TE Ferguson Has Skills For Longevity
Now 13 games into the season, and Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott may finally have another go to receiver in the passing game – tight end Jake Ferguson.
Everybody knows that CeeDee Lamb is No. 1 receiver in Dallas, but the Cowboys have lacked a true partner for him the entire season.
Yes, they have had big games here and there from wide receivers Brandin Cooks and Michael Gallup, but it is the consistency that Ferguson has shown that is giving me flashbacks of Jason Witten and Jay Novacek.
This season, Ferguson, the clear leader of the young tight end room, has had just four games where he averaged less than 10.7 yards per catch. He has five games with at least five catches and another four games with at least 72 yards, as well as four touchdown catches over the last seven games.
His overall grades on Pro Football Focus are rising, putting him in the top 10 in several categories– running pass routes (9th), percentage of targets caught (10th), pass blocking (5th), run blocking (9th) and overall blocking (9th), which includes no sacks, no quarterback hurries, no quarterback hits and no quarterback pressures allowed this season for tight ends with at least 165 snaps.
Among tight ends, he is fifth in yards per catch at 11.1, seventh in yards with 570 and 10th in receptions with 51.
He is having a hell of a season, something this franchise is used to when it comes to the tight end position.
From Mike Ditka to Billy Joe Dupree to Jay Saldi to Doug Cosbie to Novacek and to Witten, from the beginning of the franchise in the 1960s through the Super Bowl teams of the 90s and almost the entire run of the 2000s, the team has been loaded with top-end talent at the position.
And through their first two seasons in the NFL, there are a lot of similarities between Ferguson and those that have come before him in Dallas.
After a rough first year, where he caught just 19 of 22 targets for 174 yards and two touchdowns in 16 games, Ferguson has come into his own.
Now 28 games into his career, he has 65 catches for 672 yards and seven touchdowns.
It’s better than what Novacek could muster in his first three seasons in St. Louis, where he had just 22 catches for 260 yards and three touchdowns in 31 games played, but not quite as good as Witten, who put up 122 catches for 1,327 yards and seven touchdowns in 31 games.
Ferguson’s 10.62 yards per catch over his first two seasons is better than what Witten (10.6), Dalton Schultz (9.75), Saldi (7.9), Cosbie (6.32) and Novacek (6.2) were able to produce, but behind the production of Ditka (17.4) and Dupree (14.8) over their first two seasons in the league.
The biggest thing is he passes the eye test.
He has built on the strengths he had coming out of college – skilled hands, crisp route running, outstanding catch focus in traffic, certified tough guy that can catch in heavy contact and he makes good adjustments to the football, while also developing his weaknesses into strengths – physicality as an in-line blocker, adding core strength, burst off the line and into his routes, more leverage at the break point on his routes and the ability to settle in space more quickly.
Add to it that he’s got the speed to stretch the middle of the defense with seam routes that have exposed more than one team this season.
He is showing the physicality to hold his own in any blocking scheme.
His hands are like glue. He’ll catch anything that is within arm’s length, whether in front or behind him.
And, as we saw for the second time this season on Sunday night, he has the moves, and hops, to leap defenders that go for the legs.
He’s the ultimate package at tight end.
It’s not easy to find a Ditka or a Dupree or a Novacek or a Witten, but the Cowboys look to have found one in Ferguson, now that he is starting to produce like those that have come before him.