Turf Show Times
This is the slowest time in the NFL calendar, when teams are for more concerned about their players staying out of the news than they are about actually making any.
Even so, the content game never sleeps, neither does the 24-hour news cycle, and our football-crazed society demands some sort of NFL content even during the summer doldrums.
Still, it’s hard to grasp some of the chatter around the league about Los Angeles Rams tight end Colby Parkinson being a potential cap casualty this year.
In a vacuum, it makes sense why his name would pop up. The Rams have a slew of tight ends on the roster/ready to make their case during training camp, and Parkinson is both the most expensive and one of the oldest of the bunch. With only one year left on his deal, you can understand why folks elsewhere around the league would consider him a movable asset.
As mentioned above, the Rams have a ton of tight ends ready to report to training camp, and they’ve been the posted child for the heavy personnel movement (and 13 personnel, specifically) around the NFL. They need to have plenty around if they plan to run more of those formations, and you can only commit so many resources to that position group.
That’s why there have been a slew of blogs, columns and listicles published in recent weeks about why Parkinson could be cut or traded and added elsewhere. There was a post on Bleacher Report this week dubbing Parkinson one of the “Cut Candidates Who Should be on Every NFL Team’s Radar.” That subsequently led to team blogs and sites clamoring for him to be scooped up by the New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers and others.
This isn’t just a this-week thing, either; this Green Bay Packers post about finding a way to add Parkinson dates back to the start of the month.
Here’s the thing, though: Parkinson is the best tight end the Rams have, and is the engine for this new personnel trend.
Nate Tice of Yahoo Sports was a guest on The Mina Kimes Show recently (who isn’t a popular commentator herself around here, but Tice was plenty insightful during their conversation) and discussed why Parkinson is important to the Rams’ offense.
“Colby Parkinson is the guy that makes it go,” Tice said. “Because he can block, he’s a good receiver, just such a good player. It is going to be cool to see how they move everybody around. [Jake] Ferguson’s going to be the big play threat, [Max] Klare can become that as well.”
The reason L.A.’s 13-personnel stuff works is because it has the pieces to make it work (and a genius play designer calling the shots, of course). As ESPN’s Bill Barnwell wrote early this offseason, most of the copy-cat attempts around the league in the second half of last season came up flat. Personnel is a major reason for that.
Parkinson’s multifaceted skill set unlocks so...
