I will admit it, I am in a soulful mood. I spent the past few hours reminiscing the nine months I spent on the central coast of California earlier this year. The friends I made, majestic Pacific sunsets, green coastal hills, and laid back attitudes are fresh on my mind. I terribly miss the wine tastings, and simple pace at which life seems to move out in Cali. I will be honest, and I feel that I can. We are all friends here right? It may be the 3/4 of a bottle of Petite Syrah from Veno Robles I lapped up at dinner aiding in bringing these thoughts to my mind… but honestly who knows.

Don’t judge me. I enjoy a good bottle of wine every now and then, as all men should. Plus, it was “half off bottles Tuesday”, and my frugal senses were tingling. Lately I have been drinking bourbon (Rare Eagle single barrel), to be exact. However, tonight felt like a wine night. I won’t hide this from you, and I hope you won’t think less of me for opening up to you. I enjoyed house made charcuterie, rabbit pate, and a damn good bottle of wine.

Now enough of me and my evening escapades. Let’s move on to why you clicked on this link in the first place. The meat so to speak. This isn’t a sleeper article. Rather it is a guide to which camp battles you should be watching at the WR position. Every year players come out of no where. Or at least they seem to. I am going to give you an advantage. This will be your head start on your league mates. I am not telling you which player will produce. Instead, I will point out 1or 2 players for three teams that you should pay extra attention throughout camp and either watch in preseason, or at the very least make sure you peruse the preseason stats. Shall we get down to business?

Miami Dolphins:

Miami camp opened this week and while we all know the starting WR’s will be Mike Wallace and Brian Hartline, I believe that Ryan Tannehill will take the leap this year and be able to fully support 3/4 fantasy relevant pass catchers. The true value comes at the WR3 position for the Fins. The above WR’s will man the outside. What you want to be on the lookout for is who wins the slot role.

The Dolphins gave a decent sized contract to Brandon Gibson in the off season. He has been for the most part a perenial disappointment. Over the past two years he has only averaged 7.4 fantasy points in PPR, finishing as the 45th best WR in 2012. Battling Gibson is 2nd year WR Armon Binns. Binns joined the Fins after being cut by CIN in 2012. While Binns only caught 24 passes last year between the Bengals and Dolphins combined, he did flash at times. He is 3 inches taller then Gibson and has been drawing rave reviews in OTA’s and should be an intriguing player to watch in the preseason. One of these players will have bye week potential and possibly more for 2012.

Dallas Cowboys:

The battle in Dallas is for the WR2/ slot. Terrence Williams was drafted this year and has prototypical WR size. Dynasty fans are in love with the potential of him playing outside this year with Dez Bryant and Miles Austin manning the slot. While he does possess fantastic measureables at 6’3 and 205, the rookie from Baylor is just that… a rookie. Williams was very successful at Baylor, adjusting to the NFL world is always tough. Word out of training camp is that Williams is struggling in the early stages of training camp.

The man duking it out with Williams in camp is Dwayne Harris, “Mr. Irrelevant” of my Top 50 WR rankings. Harris handled return duties almost exclusively in 2012. He did manage to get on the field in weeks 10-17 and put up mediocre statistics. He is slightly undersized at 5’10, quicker then fast, and has a propensity for making defenders miss. He is entering the his 3rd year within this Cowboys offense for what it is worth. Harris has drawn praise from coaching regarding his improved route running. I am bullish on Harris. I will also be watching most all of his preseason games to see how he performs. Smitty at Draftcalc.com is also very high on Harris for 2013. He is currently going undrafted. Make sure to tune in this August!

Washington Redskins

We move over to another team within the same division, the D.C playoff darlings. While your friends are debating whether or not RGIII makes it back for week 1, make sure you watch the battle for WR2 between Aldrick Robinson and Leonard Hankerson. I will be personally attending Skins camp next week and will have a brief synopsis of my findings on this topic as well as much more later on in the week.

We all know Pierre Garcon is Griffin’s number one target. What we don’t know is who will catch the other 3,000 yards Griffin is going to throw this year (see what I did there? Griffin for 4,200 yds and Garcon for 1,200) Can I blame it on the alcohol?

Hankerson is the big bodied WR at 6’2 / 205, while Robinson is 5’10 / 178. The aforementioned Hankerson has disappointed the past few years, and is in his 3rd year. He was a play maker at UM and was a 3rd round pick in 2011. However that big play ability hasn’t translated to D.C.

Robinson has drawn rave reviews from head coach Mike Shanahan, and is a Twitter darling expected to break out in a big way. He was a 6th round pick out of SMU and is undersized to man the outside. Yet, Shanahan is up to it again with his shenanegans. Robinson has played exceptionally sparingly during his two years in the NFL, and still Shanahan has kept him on the team.

Both of these WR will have to challenge Santana Moss for WR2 / slot duties. Let’s see if they are up for the challenge.

As a side note, if any of you are planning on heading to Redskins camp in RVA let me know. I would love to meet you there and talk some football in person.

Happy kickoff to training camp! Now I will take my self to bed and dream of the west coast, and hopefully avoid a hangover!

You can always find me @realABC on Twitter. I am always up for a discussion.

P.S. Our FakePigskin 2013 Draft Guide will be released on August 1st in PDF form for FREE! Simply go to our home page and sign up to receive it and our newsletter in the upper right corner right under our banner.

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