Kudos to Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

I disagree with the notion that WR's are generally unable to impact their respective teams their first year. The issue with WR's is that their bust factor is high. Many highly drafted WR's don't contribute their first year, or second, or third. They lack the intelligence to grasp the precision required for the NFL and/or the maturity to devote themselves to their craft as professionals. Indeed, the nature of the position tends to attract the most immature athletes on a team.

However, recent history shows several players who have been able to make important contributions to their teams during their first season; Dwayne Bowe, Steve Smith, Santonio Holmes, Reggie Brown, Greg Jennings, Larry Fitzgerald, Roy Williams, Lee Evans, Michael Clayon, Andre Johnson, Donte Stallworth, Jabar Gaffney, Antonio Bryant, Anquan Boldin, and Deion Branch are a few. For every Braylond Edwards or Javon Walker, who took a few years to mature, there seems to be two Troy Williamson's or Mike Williams', players who never adapted to the NFL. My point being that the issue with WR's is not the learning curve.

Thus, while expecting our rookies to notch 80 catches, 10 TD's and make the Probowl is probably not realistic, it is not out of the question for them to help out with 40-50 catches and a few scores. Don't forget, as SC pointed out, the guy these rookies are replacing never caught a TD in two years, so I am not willing to accept that they won't help us immediately.

Great point.. Also, let's not act like we are counting on Thomas and Kelly to become the #1 threat at WR.. We have 2 solid options already in Cooley and Moss and an ok one in Randle-El.. They are going to be counted on to be situationally effective. Kelly will probably see a lot of time in the red zone, but maybe not before that. Thomas may be a "starter" by virtue of being in on 3 WR sets, but he'll likely be no better than the 3rd or 4th read on most plays. That's much different from most highly drafted WR who are expected to make a Randy Moss like impact from day one.