Taking a look at if Jordan Cameron really can be a Pro Bowl tight end
Cameron will have to meet or exceed his career-best 2013 numbers to get back to the Pro Bowl.
By
Jared Dubin
•
3 min read
New Miami Dolphins tight end Jordan Cameron has some high hopes for himself this coming season.
"In my mind I know I can play," Cameron said, according to ESPN.com. "I know I can be a Pro Bowl player. I’m trying to help this team win. Right now I’m not going to set any goals and tell you what I’m going to do in the season. Right now I’m getting better at my craft and that’s the only thing I’m focusing on."
In one sense, Cameron's already correct. He was a Pro Bowler in 2013 when he was with the Cleveland Browns, so obviously he can be a Pro Bowl player. But what would it take for him to get back there?
The chart below shows the receptions, yards and touchdowns recorded by the eight tight ends selected for the Pro Bowl in the two years since the NFL went to an unconferenced format (the players actually selected, NOT the alternates that replaced them), as well as the average stat line of those selections. That'll give you an idea of what Cameron would need to accomplish in his first season in Miami to make it back to the NFL's version of the all-star game.
| Pro Bowl Tight Ends | |||
| Player | REC | YDS | TD |
| Jordan Cameron - 2013 | 80 | 917 | 7 |
| Julius Thomas - 2013 | 65 | 788 | 12 |
| Jimmy Graham - 2013 | 86 | 1,215 | 16 |
| Vernon Davis - 2013 | 52 | 850 | 13 |
| Greg Olsen - 2014 | 84 | 1,008 | 6 |
| Jimmy Graham - 2014 | 85 | 889 | 10 |
| Rob Gronkowski - 2014 | 82 | 1,124 | 12 |
| Julius Thomas - 2014 | 43 | 489 | 12 |
| AVERAGE | 72 | 911 | 11 |
A stat line of 72-911-11 is pretty tough to reach. It's only been done seven times by a tight end in NFL history, per Pro-Football-Reference. If we're looking for common threads here, though, all eight electees in the last two years finished with either 80-plus catches or at least 12 scores. Seven of eight finished with at least 750 receiving yards.
Cameron's 80 catches, 917 yards and seven scores during his 2013 Pro Bowl season each marked his career-high, and each also exceed the combined total he's put up through the rest of his career: 50 catches for 683 yards and three touchdowns.
One thing he has going for him now is that he's playing with a better quarterback than he ever had in Cleveland. Ryan Tannehill may not be an "elite" level passer, but he's got a huge advantage over the Colt McCoy, Seneca Wallace, Brandon Weeden, Thaddeus Lewis, Jason Campbell, Brian Hoyer, Johnny Manziel, Connor Shaw crew Cameron had tossing passes his way in Cleveland.
Tannehill has targeted tight ends with just over 20 percent of his passes the last two years, sending No. 1 tight end Charles Clay an average of 89.5 throws per season during that span. That's about 13 more targets that Cameron would have received last season if you prorate his stats to a 16-game season, a bump of just south of one target per game. It's about 30 fewer passes than Cameron had directed his way during his 2013 Pro Bowl campaign, though.
If he gets that type of volume, Cameron could approach or exceed the yardage totals typically needed for a Pro Bowl tight end, but he'll have to step up his catch rate (59.4 percent) and touchdown production pretty significantly to hit the average numbers of Pro Bowlers over the last two years. Tannehill's accuracy advantage over the Cleveland QBs will help on the former front, but unless Tannehill starts looking to tight ends in the red zone more often than he has during the last two seasons, it's tough to see Cameron breaking that 12-TD plateau.
However, with Clay, Mike Wallace and Brian Hartline all now plying their trade somewhere other than Miami, it's possible and even probable that Tannehill's target distribution could see a significant change. Cameron looks like either the best or second-best receiving weapon in Miami along with slot receiver Jarvis Landry. If Tannehill throws, say, 25 percent of his passes to tight ends rather than 20 percent, and sticks with targeting the No. 1 tight end on 76 percent of those throws, that would bump Cameron up to about 112 targets (based on Tannehill's average number of throws the last two years), only six fewer than he saw in 2013. That would go a long way toward getting him back to a Pro Bowl level of play.
