2023 NFL Free Agency Wide Receiver Market: Jakobi Meyers, Odell Beckham Jr. Headline Best Available – CBS Sports

We are just weeks away from the official start of the 2023 NFL season. Teams will spend the next few months beefing up their rosters with the potential for defeating the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs next year.

Part of this process is, of course, a free hand. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the players available to sign this offseason. We’re going position by position, starting this week on the offensive side of the ball. We’ve already covered the running backs and will continue with the position of the wide receiver below. However, instead of classifying players, we will break them down into different categories based on what teams are looking for in the open market.

Before we begin, we have three players who don’t really fit into either category: Jakobi Meyers, Odell Beckham Jr., and Julio Jones. Meyers is a slot guy, but he can win outside too. He’s not really a “second draft” (which I’ll explain in a moment) because he wasn’t drafted and also because he was damn prolific in New England. He’s 26 years old and probably the best wideout available this offseason. Beckham didn’t play at all last season while recovering from a cruciate ligament rupture. At his peak, he is one of the best players in this position. However, we haven’t seen that peak in a while and we don’t know how close he can get to it after his injury. Jones, on the other hand, is just Julio Freaking Jones. Or at least he once was. You have no idea what you’ll get if you sign him, aside from the fact that you probably won’t get much of it due to his ongoing health issues.

Recordings in the second draft

I’m stealing an idea from the NBA with the “second draft” concept. What it basically means is that there is a player who is playing out his rookie contract but for some reason hasn’t had as much success as expected with his original team. As a result, he’s available at a relative discount in the free agent market, where other teams may be able to roll the dice and attempt to leverage the skills that made them desirable prospects in the first place.

In Hardman’s case, he was stuck behind Tyreek Hill and/or injured for much of his time with the Chiefs. But he still has elite speed and can be a playmaker in the red zone on targeted touches. Campbell also has elite speed but has been injured way too many times. Slayton wasn’t an early-round pick, but played his way into the lineup early in his career before being inexplicably buried behind other guys on the depth chart, only to find success again on another occasion. there is something

slot receiver

Want some guy working the bottoms of the field against zone coverage? There are many options for you and in different age groups. Some of these guys have had more success than others, and some of them bring different concerns for one reason or another. This group of players mostly doesn’t have high-level talent, but they can fill a role that most of a player’s offense has to fill – especially given that opposing defense aims to take away the deep pass and force the quarterbacks to Work the ball down the field in shorter chunks.

demons of speed

This is where you can target a player whose straight-line speed can force the defense to pay attention to him whenever he’s on the field, even if he doesn’t typically get the ball thrown all that often. Having a man who can “take the lead off the defense” is very valuable, especially in terms of opening up the aforementioned submissives to the players in the section above.

possessor

These players typically fall into one of two buckets: Big, physical receivers who can win on the edge on stretches like hitches and curls, or smarter guys who do their jobs closer to the line of scrimmage because they don’t have a lot of speed. Plenty of them are valuable as in-game blockers (and some of them don’t offer much more than that), making them good guys if you want to flip your top wide to the sideline for a second or two to make sure he does not getting too tired late in the game. Again, there aren’t many top-flight talents here (except maybe Thomas if he can find his pre-injury form), but there are some good role players.

deep threats

This last group of players is usually targeted low in the field. Not only are they speed threats, but they do have some speed, and some of them can win in competitive catch situations as well. They’re probably best suited as your No. 3 or 4 (or 5) wideout, but the role they play is valuable in building offense.