[socalstanfan1]

If it's a triple tight end set it's 'I'll send my big bodies against your big bodies - I bet we can move you in any direction we want' - no decoy involved. Just a lot of pushing and shoving. For which a healthy knee is vital.

While I basically agree that Ertz shouldn't be on the field if he has a bum knee, since so much of what one does on the field involves using those knees (drive blocking, cutting while running a routes, etc), I don't think Stanford always uses the three TE set as purely a power blocking formation.  I believe Toilolo's bomb in the Arizona game came out of a 3 TE set, in which the line sold that the play was a run while Ertz and Toilolo slipped past the linebackers and went deep.  Sometimes the offense also starts with 3 TEs tight, then splits one or more of them out away from the line, creating mismatches against much smaller DBs.  But, if I read you right, I think we agree on the overall point: Ertz won't be out there (or shouldn't be out there) unless he is healthy enough to contribute.

[socalstanfan1]

If it's a triple tight end set it's 'I'll send my big bodies against your big bodies - I bet we can move you in any direction we want' - no decoy involved. Just a lot of pushing and shoving. For which a healthy knee is vital.

While I basically agree that Ertz shouldn't be on the field if he has a bum knee, since so much of what one does on the field involves using those knees (drive blocking, cutting while running a routes, etc), I don't think Stanford always uses the three TE set as purely a power blocking formation.  I believe Toilolo's bomb in the Arizona game came out of a 3 TE set, in which the line sold that the play was a run while Ertz and Toilolo slipped past the linebackers and went deep.  Sometimes the offense also starts with 3 TEs tight, then splits one or more of them out away from the line, creating mismatches against much smaller DBs.  But, if I read you right, I think we agree on the overall point: Ertz won't be out there (or shouldn't be out there) unless he is healthy enough to contribute.