One of the Los Angeles Chargers’ biggest priorities this offseason should be upgrading the No. 3 wide receiver spot.
Keenan Allen and Mike Williams are solid young wide receivers, but if you take away their 2019 statistics, the Chargers had a total of 25 receptions for 299 yards and no touchdowns.
The team only had eight touchdown catches from the wide receiver position last season. There were 12 wide receivers across the league that had that many on their own.
There is no doubt that the Chargers need to make some improvements to their wide receiver corps in order to maximize their passing game. The team could use two new faces at wide receiver and a popular idea is to sign a veteran in free agency as well as drafting a young player to team with Allen and Williams.
Free agency will come first and there are several veteran names across the market such as Emmanuel Sanders, Devin Funchess, Randall Cobb, Robby Anderson and Breshad Perriman. There are bigger names scheduled to become free agents such as A.J. Green and Amari Cooper but both of those guys will get big deals and likely will stay with the teams they are already on.
One of the names that will be available is one that fans likely won’t jump for joy over, but he would be affordable and the move would make sense. That player is Nelson Agholor.
The former first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent.
Agholor appeared in only 11 games for the injury-depleted Eagles this past season, catching 39 passes for 363 yards and three touchdowns. Those numbers were a major dropoff from his 2017 and 2018 campaigns, but injuries were the biggest reason for that.
Agholor has averaged 11.2 yards per reception across his career and he can beat the defense deep on the long ball. He is a speedy receiver who can line up on the outside or in the slot and make plays.
The reason why he is not likely to draw rants and raves if he were to be signed is due to the fact that he’s never put up the kind of numbers you expect from a first-round pick and he’s also had a well-known issue for dropping the ball.
But because of that, he could also be obtained at a reasonable price.
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Agholor’s rookie deal was worth $9.3 million over four years. He will be looking for a pay increase, but the drops and the fact that the best season he’s had saw him catch just 62 passes for 768 yards and eight touchdowns will keep the price down.
Then there’s the connection to Los Angeles. Though he was born in Nigeria and attended high school in Tampa, Florida, Agholor played college ball at USC from 2012-14. He still ranks 10th in school history with 178 career receptions.
If the Chargers were interested, the feeling may be mutual. The thought of going back to the area where he starred in college could be quite appealing to the free-agent receiver.
Again, he’s not the shiniest toy in the free-agent chest. But he is a realistic option and one that the team should consider.