WR/pass catcher loudly correlates with postseason success. The last five SB's included Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, Cooper Kupp, OBJ (who was playing his best ball since NY before his injury), JaMarr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd, Mike Evan, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, Tyreek Hill, and Emmanuel Sanders.
Every team needs balance, but pass-catcher is non-negotiable. Yes, if you have Gronk or Kelce, you need less at WR, and you can afford to spread resources in ways without them (and maybe Kittle) can't, but, again, there are 2 or 3 of those guys in the league (tops) at any given time. If you don't have one of them, you need a near-elite (at worst) WR unit to have a chance to compete.
Among recent SB participants, we see a lot more variation in quality of OT, Center, Edge, and CB than in Pass Catchers.
That's not to say those positions aren't important. You need to build a balanced team. But, the passing game is king, and after QB, Pass Catcher is the most important aspect of sustained and ultimate success.
Except the guys listed didn’t have big games when it came to winning the Super Bowl.
The Rams won the Super Bowl scoring 23 points to the Bengals 20, without much of an investment in WRs. Tampa Bay won a Super Bowl with Gronkowski producing as much as Evans, Godwin and Brown combined.
Chiefs won the Super Bowl because they were able to shut down Aiyuk and Samuel. A pair that don’t appear to be destined to play together much longer, Just like Tee Higgins and Jamar Chase. The Chargers dumped their WRs but kept Bosa and Mack because edge rushers, despite being older and oft injured are still that much more important of a position than WRs.
If you have a great QB surely you want talented WRs but you need other things first to win the Super Bowl. The Niners would’ve won the Super Bowl if their OL was even half way decent.
The Falcons blew a 25 point lead because the great Julio Jones couldn’t do squat to stop that comeback when they needed it and the one play the Falcons made in the second half way immediately met with a paid of sacks that didn’t even let them attempt a FG after Jones did make a miraculous catch inside the 30.
The Eagles and Patriots basically both dumped the ball off for 4 quarters in their SB and the Eagles won it on trick play. As soon the Eagles extended Alshon Jeffrey they instantly regretted it. Both teams featured arguably the best OLs in either conference.
At the end of the day you think what you think and I know what I know. We’re just not going to agree.
If you give Tua more time he’ll complete passes to virtually anyone. You can’t think stacking the WR room with more talent would have nearly the effect of quality OL.
A lot of teams have won Super Bowls in the last 20 years with pedestrian WR corps because they were able to give their QB the time to complete passes to guys like Marquess Colston, Hines Ward, Deion Branch, Julian Edelman, Nelson Agholor, Doug Baldwin, Juju Smith-Schuster, Rashee Rice.
You know whose name you don’t see? Randy Moss, who got shut down in his lone Super Bowl.
The greatest show on turf and the Colts early 2000s were absolutely loaded and squeaked out their lone SB wins against not so talented teams in Tennessee and Chicago. The high flying Broncos is the mid 2010’s got shut down in one SB and won the other with defense against a one man team (Cam Newton) who got their with Ted Ginn Jr as their best WR.
What has Tyreek Hill really done for the Dolphins to make them a contender other than helping to thrash the really bad teams that all finished with the top spots in the draft…… Carolina, Washington, New England (x2) LAC, NYG, NYJ (x2) LV, Denver. We struggled in a lot of the games he had the most targets in. And really we were lucky to win that Dallas game.
Would I love to have him another Tyreek on a rookie contract? Sure but you can’t argue he’s the same player against Buffalo, Kansas City, Baltimore and Philly that he is against the teams picking in the top 6. Because when we play those great teams our OL can’t protect long enough for him to matter as much.
I said my piece, not trying to persuade you.