Pass catching has to do some but I think it's more about pre snap positioning and the fact qbs make horrid reads. The guys I see doing the best still have legit athletic ability . In 4.5 Man defenders react quickly to off the ball passes....that can't help either. The ones I have seen are slotted later in the depth chart facing weaker receivers
Nothing like a Stud wr getting some legit rush yards for 1st downs, 100 yards receiving , a block punt , and a game saving interception all in one game. I never seen all 4 yet but there no doubt it probably happened. Especially if you tried.
I like gdads idea of a throwback league with guys palying both sides of the ball, but the real culprit here is the speed ranges we work with. 4.7 fourty yard dashes for the fastest guys to 9 second plus ones for the slow guys. It's highschools ranges...so we will get high school like stats and games.
Put julio Jones at db....will he do good ...idk we will never see it at the nfl level. Highschool you see it all the time. Heck , with the speed highschoolers work with you will see 3 sport all staters. Just cause they are that athletically gifted .
Speed should be made the opposite of parabolic with acceleration being made parabolic . It should shrink our speed ranges and be more nfl like in play , stats and general expected ability tied to speed.
You can put a super slow CB with elite skill back there too and he will pick off a bunch of passes, but both the stud wr and slow db will get beat deep. At least the wr will run down slower more technical receivers. That's why I think catch doesn't really matter . ..I had it in my weights for a second but really saw no correlation . ...only the fact the qb throws too many bad ***** and knockdowns and ints are high with a man under scheme .