I hope Schottenheimer was taking notes last night on all the Harvin plays.
Grits
Except Harvin is a vet and Austin was a head-swimming rookie last year who then got injured when he was finally getting into the swing of things. Austin was limited in what he could do at the start of the season and said so himself. So they limited what he did. The drops were another sign of that. Rookies with swimming heads get cases of the drops.
Execution issues are especially heavy with young receivers in this offense because it’s heavy on sight adjustments. That means the receiver–or in Austin’s case, the multi-purpose weapon type — has to read defenses both pre-snap and at the snap. Someone like Austin has never read defenses before in his life. It’s a big step up and a heavy adjustment.
So again, you either make him run around with his head swimming making mistakes (the way McDaniels did with the rookies in 2011) or you cut back what you let him do, until he gets it. Personally I don’t like the McD way and prefer the Schott way.
But as I said, the season progressed they were using him in all kinds of ways. And they will start out like that this year.