Some big-time NFL receivers are available. These are the teams that need to get one
If the Falcons are going to make Julio Jones available before the NFL trading deadline and the Bengals are going to listen to offers for A.J. Green, both teams will get a lot of phone calls.
The teams that stand out as the obvious suitors are the Packers and the Bears, but then also the Raiders.
With Jones and Green out there, all three teams have a chance to win at the Nov. 3 trade deadline – and can win a lot of games after it, with the right move.
The Raiders have to be very interested in Jones. If they add him to an already deep receiving corps, that’s just going to make everyone better.
I’ve heard that Green could go to Green Bay or Chicago and that could become very interesting because the NFC North is going to go down to the wire and because of that, Cincinnati might have two very interested teams trying to get Green and that will only drive up the price.
What Jones could mean to Raiders
Teams in a contending position have to strike.
Put Julio Jones on the Raiders and a defense just doesn’t have enough bodies to appropriately cover all of Las Vegas’ receivers and stop Josh Jacobs from running the football with one of the best offensive lines in the league.
They’d have Darren Waller and Jones. They’d have Henry Ruggs III to take the top off the coverage and then they’d have Hunter Renfrow to attack the middle of the field.
It would be the dream scenario.
Jones is one of those few guys where if a defense tries to go one-on-one with a cornerback, Jones is the matchup bet every time.
If the defense double-teams Jones, the Raiders get a one-on-one with Waller and he’s going to win every time or they’d get one-on-ones with Ruggs and Renfrow and they’re going to win every time.
When the Raiders played New England a few weeks back, Ruggs was out so the Patriots were able to use Stephon Gilmore to cover Waller.
What if they can’t do that? What if they have Waller, Jones, Ruggs and Renfrow out there, with Josh Jacobs? Now what do they do?
The Raiders would have to feel pretty confident rolling into Kansas City or playing Baltimore or New England, because there just are not enough bodies to cover all of those guys.
Taking control of NFC North
It’s a little different for the Packers and the Bears, but they’re both close, 4-1 and 5-1, and they could use that one additional piece.
Green Bay already has Davante Adams and Chicago already has Allen Robinson. But if one of those teams adds Green, it does the same thing for them that Jones does for the Raiders.
One of those guys will be in an advantageous situation on every play — not many teams have two stud corners who can cover Green and Adams or Green and Robinson.
Green Bay just lost to Tampa Bay, and because it was just Adams out there, because there was just that one guy Tampa Bay was concerned about, the Bucs took some liberties on the defensive side. They pressured Aaron Rodgers. They were able to stop the run because they were able to put another guy down in the box. They were creative with the way they took away Adams, but they could do that because they weren’t really afraid of anyone else.
From the Packers’ standpoint, if they could add a guy like Green then defenses couldn’t play with that much aggression.
On the Bears side of it, they already have a really good defense and quarterback Nick Foles definitely is going to give guys chances to make plays. He’s not going to just take the easy completion. He’s going to throw the ball up and if Green can do anything, he can win those matchups. He might not run by anybody, but he can win those one-on-one matchups.
Patriots need a tight end
The Patriots also need help, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them try to get Zach Ertz out of Philadelphia or Evan Engram from the Giants.
They don’t have that tight end like they’ve always had. They drafted N’Keal Harry in 2019 because they thought he was going to be in the mode of a Chris Hogan, a big, physical guy who can play inside and run routes on linebackers and safeties and also block at the point of attack.
Ertz is more than capable of doing that, and so is Engram. The Patriots could go a long way with a tight end like that.
It’s no fantasy – Chargers in a good spot
The Chargers have dropped four in a row, but they’ve played the Chiefs and back-to-back road games at Tampa Bay and at New Orleans and now they’re coming off a bye week and at home against Jacksonville. The Chargers defense has played well in Los Angeles, holding the Chiefs to a season-low 23 points and Carolina to 21, and the Jaguars are kind of a mess right now. Jacksonville has averaged just 17 points over its past four, and I’m not expecting them to get much done against a defense that can score some fantasy points in the right matchup.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 12:59 PM.