Arian Smith

Those stats are fun and maybe he is, but they’re also very subjective.

Example - does he have 4 yards of separation on the left side of the formation running a streak down field when the QB is sprinting out of the pocket to the right? That counts as huge separation for him and the QB is flushed so there’s no chance the ball can go to him.

He is indeed fast and light on his feet though. We should try throwing some play action bombs his way.

 

Id settle for a slant. Let him try to take one to the house. Honestly we throw so few slants that I don’t think this staff trusts Fields on any timing throws. And rightfully so.

 

Do they just not cover him because he’s targeted once a game? Maybe that one pass will hurt you. Over the course of 40-50 plays it’s probably worth the risk.

 

4th round pick on a team with the worst corps of receivers in the NFL and he's caught 4 balls on 9 targets through half the season.
May be coaching, may be scheme, may be QB play. I don't know what it is-- but if you can't break and make a meaningful contribution with a WR situation as dire as the Jets.....doesn't exactly make me confident he's ever going to be a legit NFL WR.

 

ESPN stats have him at 6 catches on 10 targets, so I’m guessing it’s that last game that added those, but yeah, the point is valid.

There is a whole discussion on this in the other thread where Borat brought up that he’s leading the league in separation, whatever that means. While nice to see, to me, that stat is a soft stat that is likely based on quite a bit of judgement, but regardless, he’s played a lot of snaps for us (more than I would have expected because he’s like invisible if you just watch the games), but he never gets targeted. A lot of that is because Fields sucks balls and can’t go through progressions and I’m assuming Smith is never the first or second read, but still.

I go back to what your take is…if this dude can’t crack the lineup and make an impact with a receiving corps as weak as ours, that’s not a good sign, no matter what the “separation” stats say

 

I can’t really buy that Smith not having an impact in this offense is alarming just because the rest of the receivers suck. There’s so much that goes into why Smith has been a non-factor and a ton of it is out of his control. This was always going to be a problem with using Justin Fields as our bridge quarterback… You have no way to assess the talent around him because he makes everyone worse.

 

Agreed that Fields is the main problem, and makes evaluation of receivers difficult.

But I still say that if Smith was really any good, he’d be making more plays…great players just show up. GW has looked great with some of the worst QBs in the league throwing to him. If he had a Mahomes or an Allen or a Lamar, shit, he’d be a superstar.

Now, I’m not going to say I expect a 4th round pick to be GW, there’s a reason why GW went high in the first round and Smith is a 4th rounder, but to be this invisible on a team with no good receivers outside of GW and now Mason Taylor, doesn’t give me much confidence in him.

I’m sure with better QB play he’d be doing better, so not writing him off yet and yes I’d like to see him with a real QB behind center, but just saying it’s been pretty disappointing.