This Hartline love/hate always seems silly to me. I've liked this kid since day 1. He has some ability, a little size, more speed than he's given credit for, good route running and decent hands. He is the very definition of a solid receiver and most definitely a keeper. But, this talk of him being a #1 WR is just delusional homerism. Hartline is a competent WR who has been thrust into the #1 spot because our WR talent cupboard is BARE.
Bess is a subpar WR people ... no size, no speed, no physicality, no shiftiness. He is a guy with some quickness, good route running and good hands. Those are not hard to find. Bess simply doesn't have the physical skills to be effective anywhere except the slot. His slowness means he can be blanketed by a single CB at all times without fear of going the distance. His lack of size coupled with that slowness means only a perfect pass and outstanding catch will be a completion of more than 20 yards. He can get a little RAC, but he's not a big play threat in the least. I'd rather use a TE for the routes Bess runs because they punish tacklers and have a lot more play diversity. Between the Finheaven darling Bess and the lightning rod Hartline, it's no contest, Hartline is better, more versatile, and the only one that has a shot of making a good WR corps, IMHO.
As for Matthews, I like him. I liked him when we drafted him, and I was one of those people singing his praises in pre-season. To me, he's a legit WR with some power, some size, some speed, some quickness and a nice blend of determination and physical skills to be developed into one of our top 4 guys. But make no mistake about it, he has neither elite speed nor huge size. He must be a combo WR, because he's not a mismatch that strikes fear into the defense over the top or in the red zone. If he develops he'll be just a nice WR when it's all said and done ... but we need more good WR's.
Our WR corps needs a #1 deep threat to play the X (guys like Justin Hunter or Cordarrelle Patterson would be my choice), a quick guy with speed to play the Y (we need an upgrade of Bess), and one more guy with speed to rotate in at the X and Z. That's 3 new WR's. Hartline is a good 4th in that group and someone we'd want to keep ... but he's not a #1. Matthews should be kept and developed, but he hasn't proven enough to be guaranteed a spot if/when we tear down and rebuild this WR corps in the offseason.
The rest of the league knows Hartline is decent but not great. So does Hartline. Bad GM's routinely overpay for WR's that they overrate. We see it every year. Those WR's careers crater and eventually moving on is reflected on as a bad move for the WR too. I think Hartline is smart enough to realize he has a nice niche here in Miami with an excellent opportunity to build a good, solid, long career. Or he could take the Bad GM's money and get lost in the mire of a horrid personnel situation by a bad GM, losing team with a bad locker room and next FA cycle have to be explaining how the train wreck in the passing game and locker room unrest had nothing to do with him ... and hope the next GM that takes a chance on an old possession WR from a bad team is in a second-chance giving mood.
