Big body WR who is a good blocker and excellent young WR. Had a monster year a few years ago. He could be a huge add for us and really seemed to help all the other younger WRs. If Pittsburgh keeps Roethlisberger with his 41 million dollar cap hit it will be tough to keep him and other players.
Was moved to the slot but has said he looks forward to moving back outside. Which matches what the Giants need.
With Barkley back Daniel Jones is going to have an extremely high class of weapons to work with.
Engram's going to haul in 106 passes with 12 TDs!
Do you really consider his lack of success in 2019 b/c Brown left or Big Ben being injured? He caught 96 balls this year, 2 years ago with Brown on the team, he caught 111 and Brown caught 104. To me, that's more about the QB than WR
He put on a nice gutsy show during the Steelers' destruction by the Browns, he fought hard and long IMO.
Hard pass.
Learned the clown show from the best AB
If Ju Ju isn't a #1, we mustn't pay him to be one for us.
Could be the offense, could be lack of Brown, could be the league has figured him out, etc. Probably some combination of all of it.
JJSS is only 24. So that’s interesting.
But overall, including the personality, hard to feel great about him as a prospect....
As noted above, seems more slot and Giants would be best served to focus on outside WRs more.
And, not for nothing, finding an NFL WR that doesn't have some type of attitude issue isn't that easy. Giants may need to take this new found culture improved lockerroom out for a spin with some guys to get past 6 wins.
He’s also a really good player. This would be a potential buy-low opportunity given his potential. Reminds me of when we got Burress. We ended up winning a SB thanks in part to him (we also lost out on one because he shot himself..).
That said, WRs tend to go a little cuckoo as each year goes by (CTE?) so who knows.
He is the type of receiver that reaps the benefits of having a strong #1 WR lineup on the other side of him. Notice how much his production dropped off after Antonio Brown left.
I also have concerns about his speed. If they’re going to pay him what he’s looking for, I would hope it would be more of a dynamic downfield play maker, as opposed to a middle of the field/crossing the field type of player.
Speaking of getting paid, he’s going to want to break the bank. I don’t know if I would trust this player with that type of contract.
This assessment might be a bit harsh, and don’t get me wrong, he is a very good player, but there are definitely concerns.
The attitude is a red flag, and would have to be investigated. Ju Ju’s a very good player, and all things being equal, he’d be an enormous improvement. You just have to make sure he is more of a distraction for opposing defenses than teammates.
Could be the offense, could be lack of Brown, could be the league has figured him out, etc. Probably some combination of all of it.
JJSS is only 24. So that’s interesting.
But overall, including the personality, hard to feel great about him as a prospect....
He's intriguing and the decline in YPC and/or YPT (/target) is huge.
But a bit deeper dive into his stats and consideration of the team around him reveals there may be a complex confluence of factors behind those #s.
Some bullet point things worth examining:
*Big Ben's presence in the lineup
*Big Ben's decline with age
*Pitt's O-line's deteriortion, seen in their declining running game adjuvant to the passing attack
*Leveon Bell's departure, and opponents no longer respecting the Steekers' rushing attack
*Pitt's dedication to adding more high round WR picks (speedier guys,too) every year since drafting JJSS 4 years ago:
2018 2/60 WR James Washington
2019 3/66 WR Deiontae Johnson
2020 2/49 WR Chase Claypool
It almost looks like the Steelers were preparing for JJSS's (and AB's) departures pretty shortly after drafting him.
The flip side to SS's declining YPC is his fantastic catch % this year in particular! If he's been redirected within the Steelers' passing attack (for whatever reasons) into the role of a possession receiver, he's been outstanding at it this year. His catch rate (which has always been good except when last year's clowns at QB started for the Steelers) this year was exceptional: 75.8 %!! That great catch rate doesn't match up with a guy "who doesn't get separation" as a few claimed without citing evidence above...
He has HUGE hands, and stylistically reminds me a bit of Hakeem Nicks.
Unexciting is one of the last terms I'd apply to JJSS.
The one other thing that concerns me with Juju is his knee. He was questionable to play almost every week this year with some knee issue that wasn’t an obvious injury in a game. That makes me wonder if he’s got some kind of Gurley type thing going on. He hasn’t looked as explosive the past few years.
he's like TJ Houzmanzadeh* great #2 not a #1
Engram seems like a great person, hard worker but has too many head scratchers and killer turnovers.
Juju is very good at football, his problem is and always will be the work ethic and distraction problems. He just can't focus. Dude plays Fortnite till late hours during the season and spends some part of his days planning/choreographing his tiktok videos.
If he could do those other hobbies or business stuff during the offseason he wouldn't be a problem, but he can't.
So, for me, I wouldn't sign him even for 1 mil per year, I think he'd really upset the culture Judge is implementing.
Engram seems like a great person, hard worker but has too many head scratchers and killer turnovers.
Juju is very good at football, his problem is and always will be the work ethic and distraction problems. He just can't focus. Dude plays Fortnite till late hours during the season and spends some part of his days planning/choreographing his tiktok videos.
If he could do those other hobbies or business stuff during the offseason he wouldn't be a problem, but he can't.
So, for me, I wouldn't sign him even for 1 mil per year, I think he'd really upset the culture Judge is implementing.
Interesting take on the culture aspect. I agree. I was having a conversion with a friend the other day that was like how great would it be if the Browns cut Odell and we got him back at a reasonable cost. I had the same answer as you regarding Juju. No thanks, he’d mess up what we are building as a team in NY.
He's intriguing and the decline in YPC and/or YPT (/target) is huge.
But a bit deeper dive into his stats and consideration of the team around him reveals there may be a complex confluence of factors behind those #s.
Some bullet point things worth examining:
*Big Ben's presence in the lineup
*Big Ben's decline with age
*Pitt's O-line's deteriortion, seen in their declining running game adjuvant to the passing attack
*Leveon Bell's departure, and opponents no longer respecting the Steekers' rushing attack
*Pitt's dedication to adding more high round WR picks (speedier guys,too) every year since drafting JJSS 4 years ago:
2018 2/60 WR James Washington
2019 3/66 WR Deiontae Johnson
2020 2/49 WR Chase Claypool
It almost looks like the Steelers were preparing for JJSS's (and AB's) departures pretty shortly after drafting him.
The flip side to SS's declining YPC is his fantastic catch % this year in particular! If he's been redirected within the Steelers' passing attack (for whatever reasons) into the role of a possession receiver, he's been outstanding at it this year. His catch rate (which has always been good except when last year's clowns at QB started for the Steelers) this year was exceptional: 75.8 %!! That great catch rate doesn't match up with a guy "who doesn't get separation" as a few claimed without citing evidence above...
He has HUGE hands, and stylistically reminds me a bit of Hakeem Nicks.
I did see those catch rate stats. And those other points are interesting to consider.
But JJSS still gets a ton of targets. He was second this year. In 2019, he would have been first if he didn't miss four games. So the opportunities are there but he's just not getting away to produce more yardage. He was fifth - fifth! - on the team in YPC this year. That's RB territory...
Which likely does support the view that scheme is behind the huge YPC drop this year...
Which likely does support the view that scheme is behind the huge YPC drop this year...
Big Ben’s arm is suspect on deep throws at this point. And he was coming off that elbow injury to his throwing arm.
The MORE a player is targeted, the lower his YPC will be. "Having more opportunities or touches" doesn't INCREASE any player's per play yardage; it lowers per play efficiency, inevitably.
Again it is concerning that he's garnering less yardage per play but don't try to spin that more touches should increase a player's efficiency stats. That's nonsense.
Quote:
But JJSS still gets a ton of targets. He was second this year. In 2019, he would have been first if he didn't miss four games. So the opportunities are there but he's just not getting away to produce more yardage. He was fifth - fifth! - on the team in YPC this year.
The MORE a player is targeted, the lower his YPC will be. "Having more opportunities or touches" doesn't INCREASE any player's per play yardage; it lowers per play efficiency, inevitably.
Again it is concerning that he's garnering less yardage per play but don't try to spin that more touches should increase a player's efficiency stats. That's nonsense.
See my amended post.
Which likely does support the view that scheme is behind the huge YPC drop this year...
Nice dig on the YAC vs YPC. More fuel for JJSS's similarity to Nicks, IMO.
I don’t know I think he should be the top WR prospect we go after and yes he is a #1 WR.
I don’t know I think he should be the top WR prospect we go after and yes he is a #1 WR.
Certainly this argument^^^ can be made with some meat on its bones. He might also be amenable to - which prolly means not have much choice but to accept - a PROOVE IT type deal. And in Jones, he might find a QB who is ascending, not tailing off.
Crazily Spotrac has his projected AAV at 11 mil per, slightly less than Curtis Samuel's.
Crazily Spotrac has his projected AAV at 11 mil per, slightly less than Curtis Samuel's.
That is very odd, indeed.
Almost as odd as the final QBRs from the Ravens-Bills game. Allen had a 51 and LJax, inexplicably, had a 55 despite a game killing P6.
Allen had a much better second half, and he had the TD drop by Davis in the first half. His YPA was pretty low for the game, but that was driven largely by so many deep misses. It was a very strange game plan by Daboll in the first half especially under the weather conditions.
But, yeah, I can't reconcile that QBR conclusion. It's not like LJax ran really well to have a decided advantage there either. He didn't have a good day running and he couldn't dial up anything in the passing game.
I do like QBR better than the traditional passer rating, but there are outliers that pop-up like this that really make me less comfortable with it.