Greg Olsen

[jason]

Anyone have the content to the ESPN Insider article mentioning Olsen?

Olsen Article

[SoxFan1]

Not really Olsen's fault he didn't perform. We passed to Desmond Clark a lot and used Olsen less frequently than Dez. He still managed to have a couple TD catches. 40/400 is pretty damn good for a rookie backup TE. He'll be one of the best in the league when he takes over full time for Dez, especially if we choose to utilize the TE in the passing game more.

[Connorbear]

Not really Olsen's fault he didn't perform. We passed to Desmond Clark a lot and used Olsen less frequently than Dez. He still managed to have a couple TD catches. 40/400 is pretty damn good for a rookie backup TE. He'll be one of the best in the league when he takes over full time for Dez, especially if we choose to utilize the TE in the passing game more.

I remember reading somewhere his #s were comparable to Shockey in his rookie yr. I think his #s will only get better. Nothing to be concerned about.

 

Peace

[DrunkBomber]

He showed flashes of being a very good tight end. Im not too concerned about some of his drops either because of rookie jitters and he wasnt very involved in the offense for the most part. Id be willing to say hes gonna be the best number two tight end in the league next year.

[balta1701-A]

It's also certainly worth noting that the Bears' offense as a whole stank last year. When your O line isn't performing well at all, your RB can't find holes and the linebackers and safeties can spend a lot more effort on covering the TE. When your QB is throwing off of his back half the time, even a great TE can't make something happen. When your WR's aren't getting open, then they don't move defenders out of position and create matchups that favor the TE.

[Bears4Ever_34]

Its pretty simple as to why. When he gets more opportunities in the next year or two he will stand out more. He never got the ball much as it is but it didn't help that our offensive coordinator chooses to ignore the tight end almost completely in the offense which hurts both Dez and Olsen. I still can't believe that moron retained his job.

[adam]

I remember reading somewhere his #s were comparable to Shockey in his rookie yr. I think his #s will only get better. Nothing to be concerned about.

 

Peace

Shockey comparable to Olsen their rookie years? No way. Shockey had 74 receptions for 894 yards while Olsen only had 39 for 391. The only thing they had in common was 2 TDs each.

 

Either way, Olsen was solid as a #2 TE. If he moves into the #1 role, he will easily get 50+ receptions and 600+ yards, which would be some of the best production out of the TE position in a long time.

[Ed Hochuli 3:16]

Not really Olsen's fault he didn't perform. We passed to Desmond Clark a lot and used Olsen less frequently than Dez. He still managed to have a couple TD catches. 40/400 is pretty damn good for a rookie backup TE. He'll be one of the best in the league when he takes over full time for Dez, especially if we choose to utilize the TE in the passing game more.

Totally agree. I hope to see more 2TE packages this year, which will result in hopefully a huge year for Greg. Even if we can't find a way to get him very many catches, he can be a very good redzone target. I'll take 55 catches and 5 TDs from him.

[bradjock]

Anyone have the content to the ESPN Insider article mentioning Olsen?

Olsen Article

 

I love stealing. ESPN can talk all they want. Most Bears fans are thrilled with what Olsen's shown. Here it is:

 

Bears' Olsen didn't live up to billing

By KC Joyner

ESPN Insider

(Archive)

Updated: May 14, 2008

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Because we have covered every passing position except tight end in the "best of/worst of" 2007 series so far, it seems only right to review that position in this week's segment. The previous installments detailed the vertical impact of various players, but for this article I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how well each tight end performs when he is flexed out as a wide receiver.

 

 

 

Glossary of terms

 

 

 

There are usually only a few tight ends who have high pass-attempt totals, so the qualifying mark here is 48 total attempts (i.e., an average of three overall attempts per game, regardless of whether the tight end was flexed out). The yardage totals once again include "pass in the air" penalty attempts and yards (i.e., penalty yards from pass interference, defensive holding, illegal contact, etc., have been added to each player's receiving yardage stats).

 

 

 

(I did make a qualifying exception for Quinn Sypniewski of the Ravens. Sypniewski had only 47 attempts, so he technically wouldn't have qualified, but I wanted to see the potential impact his loss to a knee injury for the 2008 season could have on Baltimore and thus decided to include him.)

 

 

 

Let's start by taking a look at the flex tight end totals from 2007 on a yards-per-attempt basis. Because only 25 tight ends had enough attempts to be considered qualifiers, we'll just list the entire group rather than break it up into top 10/bottom 10.

 

 

 

 

Rank Player 2007 Team WR Att WR Yds WR YPA

1. Heath Miller Pittsburgh 14 189 13.5

2. Vernon Davis San Francisco 11 132 12.0

3. Zach Miller Oakland 12 124 10.3

4. Owen Daniels Houston 18 181 10.1

5. Ben Watson New England 27 263 9.7

6. Jason Witten Dallas 33 308 9.3

7. Tony Scheffler Denver 28 261 9.3

8. Antonio Gates San Diego 68 594 8.7

9. Tony Gonzalez Kansas City 59 482 8.2

10. Kellen Winslow Cleveland 105 849 8.1

11. Chris Cooley Washington 51 400 7.8

12. Desmond Clark Chicago 16 122 7.6

13. Jeremy Shockey N.Y. Giants 35 262 7.5

14. Chris Baker N.Y. Jets 43 321 7.5

15. Dallas Clark Indianapolis 62 447 7.2

16. Eric Johnson New Orleans 29 204 7.0

17. David Martin Miami 15 98 6.5

18. Randy McMichael St. Louis 13 73 5.6

19. Quinn Sypniewski Baltimore 20 112 5.6

20. Alge Crumpler Atlanta 15 83 5.5

21. Jeff King Carolina 44 223 5.1

22. Bo Scaife Tennessee 25 118 4.7

23. Greg Olsen Chicago 30 137 4.6

24. Bubba Franks Green Bay 3 4 1.3

25. Marcedes Lewis Jacksonville 4 0 0.0

 

 

The top wide receivers in a season will typically average somewhere around 10 YPA, so the top 10 in this group does a terrific job as faux wideouts.

 

 

 

On an individual basis, Benjamin Watson and Heath Miller stand out because of their improvement in this category over their 2006 totals. Miller nearly doubled his 6.8 YPA and Watson added more than 2 yards to his 7.4 total.

 

 

 

Two big-name tight ends who underperformed as wide receivers were Randy McMichael and Alge Crumpler, but they have historically performed badly in this area (McMichael had a 4.2 YPA in 2006, Crumpler 6.2). So this showing was not unexpected.

 

 

Player 2007 Team % of att

Kellen Winslow Cleveland 74.5%

Chris Baker N.Y. Jets 71.7%

Dallas Clark Indianapolis 66.0%

Antonio Gates San Diego 62.4%

Jeff King Carolina 58.7%

Ben Watson New England 55.1%

Eric Johnson New Orleans 49.2%

Chris Cooley Washington 48.1%

Greg Olsen Chicago 46.2%

Tony Scheffler Denver 43.1%

 

One player whose poor showing does come as a surprise is Greg Olsen. Olsen had highly touted receiving skills coming out of the University of Miami, and it was thought that he would be able to serve quite effectively as an alternate wide receiver in the Bears' offense. It turns out Olson wasn't even Chicago's best flex tight end; Desmond Clark notched nearly as many yards as Olson (122 to 137) on just more than half as many attempts.

 

 

 

The other item of note is how often Kellen Winslow was thrown to from a flexed position. His 105 attempts nearly equaled the flex attempt totals of Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez combined. They were also 74.5 percent of his overall attempts.

 

 

 

That seems like a phenomenal total, and it led me to wonder how Winslow compares with other tight ends in this category. The top 10 in that area are above.

 

 

 

 

It turns out that Winslow's number is very impressive, but it doesn't quite put him in a class by himself. Chris Baker's 71.7 percent showing here and his equal showing to Jeremy Shockey in the flex YPA total may be indicators as to why Baker feels his value to the Jets is higher than the team seems to think it is.

 

 

 

One other barometer of flex tight end performance is how well these players perform as flex tight ends versus when they're lined up as a standard tight end. I decided to track this on a plus/minus YPA basis, with "plus" meaning that the player did better when flexed out. Here are those totals:

 

 

 

 

Player 2007 Team TE as WR +/-

Vernon Davis San Francisco 6.3

Heath Miller Pittsburgh 5.2

Zach Miller Oakland 3.9

Ben Watson New England 3.6

Dallas Clark Indianapolis 1.8

Chris Baker N.Y. Jets 1.6

Jason Witten Dallas 1.5

Owen Daniels Houston 1.3

Eric Johnson New Orleans 1.2

Quinn Sypniewski Baltimore 1.0

Kellen Winslow Cleveland 0.8

Chris Cooley Washington 0.8

Tony Scheffler Denver 0.7

Jeremy Shockey N.Y. Giants 0.5

David Martin Miami 0.3

Tony Gonzalez Kansas City -0.1

Antonio Gates San Diego -0.8

Jeff King Carolina -0.8

Desmond Clark Chicago -1.3

Bo Scaife Tennessee -1.3

Randy McMichael St. Louis -1.6

Alge Crumpler Atlanta -1.8

Greg Olsen Chicago -2.4

Marcedes Lewis Jacksonville -7.8

Bubba Franks Green Bay -8.3

 

 

If this chart is any indicator, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Oakland should do all they can to flex their guys out more often.

 

 

 

KC Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. His core coverage metrics for all skill-position players and cornerbacks will be available in the ESPN Fantasy Football Magazine, which will be released this summer. His 2008 releases, "Scientific Football 2008" and "Blindsided: Why The Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts," are available for preorder. For more, check out KC's Web site, www.thefootballscientist.com.

[SoxFan1]

He never got the ball much as it is but it didn't help that our offensive coordinator chooses to ignore the tight end almost completely in the offense which hurts both Dez and Olsen.

Dez Clark: 44 catches, 545 yard, 4 TD

Greg Olsen: 39 catches, 391 yards, 2 TD

 

Combined, thats 83 catches for 935 yards. I'd say we did a pretty good job incorporating the TE.

[Mongo3451]

Dez Clark: 44 catches, 545 yard, 4 TD

Greg Olsen: 39 catches, 391 yards, 2 TD

 

Combined, thats 83 catches for 935 yards. I'd say we did a pretty good job incorporating the TE.

It's also interesting that the Bears were the only team that had two TE's mentioned...

[HoofHearted]

The fact that we took it really slow with him early on because of the knee injury didn't help his numbers much either, but it was the smart/only way to go with a guy like him. That's basically 4 games of missed production right there.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

I don't understand how he had a disappointing rookie season. He had limited action due to the way the Bears utilized him but he made plays throughout the year and flashed all kinds of upside. I was pretty happy with his play and I think he could emerge as a premiere TE in the NFL.

[madlithuanian]

I blame the coaching.

 

It took them forever and a day to get him involved, and still didn't involve him much. Other than one drop I recall, he did really well. I only imagine him getting better. But the coaches (Turner) need to get their heads from out their ends...

 

Anyone have the content to the ESPN Insider article mentioning Olsen?

Olsen Article

[jason]

Dez Clark: 44 catches, 545 yard, 4 TD

Greg Olsen: 39 catches, 391 yards, 2 TD

 

Combined, thats 83 catches for 935 yards. I'd say we did a pretty good job incorporating the TE.

 

I'd love to see what Olsen could do with nearly all the catches as a primary TE (like all the other guys mentioned). It's not difficult to see a 1000 yard season in there, especially once he develops a better relationship with whoever the QB may be.

[BearsFan]

There are only X number of passes to go around. If you give more to Olsen, there are less given to somebody else. I'm not a Turner fan, but he did a pretty good job of spreading the ball around, IMO.

 

A lot of teams only have one pass-catching TE, whereas the Bears now have the luxury of two! That means sharing the load, and that's what Des and Greg did, almost 50/50. If anything, that was unfair to Clark, since he had 2.4 more ypa.

 

Olsen will get more opportunities as his skills improve.

 

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