5 Receivers the Buccaneers Need to Consider Now

Torrey Smith, San Francisco 49ers

Jason La Canfora posted on Twitter that the Bucs were making a push to land a veteran wide receiver and commented on what the team is willing to use as bargaining chips.

There are two names predominantly being thrown around trade rumors currently, and they are Chicago Bears’ wide receiver Alshon Jeffery and 49ers receiver Torrey Smith.

You might have caught this from the photo on this slide, but I prefer Smith of the two.

I get it, Jeffery has the bigger name and is obviously more talented singularly, but Smith brings more to the Bucs.

At the risk of being called a broken record: This team needs speed!

Smith has plenty of that, and Jeffery simply doesn’t.

While playing in Baltimore he could take full advantage of his speed paired with the attention paid to Anquan Boldin on the other side of the field.

These two advantages combined with well-timed crossing, post and fly routes led to Smith leading the team in receiving in 2013 while compiling over 3,500-yards in four seasons as a Raven.

In his second year now with the 49ers he’s struggled mightily due to the lack of a quarterback with the arm strength needed to get the ball behind the defense and let the speedy veteran catch up to the ball.

As a result, Smith had the lowest catch, yards and touchdown numbers of his career in 2015 while averaging just 2.1 catches, 41.4 yards and one touchdown catch every four games.

This year, he’s on pace to have less than 30 receptions, 460-yards and around 4.5 touchdowns in 2016.

Neither the team nor the player were expecting drops as dramatic as the ones Smith has seen since moving to the west coast.

No reports of what the 49ers would want in return for Smith, but considering his high price tag the Bucs would probably ask San Francisco to take a low-end draft choice and perhaps exchange bad contracts with them by sending Alterraun Verner to them as well.