(S29) PT 3 - Teammates

[qWest]

The Outlaws were in an interesting position as far as filling out the offensive depth chart is concerned when coming into this season. The surprise retirement of young role player Tom Teboat left Arizona with a gap at the tight end position that they had no prospects to fill. Though the draft featured a number of promising new players at tight end, many of those players were coming off the board rather early, and Arizona had hopes to pick up more depth on defense. Instead, Arizona's coaches realized they could better fill this role by taking advantage of the roster's elite depth at running back and wide receiver. The biggest key to this success has been moving young promising speedster Darren Pama to the outside to mirror Taro Raimon and, most critically, moving veteran receiver Thomas Passman to a flexible role all around the formation. A significant amount of Passman's snaps now require him to put hand in the dirt at the end of the line, and the sure-handed receiver has done an excellent job in this role. Passman still finds a significant amount of targets (51 receptions through 9 games), but is able to work the middle of the field and find positional mismatches with covering defenders. This work over the middle has been critical to Arizona's success, as Passman now functions as one of the team's biggest redzone threats. Passman has 7 TDs in only 9 games, tying his peak at that statistic in the last two seasons. Crucially, Passman has put in work to keep things moving on the ground, totalling 21 pancakes so far.