Is John Bates ready to replace injured Logan Thomas?
Can rookie tight end John Bates step up and fill the void left by the injury to Logan Thomas? Lets take a closer look
One of the negatives coming out of Washington’s victory over the Raiders on Sunday was the injury to tight end Logan Thomas. Thomas, of course, missed time earlier in the year with an injury and was just starting to show some of his best form against the Raiders. In fact, Thomas led Washington in receiving yards against Las Vegas, with 48 yards from his three receptions, including a touchdown. But in the fourth quarter, he was subjected to a questionable hit from defensive end Yannick Ngakoue.
The good news on Monday was that the initial fears over a torn ACL might not be the case after having an MRI, but the extent to which Thomas is injured is unknown and he still could miss significant time. With Thomas potentially out for a while, Washington will need the rest of the group to step up. Ricky Seals-Jones impressed when Thomas went down earlier this season, before getting hurt himself. With Seals-Jones working back from injury, rookie John Bates is likely to see the bulk of the work as the starting tight end at least for the next week or so.
Fortunately, Bates put on a solid display against the Raiders and showed some promise and development. Bates happened to be Washington’s second leading receiver behind Thomas, with three catches of his own for 42 yards. But it wasn’t really his receiving ability that stood out. Coming out of college, Bates was known as more of a blocker, having had limited ability to really catch the ball. Against the Raiders he showed how effective he can be as a blocker.
On this play down in the red zone, Bates teams up with right tackle Cornelius Lucas on a double team block against defensive end Maxx Crosby. Crosby comes off the snap looking to engage with Lucas, but it’s Bates that is the first to engage. Bates does a great job stepping across quickly and gathering up his momentum to shove Crosby inside, where Lucas can come in and help more. Lucas does help generate some more push and together the pair drive Crosby back nearly five yards before Lucas peels off to help out inside.
Bates is still developing as a blocker, I’m not sure the team fully trusts him to be left one-on-one against a defensive end on the front side of a run yet, but he showed on that play he was capable of generating movement in combination with a tackle. Where Bates has seen more frequent success is as a sift blocker.
Washington’s run game has leaned heavily on the zone scheme this year and the tight ends can play a big part in that. Washington lines up Bates on the front side of this zone run to the left, but he actually is blocking the back side defensive end. Bates executes what’s known as a sift block in many offenses, though I believe Washington calls it a hide block. Bates works back across the line to the right side while the rest of the line all works left. The back side defensive end is deliberately left unblocked for Bates to slide across and cut off, potentially creating a big cutback lane for the back. That’s precisely what happens here as Washington’s offensive line washes out the defensive front from the Raiders while Bates makes a strong cut block on the hip of Crosby to seal him off. That leaves Gibson with a clear cutback lane to work into on his way to a nice gain.
Bates’ blocking wasn’t just impressive in the run game. On a few of Washington’s play-action passes, Bates was kept in to pass protect and he held up pretty well, especially considering who he was asked to block.
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