NFL welcoming another bumper crop of receivers

Alabama’s Amari Cooper is one of the top receivers in this year’s draft class.

Alabama’s Amari Cooper is one of the top receivers in this year’s draft class.

This year’s wide receiver crop in the NFL Draft has a near-impossible task of trying to live up to last year’s class.

Fifteen wide receivers were taken in the first three rounds, and produced such immediate-impact superstars as Odell Beckham (1,305 yards, 12 touchdowns), Mike Evans (1,051 yards, 12 touchdowns), Kelvin Benjamin (1,008 yards, nine touchdowns), and Sammy Watkins (982 yards, six touchdowns).

New Orleans’s Brandin Cooks (550 yards, three touchdowns in 10 games), Philadelphia’s Jordan Matthews (872 yards, eight touchdowns), Miami’s Jarvis Landry (758 yards, five touchdowns), Arizona’s John Brown (696 yards, five touchdowns), and Pittsburgh’s Martavis Bryant (549 yards, eight touchdowns) all contributed immediately, while Jacksonville’s Allen Robinson, Indianapolis’s Donte Moncrief, and Seattle’s Paul Richardson showed promise, as well.

“Fastest group of wide receivers I’ve ever been around at the NFL Combine,” said NFL Network’s Gil Brandt, who has attended the event since its beginnings 40 years ago.

“I think [the receiver class is] going to be really good again, not just because the receivers are so good, but because the big-bodied receivers can come in immediately and be productive outside the numbers,” Mayock added.

Even with year-to-year fluctuations in talent level, wide receiver has replaced running back as the must-have position in the first round.

As recently as 2008, five running backs were taken in the first round, compared to zero wide receivers.

Many GMs and draft evaluators actually like this year’s running back class a lot Georgia’s Todd Gurley (coming off a torn ACL) and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon have a shot at the first round but wide receivers will once again dominate the top rounds of the draft, and the running backs will fall to the middle and late rounds.