And I still have hopes for Mark Harrison (who could play as a big WR, or as a WR/TE hybrid). That's 3 guys almost 6'3" and 210#+, 2 of whom have 4.37 speed.
As I posted elsewhere, right now we have a very young and stable set of WRs from a contract perspective, and at reasonable cap cost:
- Danny Amendola (turns 29 in November): signed through 2017 (though he could be a cap casualty as early as 2015)
- Julian Edelman (turns 28 in May): signed through 2017
- Aaron Dobson (turns 23 in July): signed through 2016
- Brandon LaFell (turns 28 in November): signed through 2016
- Josh Boyce (turns 23 in May): signed through 2016
- Kenbrell Thompkins (UDFA; turns 26 in July)): signed through 2015
- Mark Harrison (UDFA); turns 24 in December): signed through 2015
If 1 or 2 of the youngsters develop, the Pats will be in great shape. The low cap cost of the position is something that can't be emphasized enough, IMO.
If we get really lucky then Aaron Dobson will get stronger in his upper body and will develop into a Demaryius Thomas type of #1 WR, with Lafell playing an Eric Decker kind of role, and Edelman as a younger version of Welker. Add in Gronk, and possibly another TE, plus the other guys for depth, and we could have a really strong group of receivers. It could take another year for the youngsters to develop (and they could easily fall flat, it's obviously not a given), but if things fell right we could be sitting pretty at what was considered a position of weakness (how often have we said that!).
The other piece of the equation is getting the RB position stabilized for the long term. Vereen will hopefully get extended, and either Blount locked up for a few years or an alternative brought in (I'd love a RB with receiving skills like Knowshon Moreno, though that's a long shot).
Short of the TE position - which I believe can be addressed in day 3, unless someone like ASJ falls into our lap - I don't think that the offensive "skill" positions are an issue. We need to address the lines in the draft, on both sides of the ball.