My Evaluation of The Wide Receiver Corps
As requested from Shula_Guy and other posters, I am doing an evaluation on the current crop of Receivers we have at the moment. One Receiver will be evaluated per post.
Ted Ginn: Ted Ginn displays blazing speed, but it takes him 5-7 yards before he can reach his top speed. His start/stop acceleration is lacking compared to the likes of Donnie Avery and even our own Davone Bess. Ginn plays with decent awareness, showing the ability to adjust to coverage without having to throttle down and taking false steps. He has developed some ability to catch the ball outside his frame, however, sometimes he uses his upper body to shield the catch in. He sometimes looks tight in his lower base and hips, failing to Lower his hips on deep out routes(13-15 yards). This leads to him rounding out some routes, such as the 15-17 yard Dig route he ran in the Arizona game. This route was wide open, but he failed to start off on the left foot then Lower his hips at the 15 yard mark and cut towards the middle of the field at a 90 degree angle. As a result, he rounded his cut out at the 16 yard mark and was late getting to the middle of the field. Pennington threw it where Ginn was supposed to be, but from the failed route running, Ginn almost cost the team an interception. On his comeback routes, he sometimes fails to start of the line 100% then chop his feet and throw his head(in some offenses, they call this "Giving Head.") By failing to throw his head, the Defensive Back does not fly back when he makes his stop on the comeback or hitch, resulting in a broken up pass. However, this is rare, as he shows the tendency to run the comebacks,curls, option routes well. Along with this, he does come back to the ball when the ball is thrown and sometimes Catches it at the highest point, such as the Fade to him in the endzone of the New York Jets game. On Post routes, he runs the effectively, but sometimes fails to start of the LOS and run towards the Defensive Backs outside shoulder, causing the cornerback to turn his hips to the outside and giving Ginn the oppurtunity to give a head fake or even sink his hips at the 17-19 yard mark and make a cut towards the Goal Post while the DB's hips and body is facing the outside and he is already running to the inside. Instead he just runs straight foward hoping to beat them with his straight speed and makes a lazy cut towards the goal post. This does not occur a lot however, as he does run most of his routes well. On the option routes, he finds the open hole in the zone, but sometimes tries to simply outrun the zone instead of finding the nice hole in it. Ginn has everything to become an elite reciever such as steve smith and santana moss, He needs to become crisp and a master of his route running and catching the ball at the highest point. He has unlimited potential in this league, he just needs experience and needs to keep working at it with his route running, catching, body explosion movements, and vertical body work, etc.. His hips are fluid most of the time, sinking his hips and lowering his lower body on the cuts he needs to make. His chopping head and throwing head works, but he needs to mostly stop being lazy on some routes. He needs to look in the ball more for the drops to decrease and he has to give more moves of the LOS jam, such as a double move or letting the DB try to initiate the Jam, and work off the technique his DB is doing, with the angle he takes off the LOS most importantly and what foot he needs to set out in front before the snap in order to help dictate to himself where and which foot he needs to cut off of.
