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That probably isn’t going to happen . . .
. . . but he can certainly help the Jets win games.
Talking about the Daily News story that went viral (which a lot of them do), where Robby Anderson was quoted saying, “That was a down year for me. I know my capabilities. I know what I want to become… and that’s the best receiver in the NFL.”
All over the internet – another blockbuster for the DN.
But it’s probably not going to happen, and the reason is pretty simple.
The reason it probably won’t happen is that Anderson isn’t a player who wins a lot of 50-50 balls – jump balls where he out-muscles cornerbacks for the football.
When you look at the elite receivers in the game, like DeAndre (6-1, 214) Hopkins, he does this all the time. Jets fans saw that first hand. Late in the Jets’ loss to Houston, Hopkins caught a fade for a 14-yard touchdown on the left side with Mo Claiborne in tight coverage. It was hard to criticize Claiborne on this play. He was right in Hopkins hip pocket, but Hopkins went up and got the rock with the CB right in his face.
So often last year, Sam Darnold threw to Anderson who was tightly covered and he didn’t come down with the ball. I’m not be critical of him – these plays are hard and he often wasn’t open. However, NFL throwing windows are often small. Receivers need to be “thrown open” as they say in the football world. This means you throw it to them in tight quarters and they still get it.
Anderson isn’t great at this, and it’s not his fault.
He is 6-3, 175 pounds – he’s rail thin. He’s not built to go up and “box out” defensive backs for the ball, to borrow a basketball term.
Just think of it this way – Would a skinny center out-muscle Shaquille O’Neal for a rebound? Not very often.
But Anderson is an extremely valuable player to the Jets on two kind of routes.
Obviously, with his 4.34 speed, he can take the top off a defense and beat cornerbacks on fly-routes.
And because of his world class speed, cornerbacks need to respect his threat to go deep on any given play, and this leads to a lot of success on cut-off routes.
What he often does is drive off corners respecting his deep speed, creating separation underneath, leading to a lot of completions underneath.
There was a good example of this in the Houston game:
On the Jets’ second possession, Darnold threw an out to Anderson for a gain of 18 yards. Watching the play, Jackson, who doesn’t have great speed, clearly was concerned about Anderson going deep, gave him a ton of cushion, and this contributed to this successful play.
Some people might wonder why Anderson doesn’t bulk up to help him on 50-50 balls. That would be a big mistake. One of the things that makes him a good weapon for the Jets is his speed, and quickness out of his breaks, and if he got much bigger, he would lose some of this.
So the bottom line is Anderson can be a very good receiver for the Jets on certain routes.
But because of his struggles on jump balls due to his slim build, “best receiver in the game” might be hard to attain.
However, there is nothing wrong with having that mindset. Not a bad thing to go on the field trying to be the best at your position.
July 8, 2019
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