No Moorehead, please

For the second season in a row, wide receiver Aaron Moorehead is a free agent. Last season, the Colts signed him at what amounted to the last minute; but after a year when the team desperately needed him to produce and he responded with eight catches, four first downs, two drops, no scores and a trip to the IR, he may not be so lucky again.

Aaron Moorehead
2007 stats: 8 games, 2 starts, 8-65-0 receiving, 1 tackle
Combine numbers: 6030/201/4.69 in 2003
Who's he: Moorehead certainly comes from good genes. His dad, Emery, was a big-time pass-catching tight end for the Bears who he won a Super Bowl ring with the legendary 1985 team. And Aaron's cousin on his mom's side is Brad Daugherty, the tough seven-foot center who starred for North Carolina and Cleveland before back problems cut his career short. Aaron himself played track, basketball and football in high school and went to Illinois. After a redshirt season in 1998, he worked his way into the receiving rotation, but never managed to dislodge Walter Young (1) or Brandon Lloyd (2) from a starting spot. In 43 games (seven starts) for Illinois, Moorehead caught 85-1293-9. Not selected in the 2003 draft, he caught on with the Colts as a free agent. In 36 games with the Colts, Moorehead's caught 31-330-1 and went 1-34-0 on punt returns. He was an unrestricted free agent last year, and signed a one-year, $721,000 deal to stay with the Colts.
As a player: If you watch Moorehead in drills, he looks like a pretty good receiver. He a big kid who has decent hands, can catch in stride and runs pretty good routes. But much of that evaporates once the games start. He has a very hard time adjusting to balls that don't land directly on his hands, can be pushed around by many defensive backs, doesn't have the burst to gain separation consistently and can hear footsteps over the middle. Despite his size, he's also one of the least effective blocking wide receivers in the league and offers little on special teams. It probably seems like I'm being harsh, but when you look at the numbers, you can see that Moorehead has produced precious little when called upon — to put it plainly, a third and/or fourth wideout in the explosive Colts' offense should really have produced way bigger numbers than Moorehead has. Look at it this way: Back in the day (2004), Brandon Stokley was maybe the best No. 3 receiver ever, regularly humiliating nickel backs and destroying defensive gameplans. And when he went down the following season, Moorehead was given the first chance to replace him. He was so good that he was quickly replaced in the slot by starting tight end Dallas Clark, with Ben Utecht filling in for Clark. You might counter that that was because Moorehead is a long strider not suited to slot play, but the truth is he hasn't produced outside, either. Examine the stats for 2007. Moorehead was called upon repeatedly as injuries struck the Colts' receiving corps hard. Pressed into action on a consistent basis, Moorehead caught just eight of 22 passes thrown to him (that's 36.36 percent; the other Colts' wideouts scored: Anthony Gonzalez 71.15, Reggie Wayne 66.67, Marvin Harrison 62.50, Craphonso Thorpe 60.00 and Devin Aromashodu 41.18). As a pair of exclamation points to that statement, Moorehead showed similarly dismal numbers when it came to YAC and drops before going on IR. The bottom line is that Moorehead has been given every opportunity to succeed, and hasn't.
Analysis: Last offseason, the Colts waited until the day before the draft before offering Moorehead a contract. The next day, they drafted a receiver with their first pick (Gonzalez) and another (Roy Hall) in the fifth round. And, just as he failed to replaced to replace Stokley earlier, Moorehead failed to replace Harrison and Gonzalez when they were injured this season. While Moorehead got a last-minute reprieve last year, he may not be so lucky this offseason. While Harrison's future is still in doubt, he's likely to return and will be no worse than No. 2 in the wideout pecking order if he does. Wayne and Gonzalez are, of course, locks as the other components of the top three. While that would appear to leave a few roster spots open, keep in mind that both veteran retread Thorpe and who's-he? prospect Aromashadu clearly outplayed Moorehead last year, and they earned just $285,000 apiece. While neither of them cast a really big shadow on next year's roster, they, Hall, practice squadder Trent Shelton and a draft pick or two could easily make the position too crowded for Moorehead. My prediction is that Moorehead will have no suitors in free agency. The Colts will politely keep him in mind when the draft rolls around, but then they will see how rich this draft is in wideouts and conveniently lose his phone number.
Notes:
1. After stops in Carolina and Pittsburgh and a grand total of one catch for 17 yards, Young is currently looking for a job.
2. People call him selfish, brat, head case and locker-room cancer. While that may be exaggerated, he wore out his welcome in San Francisco and, although he appears to have found a home in Washington, Lloyd has never played up to his talent level. Still, his 128-1875-13 career receiving stats blow those posted by Moorehead and Young away.