Reply to thread

Message

[QUOTE="billsin01, post: 3430786, member: 837"]
While I agree that Nykiem is a bit of a question since he had a rough year last year, it's interesting to note that both he and Sean Riley had really nice seasons in 2018 and that not a single slot receiver had any success to speak of in 2019.

I would tend to think that if Nykiem's 2018 was a mirage of some sort than someone would have at least seen an uptick in their numbers, particularly with Riley struggling as well. But that didn't happen.

So I'm inclined to believe that some combination of crappy OL, maybe some issues in the offensive coordinator's booth, injuries and a young QB led to some of those struggles.

The biggest question for the slot guys, IMO, is can Tommy attack the middle of the field this season? Basically everything he threw short or in the intermediate range was outside the hash. That has to improve for us to have success.

In short, I think we certainly have questions beyond Taj and Nykiem (though I was surprised Courtney Jackson got no run after having such buzz all summer) but I also believe that both Nykiem and Sharrod can play and, if we trust the buzz around Courtney Jackson, and maybe we get creative with Jawhar (purely my thought though I haven't read anything about it), I feel like we have at least a competent group there.

At the outside spots, I'm not so sure.

Either way we need the OL to function and Tommy to be better. I'm down on TD relative to a lot of folks here, but I'm certainly hoping he was just young or shellshocked or whatever everyone else is pointing to as the reason for the not-terribly-exciting offensive performance we saw last season. But I don't know that I'm all that concerned about the slot positions.
[/QUOTE]

Verification

What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?