Inside or out, Gonzalez a breakout candidate
April 30, 2009
Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky
Thomas E. Witte/Getty Images
The Colts seemingly showed faith in Anthony Gonzalez by not taking a receiver in the first three rounds of last weekend's draft.
Anthony Gonzalez is typecast.
As I considered the possibility of the Indianapolis Colts using the 27th pick in the draft on a receiver, I kept hearing the same thing about Gonzalez: He's a nice slot guy for Peyton Manning; the Colts showed a willingness to draft a player for a narrow role when they took him out of Ohio State with their 2007 first-round pick, 32nd overall.
But now, moving forward without Marvin Harrison, Indianapolis needed another top-flight receiver to line up across from Reggie Wayne.
The Colts, I knew, viewed Gonzalez differently than many others in the league. After all, they have tight end Dallas Clark working out of the slot in a lot of formations and last year they threw a wrinkle at defenses where Wayne lined up in the slot with Gonzalez outside.
"I've never thought of myself as a slot or an outside guy necessarily. I think of myself as a receiver," Gonzalez said in a phone interview this week. "For example, the drills I do, the routes I run, the fundamentals are the same whether you are inside or outside, so they are all geared toward being a complete receiver. Now there are some different challenges as to how a defense plays a guy on the inside and what he's looking at as opposed to when he's outside.
"This is a guess, but I would say if you looked at all my snaps that I've had with the Colts since I've been here, I'd bet that I've had more snaps outside than inside."
Not only did the Colts not use their top pick on another receiver, they didn't address the position until the fourth round, when they took BYU's Austin Collie, a player who's compared by some to the slot receiver Gonzalez was drafted to help replace, Brandon Stokley. The Colts may see him as more, but Mel Kiper Jr. was hardly alone when he wrote that Collie won't be too much of a vertical threat against NFL corners but could be good as a "possession type, underneath receiver."
Anthony Gonzalez
#11 WR
Indianapolis Colts
2008 STATS
REC YDS TD AVG LNG
57 664 4 11.6 58
Wayne and Gonzalez now head a corps that also includes Roy Hall, Pierre Garcon and Collie. With Harrison gone and Jim Caldwell taking over for Tony Dungy as coach, Wayne is No. 1, Gonzalez should be No. 2 and Clark will continue to be a primary target. Forecasting how the others receivers will be deployed is a guessing game.
Coming from some, the "slot guy" label suggests restricted skills. Gonzalez may still be accurately described as crafty, quick and shifty. But those are qualities he can -- and has -- just as easily put to use outside.
