Who's Winning the Battle for Bucs' No. 3 WR Spot?
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have the NFL's best wide receiver tandem in Pro Bowlers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but with the offseason loss of Breshad Perriman, the battle for the No. 2 WR spot is wide open heading into training camp.
It's still early, but head coach Bruce Arians says there's already a leader in the clubhouse.
“The guy that’s looking really, really good is Justin Watson,” Arians said via video conference Thursday. “He lost 10 pounds, and I think he hit 21 miles an hour the other day on the field. That’s flying. He looked very confident in what he’s doing."
A fifth-round pick out of Penn in the 2018 NFL Draft, Watson caught 15 passes for 159 yards and a pair of touchdowns last season. His top competition will likely be Scotty Miller, a 2019 sixth-round pick who averaged over 15 yards per reception as a rookie last season.
While Arians praised Watson, he acknowledged that his deep receiver group still has plenty of time to battle it out and fill out the rest of the depth chart in the coming weeks.
"Justin, Scotty [Miller], we got a bunch of different pieces there," Arians said. "Jonathan Franklin looked good, [Bryant] Mitchell has looked good. It’s a battle for three, four, five and six, and we might have different packages for the different three.”
Don't be surprised if the Bucs take full advantage of that depth, keeping a sixth wide receiver to give Tom Brady all the help he needs to be successful on Sundays.
