Wide receivers have traditionally been the toughest football players to handle in terms of personalities.
No one will ever forget the antics of Terrell Owens doing shirtless sit-ups in his driveway, or Chad Johnson changing his name to Ochocinco. Now, the greatest examples of these personality issues are in Josh Gordon for the Cleveland Browns and Justin Blackmon for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Blackmon is indefinitely suspended from the league, and Gordon looks to be on track to miss the entire 2014 season.
Both are obviously very talented receivers, but is it worth the Browns and Jaguars going through the pains of trying to keep them out of trouble?
It makes sense to want to go out and get a playmaker at wide receiver. Calvin Johnson has single-handedly won games for the Lions, and big-play guys like Percy Harvin and DeSean Jackson bring fans to the television screen and into the stadium.
But from a roster-building standpoint, it’s not worth it for teams to reach for these athletic receivers or for them to continually hang on to receivers who consistently have public relations meltdowns or find themselves in jail.
Besides the personality and legal issues (because plenty of other players in the league besides Gordon and Blackmon have gotten into legal trouble), NFL franchises seem to be putting more stock into the wide receiver position in a league that focuses more and more on passing as each season goes by.
In this year’s draft, the Buffalo Bills gave up their first-round pick next year to trade up and get Sammy Watkins at the No. 4 spot, where the Browns were slated to pick. The New York Giants reached for Odell Beckham at No. 12, and the Carolina Panthers took Kelvin Benjamin in the first round despite tendency to drop passes.
It’s impossible to have a good team in this league without guys who can consistently pull in passes, but it’s more about having a strong set of receivers at wide-out and tight end than it is to have one big playmaker like Gordon, Blackmon or Watkins (who the Bills simply gave up too much for).
Last year’s Super Bowl winner, the Seattle Seahawks, went the whole season without their best receiver (Harvin), and their leading receiver was Golden Tate, who had 898 yards and five touchdowns.
Russell Wilson still threw the ball, but not to one, big playmaker. Sidney Rice had three touchdowns, Tate had five, Doug Baldwin had five, Zach Miller had five and Jermaine Kearse had four.
In 2012, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl without a 1,000-yard receiver. Anquan Boldin had 921 yards and four touchdowns. Torrey Smith carried the majority of the touchdown load with eight, but tight end Dennis Pitta had seven, and Ray Rice and Jacoby Jones each added one.
And we all know what Tom Brady has had to deal with at receiver throughout his career with the Patriots. In his most recent Super Bowl victory in 2011, Wes Welker was once again dominant, going for 1,569 yards and nine touchdowns.
But after that, he relied on Rob Gronkowski, who had one of the best seasons for a tight end ever in the league, and Aaron Hernandez. His next best receivers were Deion Branch with 702 yards and five touchdowns and Johnson/Ochocinco, who hardly ever got on the field.
Of the top 15 receivers in the league last year, only six of them were on playoff teams, and two of them were from the Broncos.
Top 15 receivers in total yardage | Player, Team | Total Rec. Yards | Team Record | Make Playoffs? (Y/N) |
| Josh Gordon, CLE | 1,646 | 4-12 | N |
| Antonio Brown, PIT | 1,499 | 8-8 | N |
| Calvin Johnson, DET | 1,492 | 7-9 | N |
| Demaryius Thomas, DEN | 1,430 | 13-3 | Y |
| A.J. Green, CIN | 1,426 | 11-5 | Y |
| Alshon Jeffery, CHI | 1,421 | 8-8 | N |
| Andre Johnson, HOU | 1,407 | 4-12 | N |
| Pierre Garcon, WAS | 1,346 | 3-13 | N |
| DeSean Jackson, PHI | 1,332 | 10-6 | Y |
| Jordy Nelson, GB | 1,314 | 8-7-1 | Y |
| Brandon Marshall, CHI | 1,295 | 8-8 | N |
| Eric Decker, DEN | 1,288 | 13-3 | Y |
| Dez Bryant, DAL | 1,233 | 8-8 | N |
| Vincent Jackson, TB | 1,224 | 4-12 | N |
| Anquan Boldin, SF | 1,179 | 12-4 | Y |
The top three guys — Gordon, Antonio Brown, and Johnson — all played on otherwise poor teams. Gordon had no quarterback play, Pittsburgh’s defense is aging for Brown and Detroit’s defense completely fell apart in the second half of the year and had some head coaching issues.
Even some of the best receivers of all time, like Owens, Moss and Cris Carter, have never won a Super Bowl.
You never want to pass on someone with talent like Gordon and Johnson. But if their personalities aren’t working out for a team, or if they have to give up too much to get the guy, it’s simply not worth it.
Even for the Bronos and Peyton Manning, who had one of the best passing attacks ever, had five guys with at least 60 catches (including running back Knowshon Moreno). It wasn’t about Manning having one huge playmaker, but more so about guys at every position who can catch the ball and make defenders miss in the open field.
It’s tough to see guys with that kind of talent like Blackmon and Gordon miss out on a great opportunity, and I certainly hope that they get help.
But teams shouldn’t feel like they have to put up with these kinds of antics and trouble. There are better ways to build a defense than just getting five receivers together who can run 50-yard fly routes and jump up and get the ball.
As Denver showed in the Super Bowl, having a great defense wins championships — cliché, I know — and the past successful teams have shown that it’s more important to spread the ball around in the passing game and building a team that doesn’t have any troublemakers.