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As compelling as the off-field portion of that story is, my primary interest in any player revolves around their on-field performance. To me, the key here isn’t whether Owens will get along with Trent Edwards or turn the locker room into a circus but rather whether the Bill’s passing offense will be able to effectively integrate Owens and Lee Evans’s skill sets.
Like any self-respecting wideouts, Owens and Evans both like to be thrown vertical passes (which are balls thrown 11 or more yards downfield). Owens saw 65 of those throws in 2008, a total that tied him for 13th highest among wide receivers, while Evans saw 48. Evans did much better on his passes, however, gaining 691 yards versus Owens’s 708 (or to put it another way, 14.4 vertical YPA for Evans versus 10.9 YPA for Owens). That isn’t an anomaly for Evans; he has been one of the best long ball pass catchers in the N.F.L. for a few years now, but it does lead to Buffalo’s quandary, which is that there are only so many vertical throws to go around.
Let me crunch some numbers to illustrate how this could become a problem. Buffalo QBs threw 118 vertical passes in 2008, which was the second-lowest total in the league. That number will increase in 2009, but Dick Jauron does not strike me as the sort of coach to chuck it deep more often than he needs to, so for the sake of this argument, let’s say the Bills will hit the median league mark of 150 vertical passes. If 20% of these end up going to players other than Evans or Owens, that leaves 120 vertical passes going their way.
Since Evans was so much better than Owens last year, one would think a good split of these throws might be 70/50 or 80/40 in Evans’s favor, but I’m betting Owens isn’t thinking that way. He will probably want the ratio to be more like 70/50 or 80/40 in his favor. His YPA has been dropping for a few years now, and that indicates his best role would be as the short and medium pass catcher whose production at those levels helps keep the defense honest and opens up the long ball for Evans. Owens probably won’t be of that mind-set and that’s where the trouble might kick in. How Jauron, Edwards, Evans and Owens handle this will be much more the key to their ultimate success or failure than will whether or not they all play Madden 2010 together.
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