underrated receivers

There are a lot of underrated receivers in football. Some players go most of their career being slept on. Some players can actually go from being underrated to overrated because some people over time will notice their talent then hype it up way more than it’s supposed to be because they didn’t notice it at first. But there is always a certain reason why a player will be underrated. Some of the main reasons being the player is on a team no one watches, they don’t talk so much or talk any trash. Some players are quiet about their business they ball out and don’t say anything or do any commercial sponsors. Some players on teams could get no attention because they can be really good at their position but they have another player on their team that’s even better at the position and there the spotlight of the team. There is always something about underrated players that I like. In this article, I am going to go down some of those underrated players and who those underrated players are at the wide receiver position. 

DJ Chark:

DJ is such a fun receiver to watch. One of the reasons why this guy gets no attention is because of one of the reasons I said in the opener of this article. He is on a team that no one in this world watches. That team is the Jaguars. They got no history and over the years consistently are having 3 win seasons. I think for the future they are looking pretty good with the way their rebuild is going with Trevor Lawrence. But as it stands now no football fan wakes up in the morning and looks through the TV channels and goes searching for the Jaguars game. I don’t have any hate towards this team no one does there just not an exciting team people will mention. Their team may not be exciting but someone who is exciting is DJ Chark. The guy is really fun to watch. Chark and Marvin Jones were such an elite wide receiver duo this season. It was a really good duo for Lawrence to be throwing around to in his first year. Chark and Jones are both extremely underrated. Marvin Jones was underrated even before he joined the Jaguars. He was on the Lions before so that can make sense. But both of these guys made great separation for each other this season and no one would even mention a duo like this because they’re all into the big boys like Mike Evans with Chris Godwin and all the superstar duo’s on winning teams. These guys are better than a lot of wide receiver duos in football and not one person has even mentioned how both of these guys are even on the same team. But the main one is Chark and he is the full definition of underrated where he is on a low market team and never says anything. He has had a lot of terrible quarterbacks giving him the ball. 2019 could easily be his best season in football. To back up my point about his terrible quarterbacks in 2019 he had Gardner Minshew and Nick Foles giving him the ball and he still got 73 of the 118 targets from those guys. That’s what all-star receivers do they can create possessions even off bad quarterbacks they have skill sets on getting to the ball even if it’s a bad quarterback. It seems like a lot of slept on receivers always have bad quarterbacks giving them the ball. Fans like to watch big-time quarterbacks give superstar receivers passes to see how they connect. Fans will also assume no good receivers will be on a team with a bad quarterback so they wouldn’t even think of Chark. I have seen DJ make a good amount of contested grabs while being close to the sideline or the back of the end zone he knows how to stay in with body control. The best quarterback Chark has had is Lawrence. I know he is one of the future quarterbacks of the league but the year Chark had Lawrence was his rookie year his biggest learning season. Two out of the three quarterbacks Chark would get the ball from were young learning quarterbacks who struggled being Minshew and Lawrence. The other one was Nick Foles and he only threw to Chark for a game because he got hurt his first game as a Jaguar. Chark is a free agent this year even with him not being talked about much on social media there have been rumors about what team he is going to. I would be so glad to have him on my team. There have been some rumors Chark might come to my Bears. Would be great because we’re going to need a wide receiver 1 because Allen Robinson will most likely be leaving. This guy was a great receiver with the Jags so I think wherever this guy goes in free agency he will be at a good level and might be the most underrated receiver.

KJ Osborn:

This guy is massively underrated. He might be the most underrated receiver in football right in there with Chark. This guy is underrated because of one of my last reasons in the opener. KJ has a player on his team that is the same position as him and is way better so no one notices KJ. That player I’m talking about is top 5 receiver, Justin Jefferson. Yes, I really do like Jefferson and he is a sensational young talent in this football league. But the way he talks and dances in the end zone with how many fans make edits of him on social media it totally blinds people about KJ. Jefferson is for sure one of those receivers that likes to talk so people think he is the only superstar on the list. He even makes Adam Thielen look underrated because he was hurt for most of this season and Jefferson totally balled out and has made it look like he is the only good wideout on the team. But those three receivers sound scary whether they are talked about or not. They have a receiver trio of top 5 Justin Jefferson, a healthy top 20 Thielen coming back and the receiver that people are blind to KJ Osborn. You got all of those guys lined up to go off into a play-action set that is very scary for defenses. It seems like everyone is watching when Jefferson makes a touchdown and hypes it up but when KJ makes one they have nothing to do with him. It’s not like he doesn’t have any for people to see he had 7 touchdowns with 50 receptions. He isn’t on Jefferson’s level of course but it looks like KJ knows how to get the ball. He is one of the future receivers of football I know it might not seem like it but he is. He isn’t on that list of guys who are going to be the best receivers like his teammate Jefferson, Chase, Metcalf, and much more. He won’t be like those guys who are just dominating the league. But KJ is going to be one of those young guys who will get better and better each season with the skill sets that he has. This guy deserves way more credit and I hope someday he gets the credit he deserves.

Allen Robinson:

Yes, I have Allen Robinson on this list. But there is reasoning to this. It all started off where in 2018 and 2019 Robinson of course had great back-to-back seasons being one of the league’s biggest offensive threats. Even having those back-to-back good seasons he wasn’t noticed at all he was underrated. Then in 2020 Robinson continued what he was doing the years before and finally got the credit he deserved and people were putting him in their top 10 and some even in their top 7. After that 2020 season people were finally talking about his sensational stats while being on a bad offense. So he wasn’t over talked about or under he was perfectly talked about where he was at his skill level. His skill level during that time was amazing but then the 2021 season happened and we didn’t even get a chance to see his skill. 2021 was his worst season in his career having stats to back that up of him only having 410 yards, 38 receptions, and 1 touchdown. Most of those stats really are not his fault at all. A clown of a person by the name of Matt Nagy totally took him out of the offense. I have no clue what be going through that guy’s mind taking out one of the most deadly offensive weapons out of the offensive plan. During this offseason, Robinson even said he was very upset during the season because he felt like he was taken out of the offense on purpose and got way fewer targets than all the other years. It’s ridiculous he wasn’t getting targets with him being one of the best offensive players in football. Even if teams are mostly focusing on him you should still at least be looking his way and give it to him anyway with how talented he is on getting to the ball even being tightly covered. So with that being said with him having this bad season that wasn’t his fault people are forgetting just before this season he was a top 7 receiver. He still has the skill set in him of being in the top 7 he just couldn’t use it when having no targets. Just recently the Bears let him go into free agency because we aren’t giving him the max contract. So that means he is going somewhere else and he is going to right back to where he was before when he goes somewhere else. That is because another team isn’t going to kick out one of the best receivers out of a system and they will actually know how to use him and he will be with a team where he has a chance to play just how he was playing in his first couple seasons with Chicago. It is really going to hurt seeing Robinson go because I love him to death but it will be best for him and he will be back to his all-star form with his new team I want to see him succeed again so it’s for the best when he leaves my Bears. Robinson went from underrated to accurately rated then right back to underrated. People don’t even think he has skill level anymore over one bad season where it wasn’t his fault. So he is for sure underrated right now when he still has that top 7 blood inside him and people don’t even process that anymore. I’m excited to see him show everyone this season that people slept on him twice for two parts of his career. Robinson is fun to watch when he has his good seasons and I’m ready to watch him do it on his new team. 

Amon-Ra st. brown:

Amon-Ra had a way better rookie season than people thought. I’m not totally sure if people actually had any thought about him going into his rookie season. He was probably the least most talked about rookie receiver. Everyone was totally on the hype for Ja’marr Chase and DeVonta Smith. I don’t blame them for that Chase was insane in college and was reuniting with Burrow from college to the NFL. DeVonta Smith I can see why he was hyped up he was fast coming out of college with great length and what do you know he was an Alabama receiver. Any receiver that goes to Alabama is always some super-fast guy that is the main receiver choice. You can never go wrong wanting stud wideout from Alabama. But no one ever made any hype for Amon-Ra. It does make sense he is on the Lions a team who I believe didn’t get their first win until week 10 or 11. In their first win, Amon-Ra actually caught the game-winning touchdown which sealed it with no time left to win against their rivals the Minnesota Vikings. So Amon-Ra being on a poverty Lions team won’t give him much attention. It was towards the end of the year until this guy started producing. He was good for most of the year but didn’t start playing his best until the end. Even producing a little late he still had enough time to rack up 90 receptions and 912 yards. This guy is totally solid and looks to be good in the future. I think if you can get this guy a really solid wide receiver 1 he can be a deadly duo with someone who is all-star caliber. He is on the smaller side and isn’t on his best level yet. I think a sleeper team that free-agent wide receiver Allen Robinson can go to is the Lions. They have enough money to give him what he will want and he would be perfect next to Amon-Ra. You have your bigger and more explosive wide receiver 1 with better skill sets making room for a solid receiver 2 like Amon-Ra that can create good possessions for the both of them. Robinson just using his explosiveness will get Amon-Ra touches off Robinson coming against the defense and it would be a perfect duo with two different skill sets to create open passes. It doesn’t have to be Robinson there are a lot of good wide receivers in free agency this year that are pro bowl level that have more size than Amon-Ra to open up possessions for him. If the Lions can get one you can see even more production out of Amon-Ra in his second year. This guy is for sure one of the more underrated receivers. I wouldn’t yet call him a wide receiver 1 that’s why you want someone next to him to have him play his best skill set at the number 2. I can use Lions players being underrated for being on the Lions as an excuse every time. Just them being on this team people will not even expect anything from them. It’s not just Amon-Ra who is underrated on this team there is D’Andre Swift who is really fast and is one of the better pass-catching running backs. I would even say their quarterback Jared Goff is underrated. I know he has his bad times and is average at best but he played a lot better with the Lions than I thought and had great stats towards the end of this year and might continue that next season. Amon-Ra is a stud, he’s the most underrated rookie receiver for sure maybe even the most underrated of all rookies. I’m excited to see how he will produce next season.

Tyler Lockett:

Lockett is such a fun receiver to watch. He is really speedy slot receiver that is a really good deep threat. He is really small and actually uses that to some of his advantages. His small size creates his body to be really shifty off deep routes which really bothers corners and I have seen him make some really good tight catches in small spaces because he can tightly haul it in with his size. Lockett and Metcalf were a sensational duo with Russell Wilson. Wilson is now with the Broncos so his time with the Seahawks is over but when he was there the offense was great. Lockett and Metcalf are already a very skilled duo but Russ made it even better with his deep ball. Lockett and Metcalf are both two of the league’s best deep threats on the same team. Metcalf is completely jacked with an insane size similar to Calvin Johnson with deadly deep threat ability and Lockett having just as good deep threat ability but expect is smaller and hard to stay with on certain routes. Defenses do not know how to guard these two with them having two completely different sizes going deep. Russ is the best deep-ball thrower in the game of football. Russ would be good with any receiver core but the receivers he had could not get any better with the playstyle he had. Every route those guys ran was deep and that was his perfection and Lockett made it easier by being such a good deep threat. But Metcalf being a duo with Lockett is what creates him to be underrated. Do not get me wrong Metcalf is one of the future receivers of football and has a lot of similarities in his playstyle to Calvin Johnson and will only get better. But there are people all over social media who ride this guy to death. There are so many people who are overly obsessed with this guy and overhype his potential. He does have potential but people act like he is a top 5 receiver and talk about his skillset like he is Davante Adams or Deandre Hopkins when he isn’t even close to those guys’ skill levels. So that totally takes up Tyler Lockett’s credit because he has just as many deep ball highlights as Metcalf but not one will be shown on ESPN only Metcalf’s will. Sports shows are showing Metcalf’s highlights every night like he is going to die the next day. If they were to show Lockett’s highlights people would see his deep threat ability is just as good as Metcalf’s. Lockett really won’t say much either he’s just a small and shifty wide receiver two behind an overrated wide receiver 1 that just does his business and says nothing. I don’t have a problem with him being quiet and just playing ball that is what just makes him not noticed. This guy is for sure in my top 20 receivers. On most other teams he would be running wide receiver 1. If he wasn’t that is because they normally want the wide receiver 1 to have more size and smaller receivers like Lockett are more into the slot. Lockett is a little speedster and defenses don’t take him lightly they know exactly what he can do even while Metcalf is running around. Even though Lockett won’t be with Russ he will always be the deadly deep threat he is and I am of course very excited to see what he has for us next season. 

That is my underrated receiver list! I thought this list was pretty reasonable and there are for sure a lot more underrated receivers in football I just thought these were the main guys. Let me know who your main underrated receivers are and thank you so much for reading!