Who is to blame for Tonyan’s slow start?

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(Photo: William Glasheen, USA TODAY Sports)

The Green Bay Packers are one of six teams to have 5 wins in 6 weeks so far this season. This is a very impressive achievement considering the setbacks they suffered along the way on the injury front.

In the absence of several key contributors, some players who weren’t supposed to offer much this year have stepped up dramatically. Eric Stokes, Randall Cobb, Preston Smith, Jon Runyan Jr. and Jonathan Garvin all contributed to the Packers’ early season success.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are a few players that we were expecting great things from this season and we haven’t really seen them yet. Perhaps the most disappointing of these players is Robert Tonyan.

After by far the best season of his professional career in 2020, Tonyan had legitimate potential for the Pro Bowl entering this season. In fact, an inaugural Pro Bowl appearance for the 27-year-old was one of the season predictions I made in August. However, Tonyan’s slow start put him far behind 8-ball for this achievement.

Last 6 games 2020 First 6 games 2021 Course 132 142 Targets 22 18 Receptions 20 11 Yards 195 92 Touchdowns 5 1

After Week 6, Tonyan ranks 40th among tight ends for receiving yards. He was 16th at the same point last year, and that’s after playing one game less than most, due to the Packers’ week off.

Right now, Tonyan is just 15 more receiving yards than Marcedes Lewis, 37, this season, despite having covered nearly three times as many runs. In fact, Tonyan’s yards per run rank 46th out of 49 qualifying tight ends.

The Packers’ dramatic drop in Redzone’s success from NFL 1st last season to 22nd so far this season is in part due to a decrease in production from Tonyan who was NFL 4th in the Redzone TDs la last season, but has no such scores this year.

So what gives? Was last season nothing more than an outlier in Tonyan’s career? Is he just playing worse than in 2020? Or is it more to do with Matt LaFleur, Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the Packers offense?

(Photo: Cary Edmondson, USA TODAY Sports)

If the program was responsible for last year’s success, is the program now to blame?

Many people have attributed Robert Tonyan’s success last season to Matt LaFleur’s game design. It’s hard to disagree. While Tonyan himself was very impressive with unmatched target efficiency, the fact remained that many of his receptions were the product of good play calls that left him wide open.

However, if you stick with that statement when Tonyan played last season, the same should be said when he doesn’t see so much ball this season. How many balls he sees is not really up to him.

It’s in the areas Tonyan himself can control where you can see a clearer picture of his own individual performance this year, so let’s take a look at them.

Drops

After collecting 60 receptions without a single drop last season, Tonyan took the smallest step back with a drop on the season by PFF.

He arrived in Week 1 against the Saints (of course he did) on a rather poor pitch from Aaron Rodgers that forced Tonyan to adjust to the ball. The drops are pretty subjective, so does this one really matter? Well, Packers TEs coach Justin Outten said yes so that’s confirmation enough for me.

We must expect a regression on the drops. It’s literally just a pass, a mistake. It’s nowhere near enough to blame Tonyan for the silence he lived for a month and a half.

Blocking execution

Tonyan has never thrived in the race blocking department and he doesn’t appear to have grown since last year. He had a PFF race blocking rating of 52.2 last season, which has remained fairly stagnant at 50.3 so far this season, which ranks 66th out of 84 tight ends.

We’ll never expect him to be Marcedes Lewis, but on an attack that uses personnel as heavy as Green Bay, every TE must be able to block at a respectable level. The increased uses of Dominique Dafney and Josiah Deguara are also the reason we see less of Tonyan in the racing game, and a higher percentage of his shots now come from the slots.

Contested holds and global aggressiveness

Last year, just 1 of Tonyan’s 60 receptions was considered a contested take by PFF. A fairly absurd statistic in itself. It was his only contested hold on 3 occasions. Watching him play, you’d believe it too, as so many of his receptions have been in yards of space.

This year, however, Tonyan has already had 5 contested passes, and he did well to land 3. His average depth of target has also increased slightly. So it’s clear the Packers (and Aaron Rodgers) pushed him into slightly more vertical situations.

It could be a side effect of having a real slots receiver for the first time in quite some time now at Randall Cobb, who runs a lot of shallow roads while Tonyan gets behind the linebackers.

Skip the interference

This is not an area Tonyan can “control”. In fact, it is quite the opposite, but it is worth mentioning here. Defensive pass interference is an area of ​​hidden distance that is remarkably overlooked in terms of a receiver’s output.

In 6 games, Tonyan suffered 3 penalties for passing interference totaling 55 yards. This is the maximum of all Packers and if DPI yards were credited to the fouled receiver, it would increase Tonyan’s yards by over 50%.

Can Tonyan get back in shape?

Absoutely. In fact, I would consider that to happen at some point. The rest of the Packers’ offense in pattern and trend hasn’t changed much from last season, so there’s no reason to expect the dry spell of Tonyan continues for the remaining 11 games.

The one area of ​​his game that might not revert to his old ways is the number of touchdowns he’s used to. It’s more likely to have been an outlier for 2020. Especially since Tonyan is roughly the third prime target in the Redzone behind Adams and Jones.

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