I seem to remember certain posters raving over Maclin's ability to attack all levels of the field and demand constant attention at all times, but now he's a bum since Flacco isn't doing well.
But I'm glad you brought up the routes. There seems to be this false idea going around that if Joe doesn't throw deep, no one ran deep. Also, if Joe dumped it off, must have meant no one was open.
Neither are necessarily true.
Yeah, if you look at the plays most of the time Perriman is either running a slant, out-route, comeback or a basic streak towards the sideline, his route concepts are really basic and very predictable. You're not going to see anything exotic from him and I have an issue with that, could it be on the coaches? Sure, but it can also be the fact that he hasn't refined his game to the point where he can beat DBs naturally on those type of plays.
In terms of the deep passing game, yeah, I totally agree, one issue I see in particular is that Joe won't throw it deep unless his receiver has a cushion of separation, he won't often throw it deep if there is a yard or a tad bit more of separation between the receiver and DB. I have an issue with that, I understand that people will say that you want to prevent a wasted play or even worse, an INT, but think about the positives. 1.) You keep the defense honest, force them to back off, therefore opening up the run game. 2.) Your receiver makes a big play. 3.) Some DBs get trigger happy and may commit a PI, it happened tons of times with Torrey and unsurprisingly, he led the NFL in DPI's drawn 2 seasons in a row. In that category, he beat out Antonio Brown, AJ Green, T.Y Hilton, and Julio Jones who are in a league of their own. I think we all know how tough it is to stop those players. If you're scared of getting INT then try your best to overthrow, I know there's a concern but if you take that part of the field away from your game then you're going to find it very difficult to win in this league.
I think our receivers are running deep plenty of times, they're just not getting targets there and it's unfortunate. People think that's purely on the OC but why is the route concept calling for the receiver to run a certain route if it's not going to be utilized? I don't think we're calling receivers to run deep just for laughs, I think we want them to make plays there.
I still think Maclin and Wallace can play and are legit starting receivers, I don't understand how they're bums but hey, everyone has their own opinion. If you want me to be honest, I still want us to keep Maclin because I think he's a great player and another year here and he could literally be a great #2 for us. You'd just think that someone who can get open immediately, find the soft spots in coverages and be a deep threat would be a prototypical Joe Flacco receiver but apparently he's not.
