I don’t think Funchess is a world beater by any stretch… but I will point out that the article referenced above is looking at 2016… which was not only Devin’s 2nd year… but Cam Newton’s worst season as a starter in Carolina.
Even on his best day… Cam doesn’t exactly throw a consistently accurate or “catchable” ball… so I would take 2016 with a grain of salt.
Also… Funchess did have a higher drop “rate” than other WRs… but he had 8 drops that year. Diontae Johnson had 13 drops in 2020.
Here is the 2021 drops leaders….
And here are Cam’s and Funchess’ career numbers… which show both had a rough year in 2016…… BTW… Cam threw 19 TDs and 14 INTs in 2016… and played last 4 games or so with a torn rotator cuff… and Funchess did almost nothing after his injury.
It doesn’t hurt to bring him in for camp and the preseason. I don’t see him making the final roster, unless Dan thinks we need a slow WR with tennis rackets for hands to make everyone else look that much better.
I like this move bc it gives us something to talk about peak dog days. Doubt it ever materializes into more than that. Brad just likes us and throws us a transaction bone.
I will say this about Funchess…he took being a WR seriously in terms of his weight. Kelvin Benjamin ate himself into his last opportunity in the NFL being at TE (which failed). We joked about Big Mike Williams eating himself into having a TE body while he tried to be an NFL WR. Funchess put in the work to maintain a WR build.
Well this post just shows you never read earlier post that showed facts that his hands are not as bad has you make it sound .just repeating negative posts without taking time to really check him out.
This is something the Lions staff over looked last year with Perriman and it back fired on them.
Drops can’t be easily fixed and any player who has a high drop rate or low catch rate is a drive killer. A
Lot of teams shy away from any player who has a low catch rate or high drop rate but the Lions do not.
They had two open spots whats the big deal Your out of sorts Air over what?
It just means we have other options if he looks ok if not see ya whats the big deal.
Anything to complain i guess.
Hm…I wonder if we could use him like we did when we had boldin here, another big body WR. I mean you can switch him to TE, but honestly he’s just a big WR that’s probably hard to mess with when fighting for the ball.
He’s worthless here. “Of 109 receivers who were targeted at least 32 times in 2018, Funchess ranked 96th among receivers with a 12.0 percent drop rate (six drops), according to Pro Football Focus. In his four healthy seasons, Sports Info Solutions charged Funchess with 20 drops. He had drop rates of 11 percent or worse in three of those seasons. Drops were a big problem coming out of Michigan, too, with a three-year total of 20 drops.”
Uhh, there are several posts above about his terrible drop rate. Funchess has been in the NFL what he was at Michigan: An unremarkable receiver who plays smaller than he is and drops too many passes. His best season came from Newton force feeding him the ball despite his low efficiency. Kind of like how people thought Ebron had turned the corner in Indy by putting up big numbers, when in reality Luck had nobody else to throw it to. He went back to producing like a #2 TE once he went to a team that didn’t lob it to him 10 times a game out of desperation.
Funchess has been a fringe player his whole career. Maybe he has improved while not playing last year, but I sure as hell wouldn’t count on it. It doesn’t really cost anything to bring him in for camp and the preseason though.
I have a hard time seeing him make it as a ‘true’ WR. That’s a big depth chart in front of him.
As a flex TE? Maybe. I understand I’m probably splitting hairs here, because he would do basically the same thing.
It would be interesting if we kept 3 TEs, with Hockenson (hybrid blocker/pass catcher), Funchess (pass catcher) and then a true blocking TE (i.e. a 10 catch a year guy). It could get worse than that, for sure.
