Dallas Week Matchup: Cooley vs. Witten

[sandtrapjack]

Originally Posted by Jake2008

Well 36 receivers have more receptions then TO, 17 have more yards, 15 have more 40+ yard receptions so at best TO is the 15th best receiver in the game according to your 'stats' ranking.

Witten has the big advantage of playing on a team with a great OL. That is huge and allows him to get freed up and open and not have to worry about trying to block defensive lineman. He also has been in pretty much the same offensive system which Cooley has not had that luxury.

IMO you can't say one is better then the other. I am sure if you swapped teams their stats would change accordingly. And I would still consider Gates to be close if not better then both.

Well I attempted to point out in a earlier post about not reading too much into the TD's, I did kind of bury myself in the stats thing, so you got me there.

But like I said earlier, look at the WHOLE picture. Why do you think Witten has all those receptions? Why do you think Miles Austin (a #3 WR) had over 100 yards and a TD last week? Because of the coverages that Owens demands. It takes away 2 and sometimes 3 players in coverage on Owens. And that coverage creates opportunities for others to excel. I have said it a thousand times....Owens does not have to have 100 yards and 2 TD's to be a factor.

But even Greg Blache has considerable respect for Witten. This is from the Washington Post:

Originally Posted by Washington Post

There are matchup problems all over the place. Blache agreed that the Redskins don't have a defender who can just concentrate on tight end Jason Witten all day. They don't have a single defensive back or linebacker who can "lock up" on him. The team has to mix principles and schemes, and Rocky McIntosh and Chris Horton have to combine their efforts.
Likewise, in the running game, it's going to take numbers to stop the tandem of Marion Barber and Felix Jones. One will run defenders over like few others in the game ("If he wasn't a Cowboy, I'd really like him," Blache said of Barber), and the other will just burn right past ("Jones has blazing speed," Blache said).

washingtonpost.com