RP Clips: What if Makai Lemon Goes Off This Year?

**Matt Harmon** (0:00)
This is Reception Perception The Show. Now, James Koh and Matt Harmon.

**James Koh** (0:06)
New segment idea from our guy, Matt Harmon. We're gonna do some wide receiver take-shopping. What is your wide receiver take that you're gonna be shopping today, Matt?

**Matt Harmon** (0:16)
Yeah, I wanted to introduce the segment one because I'm thinking about wide receivers all the time, some of which are like loosely held opinions that I don't know if I really believe. That's what this is. We're gonna do some take-shopping here. I'm just gonna throw it out there and let you see if you like it at all because I don't even know if I believe it.
That's where again, it's the take-shopping. We're working this out. The other reason I wanted to do this too is because I sometimes don't, I don't get it on the record that how could this go wrong? I want to talk about that when it comes to certain players that I really like. How could it not work out to the best possible outcome? And even though I'm probably not as much in my personal life, I do feel like on this show, I'm generally pretty optimistic. I'm working on it in the personal life. I'm better than I was. James can attest to this. I'm better than I was 10 years ago.

**James Koh** (1:14)
Yes, much better.

**Matt Harmon** (1:18)
By the way, this was born out of a Roman Dunze-Luther Burden take because in reality, that's all I'm really thinking about is Roman Dunze and Luther Burden.

**James Koh** (1:28)
Of course, absolutely.

**Matt Harmon** (1:30)
But I actually threw this out on Ship Chasing last night. It was a really good show, really fun. I had a great time with those guys and we were talking about Makai Lemon.
I was like, I told them, I was thinking about this while finishing up Devontae Smith's Reception Perception Charting.
Spoiler alert, the Devontae Smith charting rules. He's awesome, he's great. I think he's a stud. But what if James, and here's my take-shop, what if Makai Lemon out-produces Devontae Smith this year?
And here's how it happens. And this is how it relates back to the Luther Burden-Roma Dunze thing. So I think one of the ways that, and maybe I've said this on this show, I've definitely said it on others. I think one of the ways that Luther Burden just would clearly out-produce Roma Dunze this year is that he gets all the gimme stuff, more reps from the slot. He's objectively way, way better with the ball in his hands than Roma Dunze is, even though I think Dunze is better in other areas. So he gets all the designer quick stuff, yada, yada, yada. And that's how he would just clearly be the better receiver on the Bears. So I'm thinking about that and could that also not happen to Devontae Smith? What if Makai Lemon, who actually don't really know how I feel about Lemon this year, and that's why we're Take-Shopping this, and we can unpack that a little bit more. But if we're thinking about, okay, this offense is going to be a little bit more 12 personnel heavy, and it's going to look a little bit more like the Packers and the previous Eagles offense. Well, that means Devontae Smith is most likely going to be the outside on ball, ex receivers he should be versus Makai Lemon. Does that not mean that Makai Lemon is going to get all the easy gimmicky stuff, especially if a guy like Jalen Hurts is struggling with the new offense, and he's trying to get the ball out quick, and that was something that I noticed a lot with Jalen Hurts while charting Devontae Smith. Like, man, Devontae doesn't even have a chance to get it through some of these routes, like that ball's out on the first read. Or like to the check down or something like that, a little bit more faster than it probably has been previously for Hurts. So again, that's my scenario for where it like Makai Lemon out produces Devontae Smith, is because he gets all the like layups, stuff from the slot, more routes against zone coverage underneath the screens and yada, yada, yada. So James, that's my take. It's a take-shop. It's not a take, I believe.

**James Koh** (3:58)
Okay.

**Matt Harmon** (3:59)
What veracity level do you feel like is here with this?

**James Koh** (4:04)
I really am going to go one out of 10 And let me explain. Look, if Jalen Hurts did feed inside players more, then we would have seen a lot more of Devontae Smith already. And the problem is we just haven't, right? So look, I think if Jalen Hurts, and first of all, I think he gets unnecessarily skewered by people, which is, you know, it's, I don't think it's been fair to Jalen Hurts. That being said, you know, he does lock into guys, right? And so at times he's locked into AJ. Brown. At different times, he's locked into Devontae Smith. And shoot, I tell you what, man, even if we are talking about a guy that's trying to get the ball out super quick, Devontae Smith is a quick separator as well. So I would imagine the passing attack will be designed around Devontae Smith. I think Jalen Hurts will lock in to Devontae Smith.