Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
Stock Up: Eric Ebron
His first target came up as a brutal drop and the tweets just poured in about Eric Ebron and his ‘stone hands’. Did any of those folks change their tune when Ebron hauled in a beautiful pass up the seam by Stafford? No, that would be silly to presume. Hailed as a bust before he even had his first practice as a Detroit Lion, it’s been a hard road for Eric Ebron. He struggled as a rookie and despite ending up right in the middle statistically for a rookie tight end, fans were livid.
He emerges from week 1 as the Detroit Lions leading receiver, though that may not mean much in a week. Several of Ebron’s catches came late in the game, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting open. Indeed, on Lance Moore‘s catch early in the game Ebron was running wide open in the short area of the field with nothing but green grass ahead of him. Stafford made a good throw to Moore who hauled in the pass for good yardage, but if that read wasn’t there the result likely would have been the same or better with his tight end.
Joe Lombardi doesn’t know what to do with Calvin Johnson, but he has a pretty good idea what to do with tight ends. Well, at least his playbook does. A math guy, I’ve been preaching patience from day one with Ebron, but it looks like we might start to see those returns paid back sooner than later, now that we’ve seen what he can do.
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