Plankton
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http://www.jsonline.com/sports/pack...even-in-down-years-b99704533z1-376579591.html
Take 2008, when for the first time in 18 years not one wide receiver was selected in the first round. Six were taken among the first 15 choices of the second round, but only Green Bay's Jordy Nelson has gone on to stardom.
Nelson, with 400 career receptions, has fewer than DeSean Jackson (442), a late second-round pick that year, and Pierre Garcon, who turned a sixth-round selection into 485 grabs.
Two years before that, one wide receiver was chosen in the first round. "You might get as good a guy in the fourth round as you would in the first," Bill Polian, then president of the Indianapolis Colts, said in April 2006.
Santonio Holmes, the lone first-rounder, was MVP of the 43rd Super Bowl. In terms of numbers, however, Holmes' 389 receptions are dwarfed by the 882 of Brandon Marshall, the fourth-rounder Polian might have been alluding to, or Greg Jennings (571, second round) and Marques Colston (711, seventh round).
How about 1990, another year when there wasn't a wide receiver in the first round? Terance Mathis came out of New Mexico in the sixth round that year and finished his career with 689 catches.
In '92, another year when personnel people bemoaned the lack of wide receivers, Jimmy Smith made 862 catches for Jacksonville as a second-round selection and Robert Brooks chimed in with 309 during an injury-shortened career as the Packers' third-round choice.
Take 2008, when for the first time in 18 years not one wide receiver was selected in the first round. Six were taken among the first 15 choices of the second round, but only Green Bay's Jordy Nelson has gone on to stardom.
Nelson, with 400 career receptions, has fewer than DeSean Jackson (442), a late second-round pick that year, and Pierre Garcon, who turned a sixth-round selection into 485 grabs.
Two years before that, one wide receiver was chosen in the first round. "You might get as good a guy in the fourth round as you would in the first," Bill Polian, then president of the Indianapolis Colts, said in April 2006.
Santonio Holmes, the lone first-rounder, was MVP of the 43rd Super Bowl. In terms of numbers, however, Holmes' 389 receptions are dwarfed by the 882 of Brandon Marshall, the fourth-rounder Polian might have been alluding to, or Greg Jennings (571, second round) and Marques Colston (711, seventh round).
How about 1990, another year when there wasn't a wide receiver in the first round? Terance Mathis came out of New Mexico in the sixth round that year and finished his career with 689 catches.
In '92, another year when personnel people bemoaned the lack of wide receivers, Jimmy Smith made 862 catches for Jacksonville as a second-round selection and Robert Brooks chimed in with 309 during an injury-shortened career as the Packers' third-round choice.