Who Does Ashley Lelie Think He Is

By David J. Cohen

NFL mandatory mini-camps have started and in Denver there is a bewildering absentee: Ashley Lelie. Lelie is holding out and demanding a trade because the Broncos are not going to hand him the number 1 receiver position on the team. He wants to go to a team that would place him in that role. The top two receivers on the team are reliable veteran Rod Smith, who gets it done year in and year out, and Javon Walker, who is coming off of an injury but has proven he can be a volatile offensive weapon in this league. Instead of going to camp and competing for the top spot Lelie is whining like a little girl (as his first name would indicate) because he knows that on the field, he isn’t good enough to beat these two out for the spot. And when you look at Lelie’s career production, he shouldn’t be a number one wide-out anywhere.Usually players that hold out are high-quality players. They are players who can actually have an impact on their teams with their absence. The players that held out for a period of time last season were all upper-echelon players. Terrell Owens is perhaps the best receiver in the league when he is on the field. Javon Walker is an all-pro caliber receiver. Grady Jackson is a solid defensive player and a true anchor depending on the defensive scheme. Richard Seymour is one of the best defensive ends in the game. Shaun Alexander is perhaps the best back in the NFL. These kind of players hold out to try and get what they feel they deserve. Most of the time these players are at least somewhat justified. Ashley Lelie is nowhere close to the level of these players. He feels he deserves to be a top receiver somewhere. What he should get is a lazy boy recliner so he can watch the games comfortably from the sidelines, which is where he belongs. Lelie’s ego is well ahead of his skill level.

So far in the NFL Ashley Lelie has really been just a higher producing version of Todd Pinkston. He has the ability to break away for a touchdown if not accounted for by a defense but every team has at least one speed guy. If not for this ability Lelie would be bouncing around practice squads every year. There’s a reason he played his college football in Hawaii. The deep threat is all he brings to the field. He doesn’t put up the production to be a number one guy and has a fundamental flaw in his game that should prevent him from ever surfacing into a player worthy of a first round selection.

Last season Lelie caught a paltry 42 receptions for 770 yards. He had just 1 TD. These numbers certainly don’t indicate a player worthy of a top spot anywhere in the NFL. This was all Lelie could produce despite playing 6 games against the worst secondary division in the league with Oakland, Kansas City, and San Diego. When you add to it the fact opponents would often stuff the box to stop the Bronco rushing attack and it means Lelie did little against a lot of single coverage. It was also a huge drop-off from his production the year before, in which Lelie caught 54 balls for 1084 yards and 7 TDs. Those numbers aren’t bad, but there was a reason Lelie couldn’t sustain this kind of output.

As a rookie Lelie showed promise. He had 35 catches for 525 yards and seemed to make plays whenever he was on the field. He was the 3rd string receiver and was utilized in the slot, behind veterans Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey. Defenses had to concentrate on these two, allowing Lelie to be left alone to make plays. According to calculated value of a receiver compared to an average WR in the same situation, or WR DVOA (from Football Outsiders) Lelie was actually the 4th most valuable WR in the league when he was on the field. He caught 66% of his passes when playing out of the slot, which is a high mark for any wide-out. It seemed like he would cash in on his potential to be a game-changing player.

The following year Lelie was to continue his role as the slot receiver before McCaffrey was sidelined with a serious injury that would effectively end his career. Suddenly Lelie was the 2nd WR. His numbers increased slightly statistically but his effectiveness took a nosedive. He had 37 catches for 628 yards and 2 TDs. However, his DVOA fell all the way to 45th in the league as he had to go one-on-one with defenders more often. Some argued that it was the sophomore jynx. However, the most troubling development was a tendency to drop critical passes. His catch % fell from a solid 66% to a dismal 46%, the worst mark of any wide-out in the top 50 WR DVOA.

Yet the next season it seemed on paper that Lelie broke the jynx and put up solid numbers. He caught a decent 54 balls but parlayed that into 1084 yards and 7 TDs. He was a true homerun threat and burned defenses several times, exploding for the long play and adding a new dimension to the Broncos offense in the process. It seemed as if he was starting to take the torch from Rod Smith and maybe become a top receiver in this league. Smith had more yards receiving then Lelie, beating him by 30 yards, but had 25 more receptions. This meant that Lelie was used for the big play while Smith was the go-to-guy in the clutch and for first downs, the mark of a number 1 receiver. However, one problem from year 2 remained for Lelie: he had problems catching the ball. He caught just 53% of the passes thrown his way, the 3rd worst mark of wide-outs in the top 50 WR DVOA.

Then last year came and went and Lelie’s effectiveness down went with it as defenses paid close attention to him. Defenses had corners play physical with Lelie and it worked as Lelie doesn’t seem to like to work for his catches against tough defense. He had only 42 catches for 770 yards and 1 TD. Meanwhile Rod Smith had another productive year, catching 85 balls for 1105 yards and 6 TDs in a run-oriented offense (thus negating this as an excuse for Ashley). All of Lelie’s success seemed to disappear during the season and other targets began to emerge in his absence. TE Jeb Putzier became a target for short passes and WR Darius Watts looks like a promising future player. Lelie’s DVOA rating was 50th among receivers, and once again Lelie struggled to catch passes thrown his way. He caught just 48% of his passes, making it the 2nd time in 3 years Lelie had the worst percentage of the top 50 receivers. To put his value for last season in perspective, 7 teams had 3rd string receivers with better value, including Minnesota, Green Bay, Miami, and New Orleans. And this guy calls himself a number one receiver. Give me a break.

If Lelie had improved on his numbers from last year, I still don’t believe he would be justified in his pursuit of a top spot at WR on an NFL roster. But given the year he had Lelie certainly has no right to complain. He has consistently been a deep threat but that worry has diminished as teams have learned to bump him at the line of scrimmage to just about take him out of the play. And Lelie has consistently been unable to catch a reasonable amount of balls thrown his way for 3 straight seasons. When it comes down to crunch time Lelie can’t make the necessary grabs a top receiver is required to make. This was clearly the case last year. Lelie had only 9 catches on 3rd down.

The Broncos realize that Lelie isn’t a number one wide-out in this league. That’s why they picked up Javon Walker to eventually be the number one guy as Rod Smith reaches the end of his great career. This would allow Lelie to move back into the slot, where he was a true asset to his offense as he could sneak in between gaps in opposing defenses. But Lelie won’t comply. His ego won’t allow him to take a step backward on the depth chart. It’s why Ashley Lelie is making a complete fool out of himself.

When Broncos Head Coach Mike Shanahan was asked about Lelie’s decision to hold out, he said he was disappointed. He truly epitomized the situation while addressing Lelie: “If you want to compete to be the number 1 guy, why not be here…If you’re afraid of competing against a number 1 guy who’s 35 years old, I don’t think you’re going to find a better scenario…” Shanahan then said he felt Lelie was making a bad decision in part because other teams are not “beating down the walls to get him.” In other words, Lelie isn’t a top receiver and the rest of the league is clearly aware of it. This is what makes his holdout just plain stupid compared to other ones. Lelie can’t gain anything from this holdout. I don’t think any team in this league is dumb enough to grant Lelie his wish. And in the process Lelie might be losing his spot as the 3rd receiver to Darius Watts. He better get it together before he becomes an afterthought in this league.

If Lelie accepts his fate and plays in the slot next season he could have another breakout kind of year in his contract year and be overpaid the money his ego believes he is worth. But right now Lelie needs to be in camp and working on those hands of his. You can’t be a number one in any football league catching under 50% of passes thrown to you. In order to be a top-notch NFL receiver you have to work for it.

So my advice to Ashley is: end this silly holdout and get your ass back to work. It’s for your own good.