Job Battles: Wide Receivers, Part 2

This is the last of the training camp competition previews, and starting Monday the series will be more about in-camp developments as injuries and other developments mount. You can see the QB, RB, and WR pt. 1 previews in prior publications of this article.

Brandon LaFell vs. John Ross vs. Josh Malone, Cincinnati

John Ross is one of the most perplexing recent cases in the NFL, and whether you see any hope for him in the long term probably is subject to your interpretation of Marvin Lewis' fitness for coaching. Lewis left Ross as a healthy scratch for most of last year and then experimented with moving the ninth overall pick to cornerback late in the year while playing fellow rookie Josh Malone and plodding veteran Brandon LaFell ahead of him. This was negligent on Lewis' part – Ross is the best player of the three and Lewis' cold reception toward him was out of some petty, misguided effort to convey some sort of culture war point about proper practice etiquette or some such stupid thing. The problem for a Ross optimist is that Lewis is still in Cincinnati, but perhaps he'll look like something other than a coach trying to sabotage his own team now that he has a new contract.

If Ross can't displace LaFell, then it would be bad news for Andy Dalton and the Cincinnati offense. LaFell turns 32 in November and is coming off a year where he totaled just 52 receptions for 548 yards and three touchdowns on 89 targets, good for a paltry 6.2 yards per target. If Lewis can find himself drawn toward 6.2 yards per target at a 58.4 completion percentage from his WR2, then he can rationalize anything. Ross' pedigree and 4.22 speed didn't mean anything to Lewis even last year, and it's hard to imagine that the competition could possibly be any weaker in 2018.

While Ross is better than LaFell and Lewis would prepare him as the WR2 if he has developed the least bit of competence in the past seven months, Malone shouldn't be totally disregarded. He's also likely to be better than LaFell in the near future if not already, as the former blue chip Tennessee recruit has plenty of positive indicators in his prospect profile. The fourth-round pick from last year finished his rookie season with just 63 yards and a touchdown on 17 targets, but he just turned 22 in March and boasts 4.40 speed on a 6-foot-3, 208-pound frame.

Tyler Boyd also returns and has a fair amount of pedigree as a former third-round pick who went over 600 yards as a rookie, but his standing with the team is uncertain after seeing healthy scratches last year. Boyd lacks athleticism and doesn't figure to compete for more than slot work, whereas LaFell, Ross, and Malone are battling for outside snaps.

Geronimo Allison vs. DeAngelo Yancey vs. J'Mon Moore vs. Marquez Valdes-Scantling vs. Equanimeous St. Brown, Green Bay

While Allison has the seniority here, he's last in line when it comes to athletic talent, and there's reason to believe his skill set doesn't rank especially high in the group, either. That makes him a major candidate to lose ground over the course of camp, especially to the rookie trio of Moore, Valdes-Scantling, and St. Brown. Yancey returns as second-year player who can't be fully written off despite his underdog status.

There almost has to be a third wide receiver to emerge in an Aaron Rodgers offense, so the question of who wins the race is one that could have significant fantasy repercussions.

Even if Allison begins the year prominently in the Green Bay rotation, he projects to lose ground with the passage of time. He's a poor NFL athlete at 6-foot-3, 196 pounds with 4.67 speed and a merely decent college career at Illinois. All of Moore (6-foot-3, 207 pounds), Valdes-Scantling (6-foot-4, 206 pounds), and St. Brown (6-foot-5, 214 pounds) exceed Allison's size, all three are easily superior athletes to Allison, and all three were more productive in college. Also, all three were actually drafted – Moore in the fourth round, Valdes-Scantling in the fifth, and St. Brown in the sixth round.

Moore should be considered the favorite to emerge as the WR3 behind Davante Adams and Randall Cobb, if only because he was drafted highest of the contenders. His 4.6-second 40-yard dash at the combine isn't impressive, but his 6.56-second three-cone time is elite, and he caught 127 passes for 2,094 yards and 18 touchdowns over the last two years. Valdes-Scantling has the most raw athleticism of the rookie trio, boasting a 4.37-second 40, but his skill set is the most raw as a mostly deep-route specialist to this point. St. Brown actually has the best pedigree and athleticism of the group, and if not for character concerns he probably would have been drafted before Moore. St. Brown ran a 4.48-second 40-yard dash at the combine and was widely considered the top dynasty prospect in college football prior to a disappointing 2017 season disrupted by injury.

Quincy Enunwa vs. Robby Anderson vs. Jermaine Kearse vs. Terrelle Pryor, New York Jets

Robby Anderson is a legitimate talent and should remain the favorite to function as the Jets' WR1 this year, but the picture is much more crowded this time around. Whereas Kearse and Jeremy Kerley were the primary competition last year, Anderson will have to hold off Enunwa and Pryor instead in 2018. Both players have their question marks – durability for Enunwa (neck) and both production and durability for Pryor (ankle) – but they're also both size-speed freaks.

Part of why Anderson was so great last year was his uniqueness in the Jets offense. Kearse was productive, but he couldn't match the big-play threat posed by a 6-foot-3 wideout with 4.35 speed like Anderson. So Enunwa changes things at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds with a 4.45 40, and Pryor is even more freakish at 6-foot-5, 232 pounds with speed in the 4.40 range. While Enunwa and Pryor might be hard-pressed to establish fantasy value in their own rights, they might be able to mess things up a bit for Anderson.

Anderson did his damage last year on 114 targets, while Kearse earned 102. The third closest pass catcher was Austin Seferian-Jenkins with 74 targets in 13 games. The next closest wide receiver was Kerley with 27 in eight games. Whatever their final target counts on the year, you can safely assume that Enunwa, Kearse, and Pryor will combine for far more than the 129 that Kearse and Kerley combined for last year. This was true even before factoring in the possibility of Anderson seeing a brief suspension for his off-the-field difficulties.

Trent Taylor vs. Dante Pettis vs. Richie James, San Francisco

These three should battle primarily for slot receiver snaps in San Francisco, as Pierre Garcon and Marquise Goodwin are locked in at the outside receiver spots. None of the candidates for San Francisco's slot receive role look like candidates for mainstream fantasy value, but they could be a factor in deeper PPR leagues or as bye week replacements.

Taylor is the incumbent after the 49ers selected him in the fifth round of last year's draft, resulting in a rookie season where he caught 43 passes for 430 yards and two touchdowns on 60 targets (7.2 YPT). Taylor began camp on the PUP list, reportedly to buy time to catch up his conditioning after an offseason back surgery. Assuming he makes it back to practice soon, Taylor figures to put up a formidable resistance to the rookie duo of Pettis and James, even with Pettis possessing greater pedigree as a second-round pick. Taylor lacks size (5-foot-8, 178 pounds) and long speed (4.63-second 40), but he's extremely quick with an advanced skill set. His skill set is so advanced, in fact, it might be difficult for any rookie to send him to the sideline conclusively.

But Pettis figures to force his way into three-wide sets at least occasionally this year, even if he never fully displaces Taylor. The 49ers selected him in the second round out of Washington, where he totaled 116 receptions for 1,583 yards and 22 touchdowns on 177 targets over the last two years (8.9 YPT), perhaps even more notably returning nine punts for touchdowns in his career, averaging 14.2 yards per attempt on 90 tries. Pettis is slight at 6-foot-1, 186 pounds, so I'm actually skeptical that he'll stick as a slot receiver. It seems the 49ers envision Pettis as a slot receiver because he has good hands and rare running ability in the open field, but he doesn't have the density to take hits from linebackers or safeties. Meanwhile, he's a great acrobat with uncommon leaping ability, so he profiles like an ideal sideline guy to me.

James is a distant third in this race at the outset, but he's not a player to count out. The seventh-round rookie out of Middle Tennessee checked in at 5-foot-10, 181 pounds at the combine, where he ran a 4.48-second 40-yard dash to go with a 11.03 agility score, giving him above average athleticism despite his low weight. His skill set appears fairly developed as he was one of college football's most utterly dominant players prior to an injury-shortened 2017 season. From 2015 to 2016 James managed to total 212 receptions for 2,959 yards and 20 touchdowns in 26 games, adding 497 yards (9.8 YPC) and five touchdowns on the ground. James has a killer open-field skill set and, if he can make the final roster, he might get his foot into the door at some point and make a name for himself.

In general, the slot looks very crowded in San Francisco, which might make it difficult to extract fantasy value despite the underrated stockpile of talent the 49ers have at the position. Beyond an occasional DFS punt play for Taylor, it's unlikely that you'll look toward any 49er pass catchers aside from Pierre Garcon, Marquise Goodwin, George Kittle, and Jerick McKinnon.