Going forward to me the WR group should be:
XWR - Mark Pope/ Michael Redding
SWR - Mike Harley/ Xavier Restrepo
ZWR - Keyshawn Smith/ Jeremiah Payton
Now my reasoning for not putting Pope in the Slot like many have suggested is, if Harely wasn't in the slot, he would never get a chance to catch a ball, he simply can't matchup with the either side of the Corners, so keeping him the Slot is where he's most effective. And yes the staff is still going to play Harley no matter what, I understand most want him to be banished for good but that's just unrealistic.
I would be good with him being the backup as well if Pope got put at Slot, I just don't see a scenario where they won't play Harley despite whatever they're saying in the media.
Pope doesn't necessarily do great against the Defenses best CB either, however, my logic is if the opposing #1 CB doesn't respect Pope much he'll basically just play him straight up, which means Pope can be an effective decoy in pulling that Defender up the field to clear out a zone on the Field side of the hashes in which the Slot or the Flanker can come underneath against & get more favorable matchups.
The main reason I would put Keyshawn at Flanker is because there's not a single Boundary Corner on our schedule fast enough to keep up with him & it would be the best way to get him the ball down the field. It's what my Ravens do with Hollywood Brown, they line him up in the Slot at times & as the WR2 to get him the ball on Deep routes because DC's don't wanna move their #1 Corner over to the Boundary side.
Or, they could go with:
XWR - Michael Redding/ Dee Wiggins
SWR - Mark Pope/Mike Harley/ Xavier Restrepo
ZWR - Keyshawn Smith/Jeremiah Payton
But realistically speaking you probably won't see too much swapping positions amongst the WR's because in the type of offense we run the WR's usually only learn 1/4th of the all the WR assignments, meaning the X's only learn the X's, the Z's only learn the Z, the Y/Slot only learns the Slot etc.. The reason for this is because in an Uptempo Air Raid/Spread the plays have to be simplified in order to get lined up quickly & knowing exactly which routes to run for which play, also the blocking assignments differ from each WR too. It may sound dumb, but that's how most Uptempo Spread offenses do it with their WR's, they usually teach guys just their spot & don't cross-train at WR because 70% of what they do on a snap to snap basis is predicated on knowing exactly what to do very quickly.
