EXPECTATIONS are high for Jeremy Maclin’s production this year, despite the fact that it usually takes about a season to get full explosiveness back after an ACL tear. Not sure what some fans mean when they say they expect him to put up big numbers, since most shy away from a prediction when pressed. So I’ll be the brave one.
First let me say: I doubt his knee will be an issue in 2014, so my take is that his starts will be between 13 to 16 games.
I’ll also go out on a limb and tell you what sort of stats I look to see out him in 2014:
51 catches, 690 yards, 5 TD’s. While almost every one of those numbers is a career low, I still think it would be a good year for him.
I’m not expecting lower numbers because of his knee. I’m expecting that last year’s emergence of Riley Cooper will cut into Maclin’s opportunities. While my guess is that Maclin, Cooper and DeSean Jackson will start out of a 3-WR formation, there is after all only one football per play. There are also other players who excel at catching the ball to consider: LeSean McCoy, Brent Celek, and Zach Ertz to name three.
Last year 360 completions was about par for the course, (we had 310) for NFL teams. Erring on the high side of completions, the 6 players I mentioned would see 60 receptions each. And that’s if ONLY those 6 catch passes all year long. (FYI: Last year 12 different players caught passes.)
Even with a higher number of projected completions, odds are that Maclin won’t grab 60 balls. Not with so much competition around him. But this would likely be a good thing.
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No Jackson in the Equation now. I don’t feel all that comfortable about the Maclin situation. If he does have a great season then he’s going to want to be paid like a big time receiver. It will be the Jackson situation all over again. If he doesn’t then we could find ourselves scrambling to fix this situation. I’m still not sold on Cooper as a number one guy. Not sure how Maclin will bounce back or play in this offense for that matter. For a team that absolutely needed defensive help they have now made receiver a draft priority.
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I have to agree with that assessment. I still think pass rusher is a more dominant need, but when March arrived we were stocked at WR, now if Maclin doesn’t hold up, or isn’t explosive after the catch, this could be a loooooong 16 games.
My thinking is that Kelly is banking on his Spread being able to operate (without a star WR) the NFL the way it did in the college ranks.
I think he’s in for a rude awakening.
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