Yesterday I read, I think on Rotoworld, that Gonzalez is now working ahead of Collie in the slot. Meanwhile, the precious afflete Garcon cannot be competed with, apparently. So, Collie has an outstanding rookie season and his reward is... to be demoted?
Meanwhile, Gonzalez gets injured and, despite wasting a #1 draft pick on him, the team considers him no better than a #3-4 WR? And Garcon is entrenched as a #2 guy after a "sterling" season where he caught 47 passes, for 765 yards, and FOUR TDs? Kind of like the incredibly overrated Jeremy Macklin, whose pedestrian stats were almost identical- 56-773-4. Meanwhile, Macklin's fellow rookie, Austin Collie, had a much more impressive season, catching more balls then either of them, 60, for 676 yards, and nearly doubling each of their TD totals with SEVEN.
In any just organization, Collie would be considered to have had a better rookie season than Macklin, and Garcon would be well behind him on the Colts' depth chart. Instead, Macklin has that magical "playmaker" label attached to him, and Garcon is just as overhyped and considered an untouchable starter. Collie produced more, with far, far, fewer opportunities. Garcon alone probably dropped more passes than everyone else on the Colts' team. Still, he was never punished for that, and continued to be bombarded with targets every game.
This is another reason why I consider statistics to be very important. They should usually be the great equalizer, and are about our only argument to keep the DWFs from shouting, "I know that dude sucks, man!" or "He's got that athleticism!" as their arguments for which players are actually better.
