The Two Sides of the Steelers and Sammie Coates

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Depending on your view of wide receiver Sammie Coates, you support him despite his second half of 2016 season or have no faith because of it.

Before the injury in week 5, Coates had caught 19 out of 31 passes. His worst game was week 2 when he caught 2 of 5. In that game he produced 97 yards on those 2 grabs against the Cincinnati Bengals. Despite his big plays, he only had two touchdowns and those both game in the week 5 game where he was injured.

After the injury, he caught 2 passes out of 18 thrown his way. In 2 games, he was targeted 9 times with 0 catches. His longest catch during that time was 10 yards. I am sure his target distance was a lot higher. If you watched these games, you would see he had a clear step sometimes on the defensive back.

We are supposed to trust the coaches and staff to put the best players out there. So if his hand was so bad he could not catch, wouldn’t they know that in practice?

Well if you back the player, you will say it was so he can still open up the field for other players. That they needed to throw it to him so defenses couldn’t just single him up. If you think he is not as good as others, you will say that he was healthy enough to be out there and should have caught more than 2 passes.

I am not on the side of Coates being this amazing wide receiver. I am also not on the side that Coates is a bad wide receiver that was a flash in the pan either. I don’t see how anyone can make a definitive statement on what he can be right now.

We have seen others that started their career out on fire but burnt out. Other players that got better over the years. You look at Mike Wallace and see what he has done. He has had a good career but when he started, people were blown away. Has he broken the “one trick pony” label that Mike Tomlin called him?

Let’s not cut Coates yet. Let’s also not get that bust ready for Canton. Give the man time to earn his career. Take a breath and enjoy the summer. Let training camp decide if he is a top 3 on the team or trade bait.

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