Kelce cementing his HOF status

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Can't argue with any of that. Though imo, TG was a lot better than Witten, the eye test, if you will.

But yeah, Witten, though a very solid TE, never scared me. He was never going to take over a game. He'd just do Witten things.

TG was far more athletic and so could and did on occasion, but Kelce seems capable of doing it nearly every week. But then, the game is quite different than it was when TG was in his prime. The middle was a much more dangerous place back then.

And I'd have said exactly the same thing until I did just a little more digging. It's what made me wonder if my fan lenses didn't make the eye test a little more unreliable.

I mean - a 17 year career is a LOOOOOONG career. 270 games.

So you know what that means on a pro-rata basis? 8 more yards/game. It means every other game Tony G had a one more catch than Witten. It means every 8 games he had a TD that Witten didn't have.

I mean that's not nothing, don't get me wrong. It means that yes, Tony Gonzalez was definitely better than Witten. But 'a lot better'? Hmmm....I dunno.

Those two played in pretty similar environments. And for several years they were direct contemporaries. And yes, Witten had a better QB but I've said all the way back to the Dwayne Bowe era - I just don't think that bad quarterbacks impact the production of possession receivers that much, if at all. Because for every ball Damon Huard misfired trying to get the ball to TG, there's another that he forced into triple coverage to his security blanket. Or that he aborted his reads and fired to 88 as soon as he could.

I said it in the Hopkins vs. Hill conversations when people tried to talk about Hopkins having worse QB play and then I pointed out that having a better QB didn't meaningfully impact Hopkins production.

Does it make a player more IMPACTFUL? Sure - but in terms of raw counting stats, I don't think it makes a difference for guys like Witten and Gonzo. They get as much through 'security blanket' and garbage times catches/yards as they give up through missed connections.

And again - I'm not saying that Witten is TGs equal. He isn't. I'm just saying that those guys are awfully damn close in terms of their era, their style of play, their strengths and their production. So if you're willing to use Witten as a proxy for TG when you're 'ranking' guys, it starts to make things a whole lot more straightforward.