Seahawks should take a long look at these free agent wide receivers

The Seahawks wide receivers are solid at one and two, but they could use more consistency at the third spot. One of these free agents could be the answer.

There’s no doubt that once Doug Baldwin is back to full health, he and Tyler Lockett will give the Seahawks one of the very best wide receiver tandems in the league. Baldwin is one of the very best in traffic, while Lockett seems to be able to pull in the ball over or around any defender. After those two, Seattle’s receiving corps just wasn’t very consistent.

After Baldwin and Lockett, the players with the third and fourth highest number of receptions were running back Mike Davis and tight end Nick Vannett. Davis was the Hawks third-down specialist, but he was still in for a little over 36 percent of the offensive snaps. Vannett was in for just under 50 percent.

The biggest culprit here is wide receiver David Moore. I’ll be the first to say I sang his praises long and loud last season. He started out slowly while Seattle tried other options, but he began to light it up once he got his first start in week four. In the ensuing four-game set, he caught 11 of 13 passes for 221 yards and four touchdowns. Moore would only have one good game the rest of the way. He was great against the Panthers in that game, with four catches on five targets for 103 yards and a score.

That’s five good games. In his other 11 contests, Moore caught an abysmal 11 of 35 targets for 121 yards and zero touchdowns. I’m not knocking him, those are just the facts. When you miss that many balls, something just isn’t right. I still have faith in the guy, and would love for him to make any free agent deal completely unnecessary.

Seattle Seahawks

Moore was hardly the only problem. The Brandon Marshall experiment sadly didn’t pan out. I had high hopes for him as well. Maybe I should get my optimism switch checked; it seems to be set too high. Jaron Brown is another wideout that didn’t quite pan out. In his case, he did just about everything he could with limited opportunities. Brown caught 14 of his 19 targets for 166 yards and five touchdowns. He was targeted in the red zone six times, caught all six, and scored all five of his touchdowns. It may not be spectacular, but it’s really, really efficient. For whatever reason, he was targeted just a bit over once per game.

For various reasons, none of these players was the answer to the third receiver role. So who could the Seahawks find among the upcoming free agents? Our own Karley Silbert had three in mind a couple of weeks ago. I like all three of her options, but I’m still going to throw in three more.

Seahawks should give these three a long look

Tyrell Williams, Chargers, 6’4″, 205 pounds. You know Pete Carroll has been crazy to get a tall red zone target for the last 1,000 years. Williams certainly fills the bill. (Yes, it seems like Brown at  6’3″ has that covered, but I’m not sure the Seahawks checked his height). William targets have dropped the past two seasons with the Chargers, but he still averaged 42 catches, 690 yards, and 4.5 touchdowns. He doesn’t exactly have Doug Baldwin’s hands, but his catch rate has improved every year.

Donte Moncrief, Jaguars, 6’2″, 220 pounds. Another big, physical wide receiver. In four years with the Colts he averaged 38 catches on 64 targets for 469 yards and 4.5 touchdowns. You might want to note that Andrew Luck missed 21 of Moncrief’s 53 games with Indianapolis. Also, remember that Blake Bortles was impersonating a quarterback for the majority of 2018 in Jacksonville. Moncrief has plenty of flaws, but he hasn’t had a really good quarterback for over half his career.

Devin Funchess, Panthers, 6’4″, 225 pounds. You may have noticed a trend with these selections. Listen, Seattle doesn’t need another starting quality slot receiver, so players like Cole Beasley and Jamison Crowder don’t fit the team’s needs. Funchess is definitely persona non grata in Carolina (I think that means he doesn’t like grated cheese). Anyway, he still caught 44 passes for 549 yards and four touchdowns last year, and had eight scores the year before.

The Seahawks could do worse than take a long look at any of these three players. They could give up on Moore and let him walk in free agency. They could forget what Brown did in the red zone and try to save a few bucks. Well, $2.7 million, but who’s counting? Hopefully, Seattle keeps both players, as I think they have only started to show what they can do. Meanwhile, it never hurts to have a little competition.