ESPN said:

Rarely in free agency do you look at a move and immediately know it's an excellent signing. Often, the newly acquired player may be overrated, overpaid, a bad scheme fit or simply not much of an upgrade (and sometimes even a combination of all four).

However, absolutely none of those labels apply to the deal that saw Golden Tate go to the Lions in March. Whichever way you look at it, it appears only injury can stop Detroit from getting great value from Tate.

Here are four reasons why Tate appears poised for success with the Lions.

The Calvin Johnson factor

I wrote a piece of analysis recently in which I graded each receiving corps in 2013, based on production, on a five-point scale with 5 being the best. Even with a decent season from Calvin Johnson, I was still forced to give Detroit a 2. Theoretically, with Johnson drawing so much safety help, it should open things up for the Lions' other receivers. However, they played so poorly that despite Johnson's league-leading 2.72 yards per route run (YPRR), the team only ranked 13th in the league. The table below shows just how poor that number becomes when you remove Megatron from the mix.


The Megatron Effect
Situation Total Yards Snaps in Route YPRR League Rank
Lions receivers (with Johnson) 2829 1817 1.55 13th
Lions receivers (w/out Johnson) 1340 1270 1.06 32nd
Johnson masks just how bad they are and any player of quality would help. Tate is not only that but a lot more.

The underrated Tate

In YPRR alone, Tate delivered an excellent 2.01 for Seattle in 2013. If translated to this season, that would give the Lions two players in the top 20 (Tate ranked 18th) and they would be the only side other than Chicago (with Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery) with that distinction.

Tate also has brilliant hands. Since coming into the league in 2010, he's dropped only seven of 184 catchable balls, which is Larry Fitzgerald territory. Think about what that does for Matthew Stafford's confidence when, last year, he had more passes dropped than any other QB (58).

Finally, Tate is absolutely electric once he has the ball. In a league where yards after catch (YAC) is becoming increasingly valuable, Tate topped the league in YAC per reception with 7.9. The reason is that he's almost impossible to tackle one-on-one. People see him as a smaller receiver but he's incredibly strong. And when you combine that with his agility, he becomes a broken-tackle machine. Indeed, no receiver forced more than his 21 last year.

The routes to success

In order to understand why Tate will work so well in Detroit, you need to understand what happened with the Lions' offense last year. Because of the focus on Johnson, Megatron struggled with some deeper routes, particularly go-routes where he posed a below-average 1.47 YPRR. The Lions got around this by using slants where the deep coverage schemes worked in their favor and he averaged an obscenely good 7.2 YPRR. Another notable factor was what this did for the other receivers; some of the most productive routes for them became bubble screens as the defense keyed elsewhere.

Despite Johnson drawing attention, the Lions couldn't exploit that extra room underneath and other than Nate Burleson, they didn't have a single receiver last year with more than six receptions in the slot. Tate, as illustrated in the chart below, showed the ability to succeed from all positions across Seattle's formation in 2013.

Now let's move to 2014 and how Tate will figure into this mix. In 2013, he was actually very good on go-routes (1.96 YPRR) and unbelievably dangerous on screens because of his ability to generate YAC (9.23 YPRR), so therefore opposing Ds will be left with a pick-your-poison scenario; cover Johnson the way you have been and know Tate can beat you both deep and short, or play Johnson like a normal wide receiver.

The icing on the cake

The one thing Detroit probably didn't need from Tate was his ability to return punts. Toward the end of the 2013 season, once the Lions realized what they had in Jeremy Ross, punting to him became a dangerous thing.

However, Tate is considered by some to be the best punt returner in football.

Some believe this was due to the Seahawks' special-teams unit being the best in the league, and while having two of the three best blockers (Richard Sherman and Jeremy Lane) in 2013 helps, it's not close to the full story. While good play from the hold-ups can minimize the number of fair catches, you still need to make plays and a remarkable 27 tackles avoided (including five on his 71-yarder against Tampa Bay in Week 9) on returns clearly bear that out.

They may not need Tate as a punt returner, but if they do decide to use him, fans of the exciting return will applaud.

Outlook

Tate has probably been underrated so far in his career due to playing in Seattle's run-heavy offense, and his $6.2 million per year salary could end up being something of a bargain if the Lions find ways to get him the ball.

At worst, he'll open up space for Megatron. In the best-case scenario, he'll help Stafford get close to his potential by showing him there are other options than just heaving the ball up to the league's top receiver.

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mhughes0021 said:

All sounds wonderful....now Stafford just has to be able to make him productive like Wilson did.

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LKP said:

Stafford is much better than game manager Wilson. Should be easy. Tate's hands will make Stafford look like he actually is. An excellent QB.

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LKP said:

Stafford is much better than game manager Wilson. Should be easy. Tate's hands will make Stafford look like he actually is. An excellent QB.

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Monster said:

I get that you have team spirit and everything, but you are killing me with your over-evaluations of Stafford. He's not nearly as good as you pretend he is and he's not nearly as bad as MHughes thinks he is. I do think he is a good QB, but he has some very very bad habits and they get worse at very bad times.

If he could ever improve his consistency with his throws, he really could be a top 5 QB in this league, but he hasn't shown he can do that. He had flashes in his best season, but he also had flashes of what MHughes and Mitch rant about.

All that said, Tate is going to be great for us. Matt could make him into a top 10 WR in this league if he takes that step forward as an accurate QB.

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atxlion82 said:

The only problem is Stafford found a way to over throw 6-7 Fauria.

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sggatecl said:

Must've been the wind.

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LKP said:

Stafford did a ton of good things in 2013. He's a big reason we had a shot at the division. 5 of the losses there were no picks. There is too much focus on Staffords negatives and not enough of his many positives. The postives outweight the negatives for him by far.

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LKP said:

Stafford did a ton of good things in 2013. He's a big reason we had a shot at the division. 5 of the losses there were no picks. There is too much focus on Staffords negatives and not enough of his many positives. The postives outweight the negatives for him by far.

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brewer229 said:

83/155
53.5% comp
8 TD
8 INT
67.5 Rating


241/341
70.7% comp
27 TD
5 INT
115.4 Rating

Those are Staffords and Mannings stats with the lead. There lies the issue. Stafford can't put away teams. He actually plays worse and let's them back into the game.

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mhughes0021 said:

cause he had a great running game and still played below expectations. If were lowering our expectations then lets lower his pay?!

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LKP said:

His pay is lower than most QBs that got new deals. His cap number is higher because of 2 restructures. Those restructures were worth it to obtain important players who are still on the team. If you like Stephen Tulloch, you should like Staffords 15 million cap number instead of the true 7 million of new deal money.

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brewer229 said:

83/155
53.5% comp
8 TD
8 INT
67.5 Rating


241/341
70.7% comp
27 TD
5 INT
115.4 Rating

Those are Staffords and Mannings stats with the lead. There lies the issue. Stafford can't put away teams. He actually plays worse and let's them back into the game.

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LKP said:

His pay is lower than most QBs that got new deals. His cap number is higher because of 2 restructures. Those restructures were worth it to obtain important players who are still on the team. If you like Stephen Tulloch, you should like Staffords 15 million cap number instead of the true 7 million of new deal money.

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tomdalton22 said:

his cap number is all that matters.

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LKP said:

Lions handling his cap number is all that matters. And they did it beautifully. When you think of his cap number, think of Quin, Bush and Levy on the team. It will make you feel better.

And technically he hasn't played a snap on his 22 million number. That is still subject to change before the season. Same with Stafford and Calvin. Never played one snap over 20 million. Calvin will next season though.

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