Cam Phillips proved to be the XFL’s number one receiver in four of the five games he played in. Has he really improved that much since training camp and practice squad duties with the Buffalo Bills last season? Or Was it just bad competition? In his only bad game of the season Phillips was only able to catch one pass for nine yards in week four against the Dallas Renegades and was only able to gather three targets. Other than that outlier game, Phillips scored multiple touchdowns in all four other games and was generally impossible for defenses to guard. He showed he is good at adjusting to misplaced passes and going to get the ball which he did a few times to bail out bad throws during the XFL season. Also, he showed very good route running skills and release off of press coverage. Of course, it is much harder in the NFL to get off coverage, but he has significantly improved or was completely underestimated during his first two NFL seasons with the Buffalo Bills.

What he did in the XFL?

31 receptions

455 receiving yards

9 receiving touchdowns

Where does he fit?

So far there’s no news of team’s being interested in Phillips on major sports news networks, but I assure you there is interest. Where would be the best place for Phillips to play, considering all 32 NFL franchises have room for receiver talent? A lot of it does end up coming down to coaches passing around information and advice on players so coaching connections have the biggest impact on getting “border-line” players a shot.

Buffalo Bills

The Bills have a history with Phillips having signing him to a couple different contracts in his first couple of seasons. He played on their practice squad in both of his first two NFL seasons and made the active roster for a few weeks at one point before being waived and signed back to the practice squad. It would make sense considering the Bills need receivers to compliment their small receivers, John Brown and Cole Beasley, but I am not sure adding another smallish receiver would be beneficial to Buffalo’s offense. If I were the coach, I would take Cam Phillips over Beasley for sure and maybe even Brown too. Better hands and a better route runner than both.

New England Patriots

This not only makes sense because Bill Belichick is willing to take almost anyone for his team even if he thinks they will only do well for one game, but also because the Patriots actually need receiver talent. With Brady leaving, there’s going to be a massive hole to fill at the quarterback position and adding more receiving talent would be huge to help the transition. The Patriots still have Edelman, but nothing really proven outside of that. I think Phillips could compete for a starting position on this team seeing as the Patriots like to use a lot of air raid principles in their pass game which helped Phillips excel with the Roughnecks in the XFL. Plus, it seems that a lot of players like to go to teams within the division of the team that gave up on them to have extra motivation to prove them wrong.

San Francisco 49ers

This team is in dire need of some real play making ability from the receiver position. With Emmanuel Sanders leaving in free agency to go to the New Orleans Saints, the Niners are really going to need more reliable options to go to outside of George Kittle. Deebo Samuel did a decent job as a rookie and improved as the year went on, but the further the 49ers went into the playoffs the more it was clear that they lacked weapons. Phillips would fit the mold of the type of receiver that coach Kyle Shanahan likes even though his best offense was with a prototypical wide receiver in Julio Jones…Phillips is a strong route runner and knows when and where to get open on the field and would be a solid target who could possibly even challenge for the number one job with this team.

Other teams needing Wide Receivers for a number of reasons: Ravens, Bengals, Jets, Broncos, Panthers, Washington, Eagles, Packers