New York Jets: Full Position Breakdown and Depth Chart Analysis at Wide Receiver
Who would have thought, two years ago, that the New York Jets could one day call the wide receiver position a position of strength?
Back in 2013, it was Santonio Holmes and Stephen Hill acting as the primary receivers in the Jets offense. Fast-forward to 2015, and those two names are both long gone, with plenty of upgrades along the way.
It makes perfect sense. The 2013 season marked the first year of Marty Mornhinweg as the offensive coordinator. The 2015 season marks the first in Chan Gailey's run as the play-caller on offense.
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Of course, none of it really matters unless the Jets sort out their shoddy quarterback situation. If Geno Smith is still playing at Geno Smith-ian levels, the Jets offense will have a hard time getting off the ground. With this collection of receivers, though, Smith's job has gotten much easier over the past two years.
The overhauling of the wide receiver corps began last year. The Jets signed Eric Decker to a five-year contract worth $36.25 million with $15 million fully guaranteed. The hope was that Decker could be the same dominant receiver that he was as a member of the Denver Broncos, and while he didn't put up the otherworldly numbers he posted while catching passes from Peyton Manning, he came close.
With 74 receptions for 962 yards and five touchdowns in his first year with Gang Green, Decker proved that he can be productive even in a lackluster passing attack that ranked dead last in the league in yards in 2014.
At 6'3" and 214 pounds, Decker has the prototype build for a boundary receiver. He may not be a true X receiver with an innate ability to win jump balls and run deep routes every snap, but he has the physical tools to get away from press coverage and has enough speed to force a defensive back to respect it.
Decker should only benefit from the arrival of Brandon Marshall and Devin Smith, and from a spread offensive system that will get him in single coverage more frequently than ever before.
Brandon Marshall
It takes a special kind of receiver to wind up on four teams in a six-year span, but while Brandon Marshall may not possess the same elite skill level he had when he was with the Denver Broncos, he still has the same elite size at 6'4" and 230 pounds.
For the first time since his rookie year, Marshall posted fewer than 80 receptions and 1,000 receiving yards, so let's not expect him to be the same receiver he was back then. Geno Smith would have to take a big step forward in order to get Marshall anywhere near those numbers while still keeping Decker and Jeremy Kerley involved.
Marshall still has a lot to offer an offense, though, especially one like the Jets' that has had such a hard time scoring in the red zone (36.2 percent of the Jets' red-zone possessions ended in touchdowns, dead last in the NFL, according to TeamRankings.com). If Smith isn't throwing at least one jump ball to Marshall each week in the red zone, there's a problem.
Jeremy Kerley
Through all the turnover the Jets have experienced at wide receiver, one constant has been Jeremy Kerley. The diminutive receiver may stand only 5'8" and 188 pounds, but he is effective in his role in the slot. According to Pro Football Focus, he lined up in the slot for 78.2 percent of the routes he ran in 2014.
The slot has been his spot since entering the NFL in 2011, and it should continue to be his primary assignment going forward. Kerley has caught 81 of the 127 catchable passes thrown his way for 932 yards and four touchdowns, with four dropped passes.
At only 11.5 yards per reception, he's not exactly a consistently explosive playmaker. It's a good thing that's not what the Jets are counting on him to do. Now that they have Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall both at their disposal, defenses will have to respect their presence on the boundary, and the openings should be even bigger for Kerley underneath.
Devin Smith
It says a lot about Chan Gailey's offense that the Jets' second-round selection of Devin Smith came as no surprise, even though the team already has several talented receivers in the fold. Gailey's offense calls for a lot of spread formations that put three or four receivers on the field at a time; one injury to a key receiver could threaten the staple of Gailey's offense.
Smith isn't just another body, though; he's a good fit. At 6'0" and 196 pounds, the Ohio State product is not the physically imposing type of receiver you expect to see on the outside, and he's not the smaller, shiftier type of slot receiver you see over the middle. As a result, Smith lines up all over the field, and he has the versatility and ability to do anything the Jets ask.
Smith ran a 4.42-second 40-yard dash at the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine, and he ran a 6.83-second three-cone drill at Ohio State's pro day. The combination of speed and quickness allows him to be effective running short, intermediate and deep routes.
The Jets may have some issues with less-than-soft hands and less-than-natural route-running ability, but the Jets have a raw ball of clay on their hands, and they can mold him into a top-flight NFL receiver with time.
DeVier Posey
The Jets traded down in the third round of the draft to acquire extra picks and wide receiver DeVier Posey from the Houston Texans.
Posey hasn't exactly lit up the NFL since being drafted in the third round in 2012, and he has posted only 22 catches for 272 yards in his career. The Texans were hoping for a third-year leap out of the former third-round pick, but he was a healthy scratch at times and finished the year with only one catch.
The 6'2", 211-pound wide receiver has the skill set to play on the outside, as he showed in posting a 4.5-second 40-yard dash and a 36.5" vertical jump at the 2012 NFL Scouting Combine. He's yet to earn an opportunity to show off that skill set on a regular basis, but everyone will get their turn in Chan Gailey's spread offense.
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