So many people, myself included, expected more from Calvin Ridley in 2023, but the guy still had a thousand-yard season and eight touchdowns. He finished as a wide receiver two at wide receiver 24 overall, but he only had five games last year with 10-plus targets. He was really utilized more as a decoy than a weapon. Most importantly, he had a catchable target rate of only 64.7%—that ranked as the wide receiver 82 overall. The guy is not washed as much as a lot of people want to say he is. He was underutilized and basically delivered crapola on a plate.
But now he's in Tennessee, and all the hype from last year is gone. But this isn't the same old Tennessee Titans team. King Henry is gone; he's in Baltimore. Head coach Mike Vrabel is gone. We now have a wide receiver trio here in DeAndre Hopkins, Calvin Ridley, and Tyler Boyd. We have a second-year quarterback in Will Levis that definitely wants to throw the ball a ton.
But what about new head coach Brian Callahan? He's already come out and said that he wants Calvin Ridley to play that Ja'Marr Chase role in this offense, which sounds great. But Ridley isn't Chase and Levis isn't Burrow. Plus, we have two solid running backs in the backfield in Tony Pollard and Taj Spears. Pair that with the trio of wide receivers, and this offense is going to take turns having big games.
If we have a hard time trusting the trio of wide receivers in Houston, why shouldn't we have the same hard time trusting them in Tennessee? Now, what we can say is this: the wide receivers in Tennessee are drafted a little bit later. They're decent bench stashes, but you do not want to rely on any of them to start your season. Even though this overall trio is pretty old—all three will be 30 by the time the year is over—they still have plenty in the tank to eat into each other's ceiling. So if you have a target share that's really going to limit a player's ceiling and the floor is already low, just be sure to temper expectations in 2024.
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