The Seattle Seahawks’ receiving corps wasn’t one of the better units in the league last season. To add to it, this offseason they lost their top receiver, Golden Tate. However, they do get Percy Harvin back (assuming he doesn’t get injured again), who was out pretty much all of last season with an injury. Along with the addition of Harvin, the Seahawks drafted another burner, Paul Richardson out of Colorado.
Richardson will be a good fit with the Seahawks. Going into training camp this offseason he’ll be battling with Jermaine Kearse and fellow rookie Kevin Norwood for the third wide receiver spot on the roster. Assuming Harvin stays healthy, I expect Kearse to win the third spot because he’s the type of receiver that can go up and get jump balls downfield and in the red zone.
Richardson will be the fourth receiver on the depth chart. A big reason for that is because right now he’s mostly a slot receiver and the Seahawks already have one of the best in the league with Harvin. By the end of the season however, Richardson could develop into more and eventually steal that third spot on the depth chart.
If Richardson is, in fact, their fourth wide receiver he’ll be one of the more skilled fourth receivers in the whole NFL. In the 2014 NFL draft, Richardson was one of the fastest wide receivers running a 4.40 40-yard dash. His speed also translates on the field. When on the move he shows very good body adjustment to make some hard catches. His biggest drawback is his size and lack of physicality. If he doesn’t separate from the defender with his initial burst, Russell Wilson may not be able to trust him to throw it up there and let Richardson go get it. He doesn’t use his hands particularly well when catching and that’s a problem on contested catches.
In the 2014 season I don’t expect Paul Richardson to have an extremely productive season. He doesn’t bring a skill set to the roster that isn’t already there with Harvin and there are other guys in front of him with unique skill sets. Barring some kind of injury to one of the players in front of Richardson, I would only expect to see him on four wide receiver sets, which the Seahawks don’t run an awful lot of. In the future he could absolutely develop into a solid slot receiver or even a good number two, but I wouldn’t bank on that in 2014.