Las Vegas Raiders 2020 season grades: Wide Receivers
Henry Ruggs – Fell Short of Expectations
Henry Ruggs came to Las Vegas with a great deal of fanfare after being selected in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft. Ruggs was the first receiver taken before such names as CeeDee Lamb and Jerry Jeudy, and he, unfortunately, did not meet the expectations placed on him after that selection.
Perhaps it was unfair of Raider Nation to expect Ruggs to ball out in his first year with no true offseason, but that did not keep Jeudy, Lamb, and other rookie receivers from making huge impacts with their teams. Jon Gruden kept emphasizing that Ruggs made a big impact even without the stats to show for it, and the eye test agrees with him, but when you draft a player 12th overall, you expect more production.
Ruggs finished the season with 26 catches for 452 yards and two touchdowns in 13 games, and that is just not good enough from a player taken that high. The former Alabama star did have two of the highlights of the Raiders season with his touchdowns against Kansas City and the New York Jets, but those highlights were few and far in between.
He missed time due to injuries and a spell on the COVID-19 list which derailed the season so we can give him a mulligan but we will need to see more from him in year two.
It is far too early to call Ruggs a bust by any measure considering the flashes of incredible ability that he showed, but we need to see more consistency, and more targets, from the youngster. Hopefully, Gruden spends plenty of time this offseason finding ways to get Ruggs the ball rather than just using him primarily as a decoy.