any NFL franchise uses it, but they could.

Now, having said that, all NFL franchises do have a 'percentage of plays statistic'; unfortunately, that would tell you, I and everyone out here in cyberland absolutely nothing about who was targeted on any particular play.

Here is one thought about Crabtree that you didn't bring up. I think it is safe to say that Smith is, and with good reason, trepid to pull the trigger when targeting Crabtree, thus we could make the argument that Crabtree's targets are as close to sure things as you can get? - Again, just a thought

To close out my post, I want to clarify something you previously mentioned.

I do not for a moment think Morgan is an elite WR. My extrapolation, as with all extrapolations, simply revealed what is possible. Much more analysis is necessary in order to know what is probable. It is my arguement that we should conduct that analysis on the field and my hope that we will.