re: Is Christian Kirk going to play over some of the older guys?

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Pope comes to mind. I looked up his stats from last year and he had a decent SO year with 30 catches. Reynolds of course comes to mind, as he's a stud. I 'm not asking about who will be starting, I'm more referring to who is going to get more balls thrown their way.

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Pope, Speedy and Reynolds are outside receivers and Kirk is inside. They really aren't competing much and how they are used is fairly different.

Kirk is playing the Y which is the spot Malcome Kennedy has occupied the last 2 years and Ryan Swope before that. It's the "high catch" position. Lot of 5-year outs and stick routes. Y-stick is one of our staple plays which is an option to a TB inside zone play or a 5-yard pass to the Y.



The LB in that picture creeped inside before the snap and so Swope ran a 5-yard stop pattern and Manziel drilled it into him after faking the handoff.



This play alone can wrack up 2-3 catches per game for the Y. I think Swope had 6 catches in that '12 Bama game on that play alone. It's essentially an extension of the running game. If the safety doesn't come down in time or he misses the tackle it can be a big play but the goal is to easily pick up 4-5 yards.

Speedy plays the X which is the guy on far left and it's the deep ball position. He'll catch fewer balls but the route tree is much further down the field so his APC should be higher (this is the same position Pope plays). Reynolds plays the Z which is at bottom and is the primary much more often than X. So I guess, yes, expect Kirk to catch far more balls than Speedy did last year.