What our new receiving core will look like.

[Doc-phin]

Just like many of you (not all).  I was really disturbed by trading away Marshall, who was our best offensive weapon.  I know he had the pending legal issue and that was enough for me to understand why, but I didn't understand how they could have been talking about this with teams at the combine (before the incident).  After some time to look at things, this is what I believe is going to happen and why we did what we did.

1st - There is no true X -receiver in the West Coast offense.  It is very likely we will be going for speed, speed and more speed at the receiver position.  It defies conventional wisdom on how to handle the red zone because we won't have that big target in that area, but as we saw Marshall was a bit of a wildcard in the red zone anyway.

If Hartline, Bess and Gates can't prove that they can have good hands on the run they will likely be replaced over the next few years.  Theoretically, all three of them could be very good West Coast receivers.  Hartline and Bess are smart, quick and shifty.  Gates is quick and shifty but we aren't sure about his intellect or hands.  None of them are primary receiver worthy but they can get the job done from the second read and down.

I suspect we will draft a receiver in the second or third round this year.  Don't expect a big receiver.  Expect a middle sized fast guy with good hands.  There is a lot of depth at receiver this year so I am not sure who it will be, but I don't think we need that elite body type guy with this offense.

So, in summary.  We will see a group of receivers that are all of a similar skill set and skill level.  There will be a lot of 3-4 wide sets and the receivers will be quick instead of fast.  We aren't looking for guys to take the top off and we aren't looking for big bodied, long armed possession type receivers.  If we have enough speed at one of the tight end spots we might flex the tight end out and use some two tight end sets, but that would be a bit of a rarity if we don't have a fast tight end. 

That is my take, anyway.  I am not an expert but I try to research this stuff the best I can.  Would love to hear some other view points.  At the very least, this may easy some of the tension over our receiver situation.

[Pappy13]

Excellent analysis and I'd like to add that I believe that Charles Clay could be the TE type of guy you were referring to. He's not technically a TE, but he could line up there and get into patterns and he seemed pretty good at finding an open spot downfield last year. He had 15 catches for 230 yards and 3 TD's with Moore at QB. That's 15 yards per catch.