It’s a rational, sound idea that you have…but I think the reason he was learning all the WR positions last year is because we in particular thrive off of hurry-up and moving personnel around. He’s not going to see the field if he can’t be trusted to move around the formation in the hurry-up.
I actually don’t think that was his problem anyways, he saw the field a decent amount for a raw rookie imo. His issue is he’s not high priority in the progression and he’s not trusted yet to be exactly where he needs to be and when—due to inexperience and lacking the right “feel” for finding the spot, not due to a lack of knowledge of what he’s “supposed” to do. He wouldn’t even have been on the field if he didn’t understand his assignments in the meeting room. He just needs to develop that rapport with Daniels and earn his way up the progression/decision-making tree when Kliff is designing the plays.
There’s a reason his separation score was good but he wasn’t targeted often. PFF dorks (who don’t know what they’re looking at half the time, don’t know the progression, don’t understand the goal of the playcall, etc.) often think he looks like he’s getting open when he’s not even a primary, secondary, or tertiary read on the play, imo. He’s open when it no longer matters or he’s clearing out space for someone else, and he’s “open” according to PFF because Daniels is already releasing the ball elsewhere. Now, Daniels will gain that Manning/Brady sixth sense to target guys he’s not even supposed to be looking at, if we’re lucky. But not all routes are actually part of the play, even though that’s oversimplifying. And I think that’s a lot of what McCaffrey was trusted with, to put it bluntly. He knew his assignments but isn’t a natural enough route-runner yet to be “the guy” or even close to it in most situations.
That’s my take. There’s plenty of hope for him but I don’t think they’re overloading his plate. He was smart enough to get on the field while learning all the WR spots—if anything they’re meeting him halfway by giving him so many live snaps and looks at different coverages while he’s only really ready to be a cog out there and the play is designed elsewhere.
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