Lions | McCown could see time as wide receiver

[Russ Smith]

Matt Jones had an okay season operating out of the slot as a rookie, but has been stinking it up this season when his team depended on his production. Only 3 starts, 19 receptions for 433 yards, 0 TDs. I hope that Josh McCown can contribute like Matt Jones has done.

EDIT: He's also catching fewer than 50% of the passes thrown in his direction so far this season, with 4 drops, according to STATS, Inc.

19 for 266, 433 was last year. Jones also cost David Garrard 2 picks Sunday on balls that went right through his hands. Those of us stupid enough to start Garrard on our fantasy teams did NOT appreciate that.

I read that Jones drives the coaches nuts he's too laid back.

 

[Wild Card]

He's probably going to catch 2 td's Sunday against us.

Russ:

There's more to this McCown-at-receiver experiment than I realized. Look what I found on mlive.com:

Thursday, November 16, 2006

McCown could play receiver
Quarterback Josh McCown could play some receiver in the upcoming weeks, but offensive coordinator Mike Martz said the team would be smart about it and not send him on crossing patterns over the middle and will try to keep him out of harm's way if at all possible.

That means that McCown, who has been catching passes with the receivers for several weeks, would likely be a fourth receiver and run deep routes in obvious passing situations. McCown has good speed, great leaping ability and good hands.

"He's such a great athlete. He's a 4.5 (40-yard dash) guy, 6-4, 6-3," Martz said. "We work him out every week as a wide receiver just in case. We always carry him as an emergency receiver. I never had a quarterback that was that dynamic of an athlete. There's nothing he can't do athletically. He's a freak of an athlete."

Martz will not put McCown in danger of being hurt if he gets into a game.

"I think it'd be a very selective situation. We'd be very, very specific about how we would use him. Are we going to use him as a stock blocker, running inside on routes? No. We're not going to do that. Certainly with his height advantage, and his speed, there's some things that he can do that can help."

And, yes, this means that Mike Williams has now dropped below a quarterback on the receiver depth chart.​

I swear, you can't make this stuff up...

WC

 

[Russ Smith]

Classic stuff for sure. And you have to give Martz credit, not once did he mention Josh's ability on the basketball court.

Josh is a great athlete, just not a very good QB.

 

[BigRedRage]

why did we draft fitz when we had mccown all along?

 

[Russ Smith]

why did we draft fitz when we had mccown all along?

Because Josh was the next Brett Favre at that time.

At this point I don't care, we wound up getting Leinart which is fine with me, and Fitz is a great player although I still think Roy Williams fit us better, they're both great players couldn't go wrong either way IMHO.

 

[Russ Smith]

Anyway, I expect McCown to light it up for major YAC anyway, so come next week we'll cut Bradford and sign Jeff Garcia as the backup QB as we move McCown to #3 receiver.

So is Mike Williams really that much out of shape or does Martz just really not like him? I read Mike was lighter and yet he can't even get on the field ahead of Josh?

I know he makes a lot of dough for doing nothing but is he really THAT bad?