Sunday, August 2, 2009
The WR positions
In my wide receivers position overview, I stated definitively that Santana Moss was the starting flanker, and the imperative in camp was to find a starting split end. I based this on the fact that Zorn made clear that was his intention last year (it didn’t pan out, obviously) and that conventional wisdom has it that smaller, faster guys make better flankers while the split end is often your bigger, more physical receiver. However, in two separate Redskins Insider posts Friday Jason Reid referred to Kelly and Thomas competing to start at flanker, across from Moss at split end. I thought at first Reid may have been confused, but Zorn mentioned in his post-practice press conference that flanker was the open competition. And at the practice session I attended this morning, Thomas was lining up at flanker exclusively. Does anyone have any explanation for this shift?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Perhaps the feeling is just that Campbell and Moss are now used to working with each other at the SE, so why make the switch? Or maybe it's just because Moss would see it as a demotion...
ReplyDeleteMy impression is that in most West Coast offenses the flanker is considered the primary receiver, so I don't think it would be a demotion. Of course, it's probably simplistic of me to assume that all West Coast coaches think the same on this point. But you're right - it probably just means that the film last year showed that for whatever reason Santana was better as a SE. Ultimately this isn't too big a deal - all that really matters is that Randle-El gets moved to the slot where he will no longer be a drain on our offense.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, Devin Thomas is apparently well on his way to winning that flanker job.