Receiver Golden Tate is in a contract year. And he may have fewer opportunities to make the most of it.
According to Kyle Meinke of Mlive.com, the Lions used Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay in two-receiver sets on Friday night against the Giants. Tate wasn’t used in any of the two-receiver formations.
Coach Matt Patricia downplayed the significance of Tate’s omission after the game.
“The receivers are rotated based on however the play count is, but there is with the personnel itself,” Patricia said. “That is something we’re trying to look at. . . . We’re just trying to get the play counts out there, and we’re going in and out of different personal groups, so we have it kind of sketched out that way.”
Regardless of who’s on the field, the decision to use two-receiver sets represents a break from 2017, when they went with only two wideouts 18.1 percent of the time.
“Sometimes in those two-wide-receiver sets, you can dictate a little bit defensively what they’re going to be in and you want to try to look at those packages and how they do against those sort of coverages, or fronts or the run game against that sort of look,” Patricia said. “So it’s definitely one where we’re trying to identify what they do against maybe different personnels that we use and then get a good evaluation how we’re against those defenses or packages. That’s certainly something we’re trying to do in those cases.”
So it seems that, for now, there’s no reason to think Tate is being singled out for less work in two-receiver formation. However, the more the Lions use it, the more that one of the team’s top three wideouts won’t be in position to catch passes.