It doesn't matter if he ever catches a deep ball. Deep patterns ought to pull secondary defenders away from the line of scrimmage.
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In any case, they don't even play the same position.
Because the Joe Schmidt of the offense doesn’t take snaps away from Lenzy. Young and McKinley do.
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snaps away.
Finke has one rushing attempt on the season.
Link: https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/3932429/chris-finke
Lenzy TD.
Finke has one official carry and 15 receptions on the year. He doesn't have "10x the jet sweeps" that Lenzy has. And AGAIN they are both on the field a lot as the season has moved on so there is plenty of opportunity for both. People are still wetting their pants over Lenzy not playing much for a couple of weeks when he was in concussion protocol. I like Lenzy too. But the hyperbole on this board is unbelievable.
So, yes, they are counting some of Finke's jet sweeps as receptions because he's without question had more than 1. He had one in the USC game and it feels like 1 a week. I may be mistaken, but I believe his 1 "receiving" TD was a shovel pass which is really just a handoff.
I'm sticking with 10x because it's a figure of speech and Finke is good but not good enough to get 2x the touches. That's just counting completions and arries, not targets and drops (Finke's had a lot this year). Finke 16 touches Lenzy 7 touches.
It shouldn't be that way. Even with the concussion.
McKinley, by the way, backs up Claypool and isn't a slot receiver. He's not taking snaps away from Lenzy/Keys.
As I said below, Finke should be the 6th on the total depth chart at WR, assuming they are all healthy and available.
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That's all.
Lenzy played a lot of snaps last week, and was frequently on the field at the same time as Finke (I'm assuming that is your Schmidt comp). They were both on the field at the same time on at least two of ND's TDs. And Finke actually provided the critical block that got Lenzy in the endzone on the long TD run. Lenzy's progress was briefly interrupted due to the concussion protocol, but he seems to be back on course. I think we'll see plenty of him the rest of the way.
Schmidt was an excellent player in 2014. In 2015, in his 5th year, not so much so as there were more talented players with higher upsides available. Kelly kept playing him because that is what he (and Kelly isn't the only coach that falls in love with certain players) sometimes does. Kelly's penchant for doing this certainly caught up with him in 2016.
While I think Finke is a fine player in his element and was a solid contributor in 2018, there are more talented players with higher upsides that ought to be seeing more time than they are, absent injuries etc. of course. I am not saying that he doesn't make contributions -- he does, although I wouldn't characterize a shield block 40 yards downfield as a "critical" block in the overall play nor one that any number of players would have made. While I know managing playing time is no easy trick with our depth at wr especially when it is likely that Kelly asked Finke to stay and he is a contributor, he just shouldn't be on the first row of the depth chart at wr -- I see him as no more than the 6th guy at wr knowing that there are different roles.
We'll see how playing time is doled out for the rest of the year, particularly after Michigan.
from 2018. The 2018 Finke was deserving of play. The 2019 Finke not so much.
That someone else might have made the block if in that position doesn't seem to change anything. The point was simply that Finke doesn't "stand in the way" of Lenzy getting playing time. I was just pointing out that Lenzy played a lot on Saturday, and was frequently on the field with Finke.
He does some things quite well and I do not doubt his effort. He is lacking the speed that a Lenzy or a Young possess. Although Young needs the ball Krazy glued to his hands.
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