Chicago Bears roster battle: Riley Ridley vs Javon Wims By Parker Hurley - May 29th, 2020
When you compare Riley Ridley to Javon Wims head to head, which players should be ahead on the depth chart?
The Chicago Bears have Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller set as starters. However, from there, they will be looking for competition to help fill out the rest of the depth chart. Ted Ginn was signed, and Darnell Mooney drafted to fill in the for Taylor Gabriel role from last year. However, there will also be a battle between Riley Ridley and Javon Wims for the fourth and potentially third receiver ahead of those two.
They would have to show that they are worthy of stepping into that role, but as of now, they may be just as likely fighting for end of the roster spots. Wims has been in the NFL for two seasons, while Ridley was a rookie in 2019. How do the two stack up?
When it comes to depth at WR, I think most will be no real set piece week to week outside Robinson and Miller. The rest will be used based on matchups and in game needs.
Look at KC, Kelce 90+ catches, then it was Sammy/Hill w/50's and then a bunch of role players. Philly, it was Ertz w/just under 90, Godert/Sanders w/50+ and role players. This is the the way Nagy wants to look, but I'm not sure they have a reliable 3rd, maybe Cohen in a similar role as Sanders if Graham/Kmet can force teams to lay off him, but right now not sure this team has that.
Regardless I don't think Nagy plans on Riley/Wims being the guy. Likely Robinson/Graham and either Miller or Cohen. Riley/Wims are going to get the left overs based on down/distance and defensive weaknesses.
*btw, if you don't understand just how completely neutered this team was w/the loss of all 3 starting capable TE's, that should tell you. Kelce/Ertz both had 130 targets, and the next wasn't close. KC even has Hill and Watkins as reliable 2nd/3rd options and it's the TE's getting the looks. This entire system revolves around the TE and how the def defends the TE position.
Good article. After reading it, and thinking about these two guys performance so far, I am looking forward to seeing if one of these guys can make a breakthrough this year. Neither has been impressive. But the entire offense has looked bad. It will be interesting to watch the WRs at TEs this year to see if they can perform well. I hope the entire O looks better too.
outside of Robinson how do we know what we have at WR?
We really don't. We know that Miller started to improve in the last qtr of the season, and we know that none of the TE's were a factor, we know that Wims had a few nice spots and in a very lackluster group that Riley couldn't find the field; but for normally WR's struggle their first year so not overly surprising that a 4th rounder didn't exactly light it up.