Perillo looks like a sophomore guard at a junior college. He doesnt have a football body for a TE. My theory is that he moves much better than he look and this disceptiveness is what allows him to get open. I hope we keep players who look bad but produce over players who look good but cant produce.
That's fair. But whether in this game or previously, what we see is a guy with a knack for getting open on short routes who shows good hands. His deceptiveness is a function of route running...reading the defender and taking the right depth and angle. Those are all good things, and quite helpful when playing with a QB in ****-and-dunk, game manager mode, which is mostly what we saw from the QBs last night, Callahan in particular.
But he's not going to outrun any LBs and he's not a very good blocker. He's an R. Rodgers redundancy. I don't think we can bemoan the lack of speed at the position last season, cheer the upgrade with Cook, and then be right back where we started if Cook goes down. Which kind of TE, between Cook and R. Rodgers, do you want to back up once A. Rodgers takes the field? I think the choice is obvious.
At this point, Perillo is the football player, Backman the athlete. But the latter showed some signs of becoming a football player last night and adds a dynamic Perillo will never provide.
It's an open, unresolved competition with, in my opinion, it being Backman's job to lose. Given the O-Line and OLB personnel, and the impending free agency at those positions, there may not be room for 4. Some even suggest 7 WRs. I doubt that will happen, but 6 is still a fairly high count.
We are getting deep into the weeds when talking about the #3 TE, but that's what we're about here, right?
