Jason Witten???

[flotsamnjetsam]

Who's Janson Witten? Jason's brother?

And why didn't you edit it!

[Metroid]

Who's Janson Witten? Jason's brother?

And why didn't you edit it!

Because then my stupid joke won't make sense.

[Kensat30]

2008:
Jason Witten - 81/952/4, worst games 1/8/0, 1/11/0, career averages excluding rookie year 79/918/5
Chris Cooley - 83/849/1, worst games 1/7/0, 1/12/0, career averages excluding rookie year 69/786/6

Where is the big difference? Where is the consistent stud production? I don't see it. Witten performed almost exactly at his career averages last season. Cooley is overlooked this year due to his 1 TD anomaly last year. For all this talk of how far a guy like Cooley puts you behind Witten, even in a PPR league Cooley was barely 1.5 points a game behind Witten in production last year and that was with only 1 TD. On average Cooley has been about 1 point a game behind Witten. One point a game margins are miniscule and not worth sacrificing massive draft pick value.

The key difference from last season that you're overlooking is that Witten was injured midseason (combined with Romo getting hurt for that matter), which accounted for his very poor 4 game stretch. Prior to his injury, he was averaging 6.4 catches for 77 yards and 0.3 TDs over a span of 7 games. And post injury from week 13 on, he averaged 6.4 catches for 72 yards and 0.4 TDs over a span of 5 games.

Cooley on the other hand was healthy the entire season (as was Campbell) and Cooley still fell 100 yards and 3 TDs short of Witten's numbers. While I agree with you that Cooley's 1 TD was an anomoly, I don't think Cooley will be all that close to Witten's production this year in PPR leagues if both of them stay healthy.

I currently have Witten projected for 96 catches for 1104 yards and 6 TDs versus 74 catches for 814 yards and 5 TDs for Cooley. This is certainly enough of a difference in PPR leagues to warrant say, a mid 4th round pick on Witten.

Dangerous to project players for career years IMO, especially when the situation has changed so drastically in Dallas. What is to stop teams from doubling Witten instead of TO? I don't think Roy Williams is scaring anybody. The guy is not fast enough to run downfield routes like TO was, defenses won't need to drop a safety deep all game anymore.

[My team is injured]

I currently have Witten projected for 96 catches for 1104 yards and 6 TDs versus 74 catches for 814 yards and 5 TDs for Cooley. This is certainly enough of a difference in PPR leagues to warrant say, a mid 4th round pick on Witten.

Dangerous to project players for career years IMO, especially when the situation has changed so drastically in Dallas. What is to stop teams from doubling Witten instead of TO? I don't think Roy Williams is scaring anybody. The guy is not fast enough to run downfield routes like TO was, defenses won't need to drop a safety deep all game anymore.

Well, I'm not quite projecting him for a career year as he had the same amount of catches in 2007 for more yards and TDs.

Basically, it boils down to me expecting him to continue what he's done week in, week out, the past 2 seasons aside from the 1 month due to injury last year. As for the situation changing in Dallas with TO gone, time will of course tell the picture, but I expect Witten to still put up similar numbers. From what I can recall, TE success seems to be more contingent upon the TE's ability and less contingent upon the situation in comparison to WRs and RBs (crumpler had success for years in Atlanta with Vick, T Gonz has had success through various QBs and offenses, Heap had success for years with poor QBs). And Romo is still at the very least an average and likely a bit above average quarterback.

Witten is a great TE and will likely remain heavily utilized in an offense that I expect to stay somewhat pass-heavy despite their personnel changes and strengths in the backfield. Witten has been Romo's go to guy for a couple years and I don't expect that to change with TO gone. I could see Witten's yard per catch being a bit down with TO gone but I expect him to remain a possession guy who can also get a TD here and there.