Matt Schaub says Raiders have "six or seven number one" receivers

One of the needs the Raiders had this off-season, and indeed the past nine off-seasons is a number one receiver. A Raiders receiver hasn't broken the 1000-yard mark since 2005 when Randy Moss barely cleared it (1005 yards). It's been so bad that three of those nine years a tight end led the team in receiving (Zach Miller 2008-10).

Having a number one receiver is a luxury Schaub has had the past seven seasons as the starter in Houston with Andre Johnson. Johnson made the Pro Bowl five times catching passes from Schaub and was named All Pro twice. But there's no Andre Johnson in Oakland.

Johnson was a nice security blanket for Schaub and how he must figure out who among these Raiders receivers can be his go-to guy.

While no one jumps out as the front runner for that job, the Raiders have several candidates. So, who will it be? Rod Streater? Denarius Moore? James Jones? Andre Holmes? Greg Little? David Ausberry? Mychal Rivera?

Matt Schaub says all of the above.

"I look at it with the weapons and looking around our receiver room, our tight end room, our backs, we got about six or seven number one guys," said Schaub. "And so I look at it as we got a stable of guys that we can distribute the football to and we can spread it around.

"We don't have to have the focus on one guy. We can beat you with four, five, six different guys, getting the football and distribute it. And on any given day, one of those guys might have 10 [catches] for 150 [yards] but we're not trying to set the standard like ‘hey, you're gonna be the guy that we're gonna go to this many times. We're gonna try and spread it around, keep the defense honest and all the while with our run game and what we can do with MJD and DMac it's gonna be exciting to be part of it."

The Texans had high-powered offense. Much of that came on the arm of Schaub. In the four full seasons Andre Johnson was the starting receiver for Schaub, Johnson averaged over 1500 yards receiving. No other Houston receiver cracked even 1000 yards in any of Schaub's seven seasons as starter.

At tight end there was Owen Daniels who put up good numbers. Then Kevin Walter had some decent seasons as a slot/possession receiver. He also got help from the run game with Arian Foster averaging over 1400 yards per season from 2010 to 2012.

Oakland will be a very different situation than he's ever been in as a starting NFL quarterback. Expecting the Raiders to have an entire team of "number one guys" might be asking a bit much. The concept of a deep, balanced attack is an ambitious one and finding a receiver or receivers he can trust will be key for both him and the entire Raiders offense.

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