He's one of the very worst players out there, according to the numbers on this website: Pro Football focus.

http://profootballfocus.com/cstats.php?tab=by_team&season=2009&teamid=16&stype=a&stats=o

PFF watches film of every play and rates each player on every snap. Ryan gets an overall rating of -20.1, which is worst on the team and one of the very worst in the league.

He's played 469 offensive snaps, and has allowed 2 sacks, 3 QB hits and 3 QB pressures. He's committed 5 penalties, has dropped 4 of the 18 passes that have hit him in the hands, and has also fumbled once. (not included in the numbers: he very nearly fumbled one of his two TD catches-- if he had, his numbers would be even worse.)

He's rated as the worst overall TE in the league out of the 898 players listed there . He is ranked last in the league at pass blocking for TEs, and ranks 82nd of 89 TEs in run blocking. This guy does nothing well, and I'd say that he's the worst player in the league-- if only we didn't have Cottam and O'Connell backing him up who can't even take playing time away from him. (Since he's been here, Pope at least has taken some PT away from Ryan, but not enough, only getting 108 snaps.)

Ryan surely isn't the only problem on the team, and he probably isn't the biggest problem, but he is a problem, and something needs to be done about it.

This offense would be noticeably better if we played Pope more often (who is at least a decent receiver) or added a blocking TE who can actually block (sure wish we had picked up Hartsock after he was cut) or if we just didn't even bother with a TE at all. Hopefully we'll see a lot more of Pope this week, and maybe find a TE soon who can block at all.