Wide Receiver... in recent years when the league has been overflowing with top end quality wide outs, over 20 in the past 3 seasons we've whiffed and whiffed badly. I was high on Devin Smith and sure we can blame the QB as much as we want but while up and coming wide outs have flourished all over the league we seem to hit wall after wall Evans Saunders Hill Smith Enunwa etc...
You get impactful wide receivers high in the draft, Sammy Watkins, Beckham, Mike Evans, Julio Jones etc... We end up just wasting a pick on a project at WR hoping he just surprises us.
True, but... there were plenty of impact wide receivers taken in the later rounds recently Landry Moncrief Bryant Adams Robinson Brown
Not true. Eric Decker was a late 3rd round pick. Brandon Marshall was a 4th round pick. Allen Hurns who torched us yesterday was undrafted (surprising since he was pro ready and produced in college). Antonio Brown was a 5th round pick. The NFL is littered with studs who were late rounders or undrafted. But I would not worry about Devin Smith just yet. The rookie WR success in recent years has been more of an aberration than the rule (and of course rules increasingly favoring the passing game help). We took Smith knowing he was a project with the potential of being a game breaking deep threat. We happen to have a quarterback who is completely averse to deep balls. Between Smith needing time to develop, and Fitzpatrick being the starter, it's foolish to fret about our rookie second rounder.
And how many of those late round WR's flop? You're picking a few guys (and most not nearly on the leve l of Julio Jones and Beckham Jr.) and dismissing the litany of WR"s who did nothing in rounds 2-7. Top WR picks are typically much more likely to be impact players over later round WR's, that's just a fact.
The jury is still out on Devin, he could break out any week and his career would be turned around. See Devin Funchess. Suddenly he's the next big thing when last week people were starting to say he can't play WR in the NFL. Stephen Hill could have been a really good player down the road if his QB wasn't named Sanchez and his WR coach wasn't some goofball named Sanjay Lal, and if he had good knees. The rest of the guys you mentioned weren't even expected to contribute. You draft somebody late or in the middle and it's a crap-shoot, maybe it's a Brandon Marshall. The odds are almost zero but sometimes it pays off. Just stop comparing our late round guys to all the receivers that are making an impact around the NFL. Who did the Patriots develop? The 2nd round guys they drafted didn't do shit. There are plenty of teams that whiffed just as bad, it's just that all you do is hear about Odell Beckham, Cooks, whatever, Funchess, you take those couple guys and act like that's the NFL. When really that's like 1% of all the players that get drafted. The vast majority of guys don't do shit. It's not just us, it's every team.
Fair enough, but the timing of this thread is a little odd. Our passing game is good this year. Obviously it would be preferable to have homegrown good wide receivers, but I'm not complaining. Signing Decker and trading for Marshall look to have been great moves. I would rather spend our top picks on QB, O-Line and pass rush prospects. Wide receiver is not one of our pressing needs, for once.
It's frustrating but our early misses on draft picks in general have played a huge role in this team's struggles of late. Just go down the line, and you can see the cause and effect of blown early picks: Coples at #16 - led to having to spend subsequent first round picks on DL rather than other positions of need. At this point, he is a bust, plain and simple. Milliner at #9 - led to overspending on CB in free agency and having to make the desperate move of bringing back Cro. That was never going to end well, we all hated him on his way out and then pretended like he didn't suck for us his final season when we re-signed him. Geno in 2nd round - has led to no long-term solution at the most important position, and the complete stopgap approach of this season. Nobody can quite say who will be the QB in 2016 and there appears to be no long-term plan in place. It's the biggest reason it's hard to believe this team will improve much (if at all) in year 2 of Mac/Bowles Amaro in 2nd round - has led to us having virtually no production at TE, and nobody has any clue if the guy can yet play. D. Smith in 2nd round - too early to tell.
Rex had a "Clemson connection" yet when Bryant was avl... we took a "project" as usual wake up call maybe its time we stopped drafting "projects" at WR
Stephen Hill had like 40 something catches his entire college career, he was a tall fast guy with bricks for hands. Just thinking of all the sure fire TD's this guy simply bricked makes me sad... You also have to throw in Kyle Wilson another 2nd round bust.
Dumbest post of the day. He could've had Tom Brady at QB and he still would've sucked. He could not CATCH the ball. He had fewer career receptions than every other WR in that draft had in one season. Sanchez, Geno, Tebow, it doesn't matter he sucked because he sucked. He had his chances elsewhere with other WR coaches and he still sucked. Taking a project combine warrior over a college superstar like Jeffrey was incredibly stupid. Devins not going to do what we drafted him to do because our QB can't throw the ball farther than 30 yards. It will take time.
Same. It's such a crapshoot though, for any GM. I think Mac is in a really tough spot in this upcoming draft though because the pick will be high teens/low 20s, and QB is a major need. I agree with you that we are in good place at WR for the moment. But really, what is the team going to do at QB? I was happy to ignore that when the team was playing well and winning decisively on its way to a 4-1 start. Now that we aren't playing as well, I can't ignore the elephant in the room anymore. At least in the short term Fitz can give us competent QB play but I think relying on him to duplicate this season in 2016 would be risky.
Smith is a project WR that missed most of training camp. Hard for a rookie WR to make a big impact when he didn't get the reps and practice in training camp. Look at the Dolphins first round wideout Parker. He hasn't shown anything yet either But I still think the guy wil be a stud. It's hard enough for a rookie to come in and make an impact but for a guy that was projected to need a lot of time to learn to run NFL routes and adjust to the NFL game misses the majority of training camp you have to expect he won't make that impact this season. Wasn't a big fan of Smiths to begin with but I have to give him some support here
exactly. right now he is with the panthers who have ginn and philly brown as tehir starters and rookie 2nd round pick funchess (who was rated as a 5th rounder in talent) with a stud at QB (cam newton) and he can't see the field. If hill can't beat out those guys for playing time, he isn't going to make it in the NFL much longer. he was a typical "raiders" pick. big and fast but can't play football. Funny enough the raiders have been picking great lately. murray, cooper and carr are studs and going to give them a great offense for years to come
