Guessing game

Ex-Gator WRs struggle to duplicate collegiate success

Talk to any NFL receiver and he'll tell you separation is the key component to a long and successful career. Good hands and swift feet are great. But can they consistently get free of their man? Can they create the necessary distance between themselves and the coverage to catch the ball?

Most scouts say Taylor Jacobs has those necessary skills. But for Jacobs, there's a trickier part of the separation game, and no matter what he does in the days leading up to this month's NFL Draft, he's not likely to entirely shake free of it.

Jacobs, you see, is a University of Florida receiver. That fact alone makes him a question mark in the minds of many NFL teams. No matter how well Jacobs separates, he can't escape the Gators' reputation for turning out receivers who underachieve in the pros.

"It probably makes a lot of teams nervous, there's no question," Buffalo general manager Tom Donahoe said. "It's definitely a factor that comes up. Whether you're talking about Florida receivers or Penn State running backs, or even BYU offensive linemen. There are certain trends that everyone is aware of."

In Florida's case, the trend isn't an overnight one. Since 1990, which coincides with the beginning of the Steve Spurrier era in Gainesville, the Gators have had 16 receivers drafted. Ten of those have been in the top three rounds. Of those, six have been selected in either the first or second round. And yet, of that group, you'd be hard-pressed to identify one ex-Gator receiver who has attained NFL star status.

Vowed one personnel man for a team that has drafted a Florida receiver in the past decade: "We'll never draft another one. I know that. We're out of that market."

While it's still too early to pass judgment on last year's pair of second-round picks, Houston's Jabar Gaffney and San Diego's Reche Caldwell, the impact made by Baltimore's Travis Taylor (first round, 2000), Jacquez Green (second round, 1998, to Tampa Bay) and Reidel Anthony (first round, 1997, to Tampa Bay) has fallen short of their lofty draft status. The Giants' Ike Hilliard (first round, 1997) has been a fairly productive player at times, but his career has been marked by a string of injuries.

Will Jacobs break the mold or continue the curse? Most teams have him rated anywhere from the draft's third to fifth-best receiver, and project him anywhere from the second half of the first round to early in the second. And there seems to be building optimism that he's not just another Gator receiver. At 6-foot, 205 pounds he is bigger and stronger than a lot of his fellow UF receiving alumni, which should allow him to handle the pounding that he'll get when he runs over the middle in the NFL.

Though he didn't run a blazing time this spring -- in the 4.5 range -- Jacobs gets high marks for his feel for the game and his ability to make plays.

"Jacobs has got a little more to him," one AFC personnel man said. "I think he's a complement receiver rather than a No. 1, but he played really well in the Senior Bowl and that helped him out."

Jacobs is confident that between himself, Gaffney and Caldwell, the stigma that has been attached to Florida receivers in the draft will soon be lifting. In addition, Seattle's Darrell Jackson, a third-round pick in 2000 out of Florida, is by all accounts an emerging star who has averaged 61 catches in his first three seasons. Jackson may have benefited from not being a high profile first- or second-round pick with its attendant pressures.

"We're probably a little meatier than some of the others," Jacobs said at the NFL Scouting Combine in February. "I think it's just a matter of time until those guys started kicking it in. It took them some time in college. They're probably just adjusting to their systems."

But such adjustments have been either painfully slow or non-existent among Florida receivers in the past. Ask a league personnel man why, and his answers roughly fall into four parts: