Earlier this summer, Mookie Alexander wrote about the 2015 class of receivers and how Tyler Lockett had been among the most productive; while that may be surprising to many, to others it is the expected outcome of a decades-long trend.
Receiver is a difficult position to learn, with executives and coaches having lamented that it can sometimes take three or four seasons before a drafted receiver is ready to contribute at a significant level. In decades past this could often be attributed to the fact that many college teams ran run-first offenses, while receivers had limited route trees and thus possessed only a basic understanding of the demands of the position upon entering the NFL.