Man plans; the fantasy gods laugh. That thought crosses my mind as I’m working my way through today’s news and notes. As carefully as we all try to work our way through each team and each situation, there will be some lesser players who are a lot more productive than we’re expecting.
Today, I see a pair of blurbs talking up a pair of receivers in the AFC South that nobody is thinking much about.
In theory, Deon Cain shouldn’t make much of an impact for the Colts. They have T.Y. Hilton coming back, and they’ve added Devin Funchess and Parris Campbell. (They also have Chester Rogers, and I’m expecting he’ll be their slot receiver). But twice in the offseason Frank Reich has gone out of his way to compliment Cain, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the first preseason game last year.
“You guys know we were very excited about what Deon showed [early in training camp], how quickly he picked things up and the playmaking ability that he showed,” Reich said on a radio show hosted by Kevin Bowen of 1070 The Fan.
Funchess will be paid $10 million this year, but he was so underwhelming in Carolina last year they dropped him out of the starting lineup for the final month of the season (he wasn’t even active for Week 17). And Campbell, despite running a blistering 4.31 at the combine, will need time to develop.
I’m not suggesting anyone should be drafting Cain, but add him to the lengthy list of players who’ll need to be checked out in August.
Inside the same division, the Titans have a similar player. They have Corey Davis coming back, used a second-round pick on A.J. Brown and signed Adam Humphries to a lucrative free agent deal. You might think that would slam the door shut on any possibility of any other receiver making much of a factor.
But Rob Moore, the team’s receivers coach, says he likes what he’s seen out of Taywan Taylor (pictured).
“I think Tay has done a solid job,” says Moore on the team’s official website.. “Honestly, I just think we need to give him more opportunities. Give him more opportunities to showcase what he can do and I think he’ll take advantage of his opportunities.”
This might seem like meaningless cloud talk, but I can remember being impressed by Taylor during the preseason of his rookie season. They keep giving him the ball on end-arounds, and he kept catching passes. He was just a third-round pick, but I was wondering if he might have a better career than the receiver they selected two rounds earlier (Davis.)
Taylor hasn’t made a big impact thus far. He caught 16 passes as a rookie and just 37 last year. He’s scored 2 TDs in 29 games as a pro. But he’s been held back in part by lesser offenses and iffy quarterbacking.
I don’t expect Taylor will be one of Tennessee’s three best receivers, but it’s possible. Humphries and Brown both need to learn the team’s offense. Brown has been sidelined by a hamstring injury and also needs to adjust to the increased size and speed of the pro game. When the Titans take the field for their first preseason game, it will be interesting to see if Taylor is working with the first-unit offense.
We’ve all got our projections, depth charts and draft lists written out, but the regular season is still over two months away. No doubt there will be plenty of revisions made, and Cain and Taylor look like a pair with the potential to move up and maybe become draftable prospects.
—Ian Allan