daveR said:
As the year went on, they countered the 6-1 defense by using more 2-TE sets. So, I have to ask when the games you are quoting your stats from took place. If they were late in the season, I'm on board. If they were early on, I'd tend to disregard the numbers, suggesting instead that the TEs together were the beneficiaries.
The games I used were the two weeks Cooks missed and the game he played 3 snaps which covers weeks 8, 10,11.
Now I do agree with you that late in the season, they did skew more towards two TE sets. My feeling at the time was this was hurting Kupp, but your question got me to look a little deeper. Let's look at those late season games, as well as some other games they went heavy with two TE's.
Here is a week by week look at games Rams used two TE's:
1- 7%
2-8%
3-2%
4--4%
5- 43%
6- 14%
7- 23%
8- 2%
10- 6%
11-76%
12- 3%
13-32%
14-76%
15-4%
16-44%
17- 43%
So we can see they did go more two TE heavy late but it was sporadic, that 4% in week 15 is not a typo.
So a few points I'd draw from this data, some of which I'm making assumptions that may not be true.
1. Two TE sets were on the rise, but again sporadic, and not more then 50% except for two weeks and one of those weeks were were forced, which was week 11. Could make a case if Everett was fully healthy they'd have done it more but they actually started picking up heavy two TE usage in week 11, which is the week I think he got nicked up. If anything looking at this data is seems they wanted to go two TE more when Mundt was the second TE, as I believe he's a superior blocker to Higbee and Everett.
2. We only had one of those games that Cooks missed they went heavy two TE sets which was week 11 but that is complicated to use because that's the week Woods missed which forced their hand into two TE sets. In that game Kupp and Reynolds played over 95% of the snaps because they basically had no other choice. So to your point it's true that they had no games that Woods, Kupp and Reynolds were healthy, but Cooks was out, and they were not running two TE at least 40% of the time. But let's look at what happened in those games that all 4 WR's were healthy.
Week 5 which was 43% two TE sets. Woods was the lone WR seemingly unchanged, running 93% of the snaps. Kupp and Cooks both took big hits to their snap counts from previous 4 weeks. Kupp had been averaging 94% snap counts and went to 67% in that game. Cooks had averaged 92% and went down to 64%. Surprisingly Reynolds went up that game from 19.5% to 40%. So it seemed to be more or a less of a rotation among all WR's not named Woods.
Week 11 we already covered. Cooks and Woods was out so Reynolds and Kupp basically had to be every down players.
Week 14, the only other week they went past 50% on two TE usage. Again we have Woods seemingly untouched at 99% of the snap count. And again similar to week 5 we actually saw a rise in Reynolds snaps when they go more two TE. With all 4 WR's healthy he got 66% of the snaps(but no targets and strangely 3 carries). Kupp and Cooks were the two that got crushed, with Kupp dropping to season low 29% of the snaps and Cooks to 39%.
Week 16 and 17 basically show the same thing- 43-44% two TE usage, Woods absolutely unimpacted getting almost every single snap, Kupp and Cooks both down in 60% snap count area, Reynolds in the 40% range.
You may draw a different conclusion then me but here is the conclusion I draw on the entire Rams WR corp, before of course factoring in who they might add later.
1. Woods is the WR you want to own in 2020
2. Kupp is the one that is most impacted by the two TE sets. In the 6 games they used two TE sets 20% or more he played 58% of the snaps if you don't count week 11 when he had to play every down. If you look at it from more two TE heavy usage of 40% of more in each game, which is closer to how they finished the year, he's running 54.5%. Comparatively speaking he was at a 94% snap count the games they went two TE less then 20% of the time,
3. Hard to get a handle on Reynolds but they seemed to like to use him more when they went two TE and Cooks was healthy. I still believe after reviewing all of this that barring an addition that takes his role that Reynolds is the prime player to benefit from Cooks leaving, but saying that I'm not stumping for him because I don't think the upside is much and I'm guessing based on this data he's more in the 60-70% range on snaps.