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After a rather disappointing rookie season, the Detroit Lions are counting on tight end Eric Ebron to become their No. 3 option in the passing game this year. Ebron certainly seems to have the potential to fill that role, but after only 25 catches for 248 yards and one touchdown in 2014, he needs to take a big step forward in his sophomore year in the league. (To be fair, the entire offense needs to take a big step forward after a disappointing 2014 season.)
With this in mind, this kind of news is certainly not very reassuring:
Eric Ebron had at least three drops today, so, yeah.
— Josh Katzenstein (@jkatzenstein) May 27, 2015
Not a good day for Eric Ebron. I saw him drop 3 passes, another reporter said 4.
— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) May 27, 2015
Drops were viewed as an issue for Ebron in college, and we saw glimpses of that at times in 2014, especially early on in training camp. During the regular season, though, Ebron only had four total drops in 13 games, according to Pro Football Focus. That was 16th-most among all tight ends, and Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski were actually at the top of the list with eight and seven drops, respectively. Of course, they saw a lot more targets than Ebron, and based on catch percentage, Ebron was 63rd out of 67 qualifying tight ends.
In any case, I guess the point is that Ebron needs to be more consistent, especially in the avoiding-drops department. Then again, it's important to remember this is a single OTA practice in May that we're talking about. If this is an issue throughout training camp and the preseason, then there will be reason to hit the panic button. For now, I suppose this kind of news is disappointing more than anything, but hopefully it was just an off day for Ebron and he's still just shaking off the offseason rust as the Lions get back into the swing of things.