Another punch to Royal's gut
Since Eddie Royal hasn’t been discussed enough this season, I’m going to quickly throw one more log onto the fire.
No one should have been surprised at all by his zero-catch outing on Monday night. If you’ve seen how Royal has been used all season, you know the 10-catch outburst in Week 5 was pretty fluky.
But I was a little taken aback that Royal’s role in the return game is taking some of the blame for his lack of snaps.
Denver Post beat writer Mike Klis wrote this in a sidebar on Royal:
Afterward, Royal humbly gave credit to his blockers, but denied the two long returns left him fatigued.
"You're too happy to be tired," he said. "You work so hard in practice all week to try to make a play like that. It was great that it happened twice."
McDaniels gave him the rest of the second quarter off. Whether it's his tailbacks, receivers or returners, McDaniels believes in keeping the legs of skill position players fresh.
Last season, Royal returned 23 kicks and 14 punts. Of course, he caught 91 balls. This season, he’s returned eight kicks and 13 punts. It’s really hard for me to buy the claim that he’s too tired to be out there.
The Broncos simply don’t consider Royal that valuable in the passing game. If they did, he wouldn’t return every kick and punt. And he wouldn’t be in a rotation with Jabar Gaffney and Brandon Stokley.
One other bad sign for Royal was that lightly regarded Antonio Cromartie was in his jersey all night. After seeing that, I took a quick look at his catch rate using Rotoworld’s target report, and found a pretty scary stat.
Among all receivers with 40 or more targets this season, Royal’s catch rate of 44 percent is the worst. Dead last out of 33 pass catchers.
Royal is too talented for that number not to rise, but it’s still frightening and a major reason why he’s not a “buy low" or very start-able from week to week.
Comments
I think it's more the way he's being used than anything else. Last year it was obvious how talented he is. This year it seems like he's a decoy. Maybe the NE game wasn't a fluke because JM wants to use him against key opponents. That's all blather.
My main point is that he is not Orton's first read. When you watch Denver when they do throw to Royal it's usually late in Orton's progression when he's feeling the pressure and throws hurriedly. That's why I think Royal's catch percentage is low.
Posted by: fred | October 22, 2009 12:53 PM
I agree with fred. After watching several Broncos games, Royal's targets are all late in the reads. Orton often throws the ball at the ground near Royal's feet. No chance for Royal to catch most of these balls.
Posted by: smokey | October 22, 2009 01:59 PM