Jrry32 First Mock of February (02/09/2020)

[jrry32]

Robert Woods has been our most consistent receiver since signing him. He steps up when nobody else does. His combination of route running, hands, YAC and blocking makes trading him a huge mistake. To be honest I’m trading Kupp before him.

I think that's a colossal mistake. Kupp is still on his rookie deal. Trading Woods brings in both compensation and cap relief. Frankly, I think Kupp is the better WR.

He’s much easier to take out of the gameplan. In fact, his last 8 games he averaged a poultry 46 ypg. In that same time period Woods averaged 93 ypg(he missed the game vs the Bears).

First, we reduced Kupp's snap count down the stretch because we were playing more 12 personnel. That's one of the benefits of trading Woods. We have too many mouths to feed in the passing game with Higbee breaking out. Second, I don't agree with what you're arguing on Kupp being easier to take out of the game. Let's compare their performances over the first and second eight weeks:
First 8 Weeks
Woods - 60 targets, 38 receptions, 63.3% catch rate, 471 yards, 12.8 YPC, 7.9 YPT, and 0 TDs
Kupp - 87 targets, 58 receptions, 66.7% catch rate, 792 yards, 13.7 YPC, 9.1 YPT, and 5 TDs

Second 8 Weeks
Woods - 79 targets, 52 receptions, 65.8% catch rate, 663 yards, 12.8 YPC, 8.4 YPT, and 2 TDs
Kupp - 47 targets, 36 receptions, 76.6% catch rate, 369 yards, 10.3 YPC, 7.9 YPT, and 5 TDs

Seems to me that one could easily argue that teams successfully took Woods out of the gameplan over the first half of the year and then shifted their attention to Kupp over the second half of the year. But I think such a notion is a too simplistic way of looking at it. We changed up our approach during the year. This led to Woods getting more focus in our gameplans over the second half of the year.

Receivers who can play every position are much harder to replace then slot receivers. Defenses just started flooding the middle and allowed Woods to beat his man one on one. We also ended up getting Higbee way more involved and it was better for our offense rather then Goff forcing it to Kupp all the time.

I think Kupp can play Woods' role. Kupp can play any position on the field. He's obviously not the best fit in Cooks' role because he's not a field stretcher. But Kupp has shown the ability to feast in the intermediate range of the field, as Woods does. Both Woods and Kupp showed the ability to thrive in each others' roles (Remember when Woods got injured in 2017? Kupp put up massive numbers in Woods' place). So if we do trade Woods, we can continue to let Higbee be a big part of the gameplan while having plenty of targets for Kupp and Cooks.

 

[Varg6]

I wouldn't be thrilled about Woods leaving, but I get your point Jrry.