Will Santonio's recent success open things up for Keller on thur?

[LadainianIMnotDONE]

You have to think that Santonio will demand more attention now than previous weeks cause he's been the biggest game changer when teams watch us on film. This should open things up for Braylon and I'm hoping, Keller. When Keller is making plays our offense looks elite. Lately LT has been taking these little 4 yard receptions and turning them into big plays cause of all the attention on the wideouts. Will the focus on having a LB spy on LT, mixing constant attention to Braylon and Holmes, open things up for Keller? I sure hope so cause when he was balling early in the year we didnt have any redzone issues

[RageATL]

[QUOTE=LadainianIMnotDONE;3831894]You have to think that Santonio will demand more attention now than previous weeks cause he's been the biggest game changer when teams watch us on film. This should open things up for Braylon and I'm hoping, Keller. When Keller is making plays our offense looks elite. Lately LT has been taking these little 4 yard receptions and turning them into big plays cause of all the attention on the wideouts. Will the focus on having a LB spy on LT, mixing constant attention to Braylon and Holmes, open things up for Keller? I sure hope so cause when he was balling early in the year we didnt have any redzone issues[/QUOTE]

I pray it does cuz Keller has been pretty much non-existent the past few games and we need him starting to get hot as we make our playoff push.

[jetster]

I hope so, I have Keller in my fantasy league.
He's been giving me nuthin lately.

Last week because of the way things shook out, I had Holmes, Edwards, Keller & Folk!
Also had Aaron Rogers, Larry Fitzgerald.

Needless to say, kicked butt with 111 points.

[Fishooked]

[QUOTE=RageATL;3831909]I pray it does cuz Keller has been pretty much non-existent the past few games and we need him starting to get hot as we make our playoff push.[/QUOTE]

+1

I at least wish he would be getting more of these short safety valve passes at the very least. We should line up up wide in Cotchery's spot too

[GreenWave]

No. If Keller was getting open before Santonio had even joined the team, what should make us think that anything Santonio has done recently will get him more open?

Either Sanchez is not looking for him anymore, or he's failing to get open. It would help if he didn't let the ball bounce off his face mask when it came to him.

[LadainianIMnotDONE]

[QUOTE=GreenWave;3831926]No. If Keller was getting open before Santonio had even joined the team, what should make us think that anything Santonio has done recently will get him more open?

Either Sanchez is not looking for him anymore, or he's failing to get open. It would help if he didn't let the ball bounce off his face mask when it came to him.[/QUOTE]

he was open cause we were finding ways to get him the ball and then teams made adjustments. Not to mention our running game hasn't been as dominant. Santonio right now is opening things up for LT coming out of the back field and he's also forcing teams to not want to blitz us as much. Prior to him playing as good as he has we got blitzed more. As teams adjust to us I expect different things to be available and one of those is the Keller factor. There's no doubting that he's going to have a lot more 1 on 1's and get into space with Braylon and Santonio playing the way they are. You're right however he does drop some balls. Made a great catch against the Lions in the middle of the field its plays like this I would like to see more often.

[JamesR]

I overheard a worrying comment during Sunday's game about Keller - how he'd been targeted 60+ times and only had about 30 or so catches. That's NOT a good conversion rate for a supposed "safety valve". Might be why he's not getting so many looks lately too, if Sanchez doesn't feel the same trust in him.

On the plus side - we're still winning despite his presence diminishing, and it may be in future that teams adapt to cover Holmes and Edwards as they're becoming more of the "go to" guys and start to overlook Keller again. Having the amount of weapons we do does still kind of make opponents "pick their poison". Nice position to be in. Also means that everyone is going to have dry spells, but as long as the team continues to succeed, this isn't such a worry.

[GreenSpleen]

How come a player like Gates in SD can get the ball 5 plus times a game and Keller can't? Gates demands more attention but still gets the ball. I think it is the routes that Keller runs more than anything.

[RageATL]

[QUOTE=jetster;3831915]I hope so, I have Keller in my fantasy league.
He's been giving me nuthin lately.

Last week because of the way things shook out, I had Holmes, Edwards, Keller & Folk!
Also had Aaron Rogers, Larry Fitzgerald.

Needless to say, kicked butt with 111 points.[/QUOTE]

DUDE, I have pretty much the exact same team but I dropped Folk and upgraded. I scored 120 this past week. :D

[LadainianIMnotDONE]

[QUOTE=GreenSpleen;3831959]How come a player like Gates in SD can get the ball 5 plus times a game and Keller can't? Gates demands more attention but still gets the ball. I think it is the routes that Keller runs more than anything.[/QUOTE]

rivers is a much more accurate than Sanchez and Gates doesn't drop anything near him. He bullies DB's to get to the balls that Keller would never be able to do and is a much more physical presence. Too fast for line backers which keller has as well but Gates is just one of the best tight ends of all time. unfair comparison

[Shahataman]

[QUOTE=GreenSpleen;3831959]How come a player like Gates in SD can get the ball 5 plus times a game and Keller can't? Gates demands more attention but still gets the ball. I think it is the routes that Keller runs more than anything.[/QUOTE]

Keller is a good tight end but hes not Antonio Gates.

[JB1089]

[QUOTE=GreenSpleen;3831959]How come a player like Gates in SD can get the ball 5 plus times a game and Keller can't? Gates demands more attention but still gets the ball. I think it is the routes that Keller runs more than anything.[/QUOTE]

Or it could be that as good as Keller is, he's still not in the same class as Antonio Gates.

[LadainianIMnotDONE]

[QUOTE=Shahataman;3831970]Keller is a good tight end but hes not Antonio Gates.[/QUOTE]

and as good as sanchez has been playing he's no rivers

[RageATL]

[QUOTE=LadainianIMnotDONE;3831968]rivers is a much more accurate than Sanchez and Gates doesn't drop anything near him. He bullies DB's to get to the balls that Keller would never be able to do and is a much more physical presence. Too fast for line backers which keller has as well but Gates is just one of the best tight ends of all time. unfair comparison[/QUOTE]

This plus Gates can get up there for the ball, dude has mad ups and is TALL.

[GreenSpleen]

Gates may be better, but Keller is pretty damn good. He should be running more posts. Just like Santonio is finally running friggin slants.

[jetsfan1983]

Keller bothers me at times... It just seems as though he's not mentally with it every game. He's definitely a guy that I would try to save money on, or just not bring back at all.

[augustiniak]

[QUOTE=jetsfan1983;3832031]Keller bothers me at times... It just seems as though he's not mentally with it every game. He's definitely a guy that I would try to save money on, or just not bring back at all.[/QUOTE]

part of it is when you have both edwards and holmes, your first and 2nd reads are those 2 guys. just look at the end of the texans game. then add LT as your safety valve. those 3 guys are driving the passing game right now. anything else they're getting from cotch or keller is a bonus, and it's almost as if they are now the diversions to the 3 main targets.

if edwards is not back next year, i believe things will re-shift. but it's certainly no coincidence that holmes' emergence has coincided with keller's disappearance. and also, though i'm not quite sure, it's seemed to me that a disproportionate number of sanchez's ints were b/c he was forcing the ball into keller.

[jetsfan1983]

[QUOTE=augustiniak;3832037]part of it is when you have both edwards and holmes, your first and 2nd reads are those 2 guys. just look at the end of the texans game. then add LT as your safety valve. those 3 guys are driving the passing game right now. anything else they're getting from cotch or keller is a bonus, and it's almost as if they are now the diversions to the 3 main targets.

if edwards is not back next year, i believe things will re-shift. but it's certainly no coincidence that holmes' emergence has coincided with keller's disappearance. and also, though i'm not quite sure, it's seemed to me that a disproportionate number of sanchez's ints were b/c he was forcing the ball into keller.[/QUOTE]

Just look at Keller's targets. Early in that last game he took one off the face mask because he wasn't aware enough of what was going on. That isn't the only time stuff like that happens with him. It just seems to occur often.

All I can say is that Keller bothers me. He even bothered me when he had those couple great games early on in the season. He has gotten better at blocking however, so he gets credit from me with that too.


Something else that bothers me about him is that he doesn't appear to be the hardest worker. He doesn't appear all that much physically different than when he was when he first entered the league. Can't say I believe he's been in the weight room enough.

[Dirtstar]

the opposition's philosophy all season has been "stop the running game, make Mark Sanchez beat us."

so the game plan for the defense has been quite simple: stack the box, take away Sanchez's favorite target, Dustin Keller.

our offense struggled to adjust to that, but now that Holmes is back in full swing things have picked up a bit more. Sanchez has also proved week after week that he can carry the offense if needed. if defenses make the adjustment to stop Holmes first and foremost, Keller will once again be getting open looks.

[sect313]

this happened last year also. had big game sint he beginiing of the year then disappeared and then showed up again for the playoffs

not sure why this happens especially this year with all the other weapons