Drew Bennett

Yep..

Don't pay him #1 money..

He has to make more than givens because he already was making more from his current contract. Bennett made an average of 3.3m a year. It will take 4.3m to keep him. as starkiller said we don't get in a bidding war if some team is willing to fork out $6m for him. An $18m 4 year contract with about $6m in signing bonus might get him.

It's supply and demand and bennett can demand more.

 

Drew had a fantastic season under Heimy and with Volek under center
he had one game (vs Indy ) where he had something like 3 TD's in the 1st quarter
at the end of that year wsa the best time to trade him (and Volek)
t's kinda obvious he no longer feels comfortable

 

Despite your expectation, I think the majority of posters on the site would agree with you, Mcmojo, and for one reason. You included that you think he's a number one, not a number two. The standards are completely different. However, we agree he's a passable second WR, but he's not a great one. Look at this chart of the top ten passing offenses of this season, and thier second WRs...

New Orleans- Henderson- 32- 745
Indy Wayne- 86- 1310
Rams- Bruce- 74- 1098
Philly- Stallworth- 38- 725
Detroit- Furrey- 98- 1086
Dallas- Glenn- 70- 1047
Cincy- Housh- 90- 1081
Steelers- Holmes- 49- 824
Green Bay- Jennings 45- 632
Arizona- Fitzgerald 69- 946

And now, Drew Bennett- 46 catches, 737 yards, 3 TDs.

I know, he doesn't seem that far behind, does he? He's in that top ten! But wait, the problem is that he's our leading WR. He gets more chances, more looks, more throws, but not more catches or yards. In 6 games this season he was held to 20 or less yards. Also, even looking outside that top ten list, the Jets, Chiefs, Panthers, and Browns all have a second receiver with more yards than Drew, and that's just a quick scan I was making. But hey, he's had better years, right? Yes, in 6 years as a starting WR, he's had two better years. The downside, one of those was better by 1 yard. The only decent year he had was 2004, most of which was made in about four games with Volek, when we were passing constantly because we were behind.

But where am I going with this... Well, mostly to say I agree with you. But that's because you made an extremely moderate statement. Drew Bennett can be a solid number two receiver. I'd like him to stay with the team, and I don't think he's the problem with the passing game. But he's not the solution either. We need more receivers to get more production. Of the top ten list above, at least half of those teams have yet a third receiver with well over 500 yards. Our second best doesn't have that. There are a lot of problems with our passing game, one being that we had a rookie QB this year, another being that he's a non-traditional QB who probably won't ever be in the top 5 or maybe even top 10 in passing yards, and a third is that we like to be a rushing offense, so we're not pass heavy, and don't churn out the yards. To improve next year we have to increase our passing production. Part of that is on Young, part is on the receivers. Drew hasn't stepped up and taken the number 1 spot, which is why we brought in Givens. If he can come back from injury, and Jones can step up significantly next year, we should have a reasonably strong balanced passing attack. However, I would say that Drew doesn't deserve as much praise as he gets. He's a decent receiver on our team, and has been for a while, but hey, there are lots of role players on our team who aren't stars, but Bennett gets more praise than all of them. He doesn't deserve it, or more accurately, all the other minor role players on the team deserve just as much.

Based on the above, I will be starting threads dedicated to indicating that Chris Brown, Brandon Jones, Bobby Wade, Erron Kinney, Bo Scaife, Eugene Amano, Kevin Mawae, Michael Roos, David Stewart, Jacob Bell, Travis LaBoy, Antwon Odom, Robaire Smith, Jesse Mahelona, Randy Starks, Stephen Tulloch, Reynaldo Hill, Donnie Nickey, Cortland Finnegan, Rob Bironas, and Craig Hentrich, are ALL pretty decent average players at their positions. Lots of fun discussion is sure to commence.

 

The water has been pretty icy this year, but it's warming up. Nice observation.

 

Bennett wants Givens Money

My brother is good friends with Ole South and Drew Bennett. Drew personally told him that he wanted a deal at least as lucrative as David Givens received. He feels he is a comparable receiver to Givens. He also said that Reese had told him that a Givens type deal was reasonable for his services. With Floyd Reese resigning I don't know that the talks with Bennett will go favorably.

 

Gotitans..

Being the top guy makes it harder in some ways. Most of the guys you listed play on the other side of an all pro like harrison, johnson, TO etc. Wouldn't that help bennett?

And why would you compare our passing offense near the bottom in attempts, completions and rating to those teams at all? We were 30th in total passing yards, 29th in attempts and 31st in completions.

Bennett caught 20.3% of all passes thrown by titan QBs and produced 28% of the yards. That same percentage on the colts would translate into 72 catches for 1200 yards. In short comparing gross stats is meaningless here.

 

I honestly don't believe that Bennett will be back next year. If you sign him back and Givens comes back, that's only hindering the growth of Brandon Jones, who is quickly becoming one of Vince's favorite targets. Add that to the fact that this is a very deep draft for recievers, where we could easily go get a number three and have givens and BJ as our top two.

 

Let's not forget what really happened during the season.

Part of the process of developing VY was that in the majority of our games there simply weren't that many balls thrown. Spread our receptions across the WR,TE & RB's & those stats don't exactly paint a good picture.

None of our recievers ever had a shot at puting up eye popping numbers.

 

RT, I meant to address that by saying in the large paragraph that we have a lot of problems with our passing game, and it's not Drew's fault. I think most of my post addresses his career, not just this season either. Didn't have the time to go into those kind of stats.