One upside of getting JSW and Mitchell back

I've been pretty vocal in my opinion that having Justin Scott-Wesley and Malcolm Mitchell back isn't a cure all pill for our passing offense. Having said that, there is one very important upside to them being back: Conley, Bennett, the TEs/RBs will no longer be isolated in coverage against our opponents' best pass defenders.

If that sounds like some sort of insult to those guys, that is on you, because it isn't. None of those guys are as quick off the ball and as slippery as either of the returning WRs. And none have the extra spurt when needed that JSW and Mitchell have.

I'm willing to give Mason the benefit of the doubt about his passing, particularly with the current party line that he's been holding back due to being afraid of making mistakes. In that way, he is the anti-Joe Cox. Give Joe Cox credit, he wasn't afraid to sling it all over the school yard. Good or bad. And he was good when teams decided that he was going to have to beat them playing toss and catch.

When you think about Conley and Bennett's best work, it is usually when they are on middle routes with coverage from a closing safety or LB trailing. There is a reason we haven't seen that yet. They haven't run those routes much. With them back in those routes, we'll find out just how much the Mason will 'let it rip' mindset works, because he'll have some underneath options that he's been either ignoring or missing.

One other thing about Joe Cox, he didn't have Todd Gurley to hand off to when teams dropped into nickle coverage. Get teams to back off of the line just a little bit and the passing offense has done it's job.

TD

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