Receivers jockeying at scouting combine

INDIANAPOLIS » If your favorite NFL team doesn’t have a Tyreek Hill, Julio Jones or Courtland Sutton streaking down the field, making cornerbacks cringe and constantly redefining the highlight catch, just wait.

Chances are good they’ll grab one in this year’s draft.

The NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis features a tantalizing wide receiver class unlike anything ever seen at the league’s annual gathering of top prospects.

“You’ve probably heard every GM and coach talk about this wide receiver class; it is a good one,” Jets GM Joe Douglas said. “Just watching them go across the stage, there is a lot of talented players and we see how much the pass game affects the National Football League. So we do feel good about this group.”

Actually, teams feel great about the 2020 receivers.

Teams are more willing than ever to bypass the old wait-and-watch standby for a plug-and-play approach with bigger, faster, quicker pass-catchers coming out such as Calvin Ridley and D.J. Moore who made an immediate impact in 2018, followed by Deebo Samuel, DK Metcalf, Marquise

Brown, Terry McLaurin and A.J. Brown, who wasted no time establishing their credentials last season.

“There is a lot more receivers coming into the draft because there’s just a lot more receivers in college football and high school football,” Rams GM Les Snead said. “A lot of teams running three, four, five wides.”

It starts before college. “I think in today’s day and age where these guys were starting 7-on-7, it’s almost like AAU basketball,” Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said. “The receivers are so much more advanced in terms of their fundamentals coming into college and the league than maybe they have been in the past. It’s really just the NFL offense that will take time. So I think there’s some guys sitting here today that I think will have a chance to make a pretty immediate impact, and I’m excited about that.”

Those prospects include the likes of Colorado’s Laviska Shenault, Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III, Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb, LSU’s Justin Jefferson, Arizona State’s Brandon Aiyuk and Clemson’s Tee Higgins.

The wide receiver group is “as deep as I’ve seen,” NFL draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said.