The Big Play to Smitty, not as common as you'd think....

[British_Panther]

So after three straights games in which Moore has found #89 for plays of 40+ yards people are heralding a return to the good ol' days when Jake would find Smith for such a play every game.

But then I went back and looked at the stats, SS doesn't actually make that many huge plays a season, 7 is the most he's ever had, 9 if you include the post-season in 2005.

In fact if you look at all the games that both Jake and Steve started (81 inc post-season) there were only 31 connections of 40+ yards, 0.38 per game.

In contrast in Moore's 6 career starts he has made 4 such plays, 0.67 a game. Sure this is a small sample but I think I know why this is.

Despite all of SS's talk about how he can't be overthrown, Jake often did overthrow Smith on deep routes. In contrast, Moore's problem with longer balls seems to be underthrowing them.

10 feet over his head, or a couple of yards short of hitting him in stride which means fighting for the ball. Which do you think the most tenacious 5'9 reciever of all time would prefer...?

[House]

I know which one every coach that has ever walked the face of the Earth would prefer.

[ladypanther]

Nice research BP.

[Razzy]

Yepyepyep. Anyone else notice that, after JD returned from the surgery, Smitty would trip and fall after catching almost any deep pass? Jake was overthrowing him every time and he had to give up his balance just to get them.

Now that we have someone who can atleast hit him in stride, Smitty can go back to making his superman plays.

[British_Panther]

I know which one every coach that has ever walked the face of the Earth would prefer.

I was thinking that too, overthrowing a deep pass means its impossible to pick off but Jake's propensity for overthrowing medium length passes has resulting in many tipped balls into the hands of safeties.

Moore underthrowing the deep routes may mean more chances of ints there but underthrowing the medium routes (which he does also) means less chances of INTS on those much more common plays.