[Goose]

I rate Irwin and JJAW higher than Stymie does. Irwin catches everything he can reach and runs very good patterns. The expectations for JJAW were not high last year, but he certainly exceeded them. These guys are not weak as wide receivers. What they are not is world-class fast. A more serious issue is that neither Burns or Chryst have shown themselves to be extremely accurate passers that can reliably hit the open man. Burns air-mails everything and Chryst throws it into the ground. OK, that is an overstatement, and certainly lack of protection has been an issue, but I don't have a "good feeling" about the accuracy I have seen from any of the QBs so far. Burns looked great for two games and then things started to slide fast. Chryst was, IMHO, an improvement over the "Colorado" Burns, but even then I never got the feeling that our passing game was "reliable" last year. I agree that Stanford's tight ends can and should make large contributions in the next season. I don't think the key in the passing game is the receivers, wide, tight, or from the backfield. They are indeed "good enough". It is reliably getting the ball to them when they are open from a QB who is not on the ground.

[Goose]

I rate Irwin and JJAW higher than Stymie does. Irwin catches everything he can reach and runs very good patterns. The expectations for JJAW were not high last year, but he certainly exceeded them. These guys are not weak as wide receivers. What they are not is world-class fast. A more serious issue is that neither Burns or Chryst have shown themselves to be extremely accurate passers that can reliably hit the open man. Burns air-mails everything and Chryst throws it into the ground. OK, that is an overstatement, and certainly lack of protection has been an issue, but I don't have a "good feeling" about the accuracy I have seen from any of the QBs so far. Burns looked great for two games and then things started to slide fast. Chryst was, IMHO, an improvement over the "Colorado" Burns, but even then I never got the feeling that our passing game was "reliable" last year. I agree that Stanford's tight ends can and should make large contributions in the next season. I don't think the key in the passing game is the receivers, wide, tight, or from the backfield. They are indeed "good enough". It is reliably getting the ball to them when they are open from a QB who is not on the ground.