WR Jalen Guyton: Where Does He Fit?

[Velo]

This fanbase does this with a lot of players or coaches who left the Chargers. But to be fair, I thought Tyron Johnson was a good contributor to the offense in 2020. I am unclear on why he was cut by Staley. Did Staley see something from TJ that he didn't like? Did TJ do something Staley didn't like?

Whatever failings Tyron Johnson had with other teams, he had something going with Herbert. I suspect Johnson did some things that the coaching here didn't like, probably refusing to play special teams or not putting effort into it, and that is why he was cut. Whatever the reason, there's no denying that he and Herbert were on the same page. It would be nice to have him right now with Guyton gone for the remainder, but he is a Raider now.

[TTThunder]

For those who asked to get speedy WRs to replace Guyton....

Even Guyton himself was not utilized much / at all, how will the replacement differ??

Better get help on the OL, at least they are utilized all the time.

Go Bolts!!!

[richpjr]

This fanbase does this with a lot of players or coaches who left the Chargers. But to be fair, I thought Tyron Johnson was a good contributor to the offense in 2020. I am unclear on why he was cut by Staley. Did Staley see something from TJ that he didn't like? Did TJ do something Staley didn't like?

Somebody here posted that there was a rumor about him having an attitude and not a great work ethic. I never heard that anywhere but that here, but it could explain why he was cut 6 times.

[Guest]

Of course all of those things factor in, but remember - we lost so many winnable games that we fired the coach. Remember, Steichen was the offensive coordinator in the game we lost to the Patriots 45-0, who were a below .500 team with Cam Newton at QB. I only bring this up because there is so much grumbling about how bad Lombardi is and people pining for Steichen because he was so much better. I'm just pointing out that Steichen had his issues and somehow people are under the impression that the offense was better under him. It just wasn't.

I disagree with your take.

The Steichen offense was less successful overall in 2020 because Anthony Lynn wanted to focus on establishing the running game, particularly on early downs when we had Herbert, Allen, Williams, Guyton and Johnson and could not run the ball to save our lives. This frequently put us behind the sticks with opponents knowing that we were going to be passing the ball. This created difficult down and distance situations for Herbert.

Also, our OL was literally the worst in the entire NFL in 2020. It is much, much better now than it was then, even with some injuries.

What Steichen called when he called passing plays was actually much better than what Lombardi calls. Lombardi calls a better percentage of pass to run than Steichen did (more passes--likely because Anthony Lynn is not the head coach). That works better for our team. Other teams might be more successful running the ball more as they do not have Herbert and may have more ground game talent than we do in terms of RBs and run blocking.

[Guest]

I would rather take a flyer on Fuller, who at his best is quite a bit better than either Guyton or Johnson

No doubt Fuller is better, but his last contract was for over $10M on a one year deal. Guyton's contract was for $965K. Johnson is on the active roster of the Raiders.

Chris Conley is sitting on HOU's practice squad unprotected right now as far as I am aware. He has had 3 40+ reception seasons.

It is ridiculous that we have not already signed a speedy WR. As I have stated previously, I would sign two speedy WRs and move Palmer to the practice squad as a protected player as there is just too much slow and no wiggle in our WR group right now. We are in dire need of speed at WR and there should be immediate firings of GM, HC and OC if none of them can figure out this simplest of concepts.

[Berserker76]

Of course all of those things factor in, but remember - we lost so many winnable games that we fired the coach. Remember, Steichen was the offensive coordinator in the game we lost to the Patriots 45-0, who were a below .500 team with Cam Newton at QB. I only bring this up because there is so much grumbling about how bad Lombardi is and people pining for Steichen because he was so much better. I'm just pointing out that Steichen had his issues and somehow people are under the impression that the offense was better under him. It just wasn't.

The Eagles offense is sure a hell of a lot better under Steichen, maybe because he's now working for a real coach? Still waiting to hear what so many of you like about Lombardi. Is it still that 5th-rated offense thing?

[richpjr]

The Eagles offense is sure a hell of a lot better under Steichen, maybe because he's now working for a real coach? Still waiting to hear what so many of you like about Lombardi. Is it still that 5th-rated offense thing?

There is a difference between being a big Lombardi fan and objecting to some of the utter nonsense being spouted here about him. It puzzles me why Lombardi shouldn't get credit for having the 5th ranked offense. Should that be held against him? It was an improvement over what Steichen had the year before. It was also much better than the numbers put up by Steichen's Eagles offense last year. So while I really don't care what anyone thinks about Lombardi, the junk being spouted doesn't match reality.

[chargeroo]

The Eagles offense is sure a hell of a lot better under Steichen, maybe because he's now working for a real coach? Still waiting to hear what so many of you like about Lombardi. Is it still that 5th-rated offense thing?

It's not so much what we like about Lombardi as it is we see you, anti-Lombardi people as blaming him for each and every play called that doesn't work. For instance, when we run up the gut on a third and short and fail to make it. People say it's a lousy play he called. But, the truth is that's the right call for that situation, failing to block for the RB is the real problem.

[Bolt4Knob]

No doubt Fuller is better, but his last contract was for over $10M on a one year deal. Guyton's contract was for $965K. Johnson is on the active roster of the Raiders.

Chris Conley is sitting on HOU's practice squad unprotected right now as far as I am aware. He has had 3 40+ reception seasons.

It is ridiculous that we have not already signed a speedy WR. As I have stated previously, I would sign two speedy WRs and move Palmer to the practice squad as a protected player as there is just too much slow and no wiggle in our WR group right now. We are in dire need of speed at WR and there should be immediate firings of GM, HC and OC if none of them can figure out this simplest of concepts.

Chris Conley is on a PS and we haven't signed him. What is wrong with that

[Velo]

There is a difference between being a big Lombardi fan and objecting to some of the utter nonsense being spouted here about him. It puzzles me why Lombardi shouldn't get credit for having the 5th ranked offense. Should that be held against him? It was an improvement over what Steichen had the year before. It was also much better than the numbers put up by Steichen's Eagles offense last year. So while I really don't care what anyone thinks about Lombardi, the junk being spouted doesn't match reality.

Again, you are the voice of reason. I am in sync with your perspective. That is why I started a Lombardi support thread.

[richpjr]

Again, you are the voice of reason. I am in sync with your perspective. That is why I started a Lombardi support thread.

I understand people's frustration. We did not make the playoffs last year and are 1-2 this year so everything, including Lombardi, should be subject to scrutiny and criticism. He isn't perfect and can be better just like just about everything on the team. I just find it odd that he seems to be blamed for so much. But that is just me...

[Guest]

You do realize that Lombardi's offense in 2021 vs Steichens in 2020:

Had more total yards
Had more passing yards
Had more rushing yards
Had a higher yards per pass average
Had a higher yards per rush average
Had more passing TDs
Had more first downs
Scored more points

Steichen's offense had fewer turnovers, so I give him credit for that.

This notion that the good old days of Steichen were better than Lombardi and Lombardi is holding back Herbert is just not faintly grounded in reality. And remember, that Steichen's offense had the mighty TBilly in it.

In 2020, Steichen was stuck with Anthony Lynn as his head coach. Lynn insisted on trying to establish the wholly ineffective ground game, especially on early downs, constantly leaving a rookie Herbert in bad down and distance situations. The team's OL was the worst in the NFL in 2020, 32nd in run block win rate and 31st in pass block win rate.

By contrast, last year, the OL was much improved and Staley boosted the offense by going for it many times on 4th downs on which Lynn never would have gone for it. Herbert was also a year further into his development. As I have stated before, this team was not even a top third of the league team in scoring absent Staley's unique 4th down aggressiveness.

Pretending that a straight across comparison between the offensive results in 2020 versus 2021 is a meaningful comparison between Steichen and Lombardi as an OC reflects a complete lack of understanding of what was happening in both seasons and completely fails to consider the impact of head coaching decisions, which was dramatic in opposite directions favoring Lombardi; fails to consider the massive improvement of the OL from having the worst OL in the NFL to having multiple Pro Bowl OL players, favoring Lombardi; fails to consider the development of Herbert as player, favoring Lombardi; and fails to consider that Allen, Williams and Ekeler were healthier in 2021 than they were in 2020, again favoring Lombardi.

Because Lombardi was permitted to call more passes than Steichen, the offense was virtually guaranteed to produce more results in 2021. But when passing schemes are compared, Steichen's was better.

It is laughable that in 2020, Johnson outproduced Palmer's 2021 season on barely half of the targets that Palmer had and yet you somehow think Johnson was not all that good. Let me help you. He was better in 2020 than Palmer will ever be in terms of efficiency. Again, he produced the highest passer rating when targeted of all qualifying receivers in the entire league in 2020, making him a superb supporting receiver when working with Herbert regardless of how he has done with other teams.

And contrary to your lame statement elsewhere, that is not a claim that he is somehow Jerry Rice, but rather is simply a statement that he was a really good supporting receiver that complemented the games of Allen and Williams very nicely and also worked very well with Herbert.

Lombardi has actually significantly underachieved given the talent he has had at his disposal. You can go on believing that Lombardi is great, but the fact remains that Herbert is 6th from last in intended air yards while simultaneously being 6th overall in passing aggressiveness, which counts when the defender is within one yard of the intended receiver at the time of the arrival of the ball. A scheme that produces riskier throws for lesser gains is not a good scheme.