He is not an outside #2 Wr. Moving him to the slot would perhaps give him a better match up with nickel corners. I don’t know.
I'm really not at all on the Kirk sucks bandwagon. Both his first 2 years would have likely gone for 800+ if he stayed healthy. Last year he had 6 TD's (same as first 2 combined), 13 yards per reception. He's still only 24. We just use him REALLY badly. For one, his snap share was down from 98% in 2019 to 78% in 2020. I can't think of any possible excuse for that given the WR room we have. I assume we are blatantly advertising we are going to run the ball. Even on less snaps his target rate fell from 24% in 2019 to 16% in 2020. We barely move him around, he played 89% of his snaps wide right and we basically say to him "Run these 3 basic routes 34 times a game vs the same CB and see how that goes for you". His route tree is basically go's, comebacks at the sticks and out routes at the sticks. And he has no help, none of the WR's do, we don't run any combination routes to help WR's get open. All of them are asked to just beat their man 1v1. Go watch the help Cole Beasley gets in the Bills scheme to understand how he did so well. Hell, he had 10 rushes for 97 yards in 2019 and we even stopped giving him them this year. Is Kirk great? I really have no idea because we abuse him in this system. If I was Kirk I would want to leave it's that bad. I do however suspect he's much better than we allow him to be.
I think you're about right here, though Kirk has had some high profile drops. I think Kirk would be at his best as a slot guy and move receiver. Get him the ball in his hands in space and he can make some plays. As an outside receiver, he struggles with drops and doesn't fight for the ball like a top outside guy will.
I’m not defending Kliff here, but I actually wonder if Kirk is even capable of running certain routes.
It was definitely a poor plan to draft Kirk, Isabella, and KeeSean when Fitz is where he is at in his career.
it would be very Cardinal-esque to move Kirk to the slot next year, watch him catch 70 balls for 950 yards and then leave in free agency
