A Look To The Future

I’m usually not the kind of guy who likes to talk about next season when the team is still kind of in contention, but I wanted to let you all in on a conversation I had the other day. A friend of mine and I were discussing the loss to the Niners, and after my rant on Brandon Gibson, we started talking about what the receiving corps might look like next year. For the sake of argument, and bear with me, we have to assume some things are true, like no one is injured and everyone returns to the team.

First, the common school of thought is that the team needs to add a true number one receiver before next season, whether it be through the draft, free agency, or trade. So, assuming the team does this, here  is what the receivers could look like next season: New receiver, Donnie Avery, Mark Clayton, Danny Amendola, Danario Alexander, Mardy Gilyard, Laurent Robinson, and Brandon Gibson.

Now, obviously the team won’t keep all of those guys on the roster. You have to think that New Receiver, Avery, Clayton, Amendola, and Alexander are sure things if they are all 100 percent. Gilyard is probably pretty close to a sure thing after the team used a third round pick on him this season. That’s six guys who are really good.

The argument you may be ready to make at this point might be: If we have all of these guys, why do we need to bring in someone else? The answer is that, although the guys who are here are talented when healthy, none of them are the gamebreaker we really need. None of those guys listed above are number ones, but if you move everyone down a slot, it makes for a pretty outstanding group.

Obviously, none of this is certain, and with the injury issues they have you don’t know who will be available. All I’m saying is that the potential is there. If you combine that group with Sam Bradford with a season under his belt, Steven Jackson, and the offensive line who is a year more experienced and together, you have the makings of an offense that could be a real force. Think about it.

Injury Report: The injury news from today was very good. Fred Robbins was the only player who was limited, and he is going to be fine for this weekend. DX did some work with the ones, and he said the knee is doing much better. It looks like everyone else was able to go, so it will be pretty much all hands on deck Sunday.