JAKE AND STACY
The obvious problem with Seahawks WRs being ranked worst in NFC West
May 25, 2020, 12:05 AM
Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf combined for nearly 2,000 receiving yards last year. (Getty)
(Getty)
Another NFL rankings article, another slight for the Seattle Seahawks.
Rost: Cowherd explains why he thinks Seahawks don’t appreciate Wilson
This time it’s Pro Football Focus’ rankings of the wide receivers corps of each NFL team, and while the Seahawks coming in at No. 17 overall isn’t all that bad, there’s some context that makes it look a whole lot worse.
Ahead of Seattle are the other three teams in the NFC West – Arizona is No. 12, the Rams are 15th and the 49ers are 16th.
Seahawks insider Stacy Rost, co-host of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Tom, Jake and Stacy, acknowledged that the website did get one thing right with these particular rankings.
“I will give Pro Football Focus credit for kind of bundling all the NFC West teams together because I really don’t think there’s that much of a gap between them,” she said last Friday on Tom, Jake and Stacy.
Where the rankings are off, however, comes down to the amount of projection Pro Football Focus takes into account while ignoring actual results, according to Rost.
“Here’s my knock on this – the Seattle Seahawks have Tyler Lockett, who had over 1,000 receiving yards in 2020, and DK Metcalf, who had 900 yards, and I would expect an even bigger year from them (in 2020),” she said. “They combined for twice as many receiving touchdowns as Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk in Arizona despite the fact that Arizona is ranked as the top receiver group in the NFC West. Now obviously that received a boost with the Cardinals’ acquisition of DeAndre Hopkins, and Pro Football Focus notes that Hopkins and Fitzgerald have among the lowest drop rates in the NFL. But here’s my problem when we sometimes do these kind of offseason rankings – a lot of things are hypothetical.
“How much did we discuss the whole quarterback/wide receiver combo (rankings) that came out a while ago? Russell Wilson, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett were out of the top 12 but you had (Arizona’s) Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins in there, (Tampa Bay’s) Tom Brady and Chris Godwin and Mike Evans – guys that haven’t played together before. I don’t doubt that Tom Brady can establish a relationship pretty quickly but chemistry takes time, and Russell Wilson has that with Tyler Lockett and he built on that last year with DK Metcalf.”
Of course, in a way this slight has as much to do with the man throwing the passes as anybody else, as it usually does when it comes to the Seahawks.
“I think (the Seahawks’ receivers) absolutely deserve more recognition than they are getting, especially considering that of all these quarterbacks, Russell Wilson threw more touchdowns than any of them,” Rost said.
You can hear Rost’s full explanation and more football discussion in the Four-Down Territory segment of Tom, Jake and Stacy in this podcast.
Follow 710 ESPN Seattle’s Stacy Rost, Tom Wassell and Jake Heaps on Twitter.
Bumpus: Why I trust Ken Norton to get the Seahawks’ defense right
