We'll have Noah Fant on the Radio Tonight

[WinOneThisCentury]

Well...I've argued a different perspective of the Fant playing time. Trust me, there are aspects I don't understand and I think can only be understood by sitting down with Brian Ferentz and having him be candid about it. That ain't happening in my opinion.

Here's my take. You had the Mackey Award winner as the best TE in America lining up at the same position in the formation. The Mackey Award winner is a much better run blocker in an offense predicated on play action to get people open and in space...hence more playing time. Hockenson is a stud and much of Fant's production went there. There is also no doubt that Hockenson owes a huge part of this award to Fant...he took the double teams and a ton of attention.

The second aspect is that his quarterback didn't get him the damn ball when he was open...or didn't trust him enough to throw one up for Fant to go get. There were so many throws where Fant was wide open and Stanley just threw such a poor ball that it wasn't catchable...or if it was, he was catching it diving on the ground or adjusting so there was no run after catch. You add 10-12 catches and 250-300 yards to Fants numbers and it's a different picture.

I would agree, he should have been in the game as much as he could handle physically. That being said, I've re-watched many games and his blocking would be rated average at best.

 

[CP87]

The second aspect is that his quarterback didn't get him the damn ball when he was open...or didn't trust him enough to throw one up for Fant to go get. There were so many throws where Fant was wide open and Stanley just threw such a poor ball that it wasn't catchable...or if it was, he was catching it diving on the ground or adjusting so there was no run after catch. You add 10-12 catches and 250-300 yards to Fants numbers and it's a different picture.

That is definitely true, so much potential production was left on the field due to failure to connect between Stanley and Fant. It started on the 3rd play from scrimmage on the season when Stanley hit Fant perfectly on what would have been a 70 yard TD, only for Fant to drop it. It continued with who knows how many examples of Fant running free and Stanley failing to put it on him. It is weird, for some reason throws to Fant seemed to account for about 90% of Stanley's terrible misses.

Oddly, I don't remember anyone talking about the misuse of Fant last year, yet in fewer games this year, Fant has more receptions and more yards than he did last. I don't know how his snap count changed, but I am sure his targets went way up (pretty sure he led the team in targets this year). His TDs went down from 11 to 7, but TDs are one of those stats with a lot of randomness (just ask Julio Jones, or his fantasy football owners).

So Fant's production actually improved, and at the same time, the overall offense was substantially better this year. On an absolute basis, pt/game went from 28.2 (66th in nation) to 31.5 (47th in nation). On a pts/possession basis (I am using an approximation of this, ESPN's offensive efficiency index, as that is the easiest thing for me to find), they went from 54th in the nation last year to 38th in the nation this year. That improvement occurred in spite of losing by far their most productive offensive player to graduation (Wadley).

So Fant was more productive and the offense was substantially better, but they used him adequately last year, and they horribly misused him this year.

Maybe more people were talking about his underutilization last year, and I just don't remember.

Maybe last year his underutilization was less obvious as Wadley was so clearly the #1 offensive threat, and Fant had notable success (led nation in TE TDs and yds/catch).

Or perhaps we are all assuming that Fant is a better football player than he actually is because of his eye-popping athleticism (he is clearly awesome, but maybe he isn't Marv Cook/Dallas Clark/Tony Moeaki-when-healthy/George Kittle-if-not-hamstrung-by-Greg-Davis'-offense/TJ Hockenson kind of awesome).

I guess time and NFL production will ultimately answer part of that.

 

[TychoBrahe]

My pet theory is that BF has certain packages that feature or don't feature Noah Fant, and same with TJ. There are more packages that feature TJ since he is a better all-around TE (whereas Fant was a "specialist"), and for whatever reason, those plays were called more often in certain games like NW, and I don't think BF even realized he was doing it. I'd bet it was only after the game that he realized how little Fant saw the field that day. It's BF's fault for designing his offense this way, and over-using packages that didn't feature Fant, and that's on him.

But I seriously doubt BF thinking, "No, we gotta keep 87 on the bench because he's talking about the NFL too much" or whatever it was. He's so busy and focused during the game that he's hardly aware he's calling play packages that keep 87 on the bench. Again, that shouldn't happen, and probably wouldn't happen with a more experienced OC. And Stanley overthrowing Fant every time he was open didn't help, either.

 

[lightning1]

I believe that KF/BF thought that NF didn't block well enough. That in combination with NF's family openly questioning KF/BF on social media, was all it took for KF/BF to cut their nose off to spite their face and keep NF off the field.
Any personal package that included only 1 TE, should have had NF in the slot or on the outside. Period. If we wanted to get our best players on the field for as many wins as possible.
The comical part of this scenario is that if Hock leaves for the NFL, it seriously screws the offense for next season. I don't care what anyone says, it does. So, it appears that they might have cut their noses off for next season too.

 

[MoseSchrute]

That criminal under-use is so fascinating. What could be the possible explanation? I have seen several theories floated:

• The coaches were offended by Fant's unhappiness with PT (we would have to surmise that Fant was unhappy, Fant never publicly vocalized such notions) or his family's social media behavior and sat him as part of a petty revenge strategy. While some seem to love this as it gives them an opportunity to impugn KF's character, it seems highly unlikely that someone like KF with so much to gain by winning would intentionally sabotage his team to prove a point.
• There were certain team standards, relating either to the preparatory week leading to games or within the games, that Fant was not meeting to an adequate level. As playing time is really the only true "carrot" a coach has to offer, his underuse was part of a larger plan to not only motivate him to reach his potential, but also to maintain team-wide standards. We have no way to know if such a thing could be true because generally KF does not discuss such issues in public. Some may argue withholding playing time to a super-star like Fant, even in the face of hypothetical shortcomings of standards, would be ridiculous. However, the effect of any person being held to a different standard can be highly detrimental to culture, and culture does like to eat strategy for breakfast after all. I think this explanation is more likely than the 1st, but from what we have seen and heard about Fant, it seems unlikely as well. But it works for those that feel more comfortable impugning the character of a student-athlete than impugning the character of the coach.
• The 3rd explanation is that coaches were not innovative enough to find ways to maximize the potential of the person who was at the very least the 2nd best skill position player on offense (I would argue behind Hock). I think this is the most likely as we fall back on Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I don't see any other logical explanation.

Yes, #3 seems most likely. "Ferentz Football LLC's" ability to acquire and properly utilize high level skill position players is maddening, to say the least. And Fant counts as a skill player due to his speed and athleticism. Dude could have played as a receiver with Hockenson at TE.

 

[Jonrn]

Yeah I'm afraid we'll never honestly know... Best chance if with Fant down the road telling us after he's long gone. However there's a good chance he may not know the real reason anymore than we do and it's between the Ferentzs. I like you think KF has been around way too long to purposefully sabotage both he and his teams best chance of winning games over some invisible back and forth with Fants family... I just can't see that at all. I don't remember DJKs usage being affected a whole lot. When he was suited up and on the field we used him and they had their well documented rounds almost his entire tenure at Iowa. So whatever their 'logic' was it was pretty darn flawed.
I dunno they sure were out thinking themselves is all I know. To steal a line they 'let them off the hook' and by they I mean the other teams coaches. Every one of them came in with Fant as their main focus of trying to stop us and for a big chunk of the year he was hardly that. And that's on our coaches plain and simple.

Hell, the Ferentz’s might not even know. For all I know Brian’s playcalling was shoddy and he simply called formations and plays fant wasn’t in. Stupidly it close.