985: NFL Draft - A Sneaky Wide Receiver Class

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zachersa j J zacher Reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Eson in this episode nine and eighty five of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. I talked to Jim Sannas about this quarterback class. I then talked to Jagger May about the running back class. And I'm wrapping things up with this yearly series today with a chat about the wide receiver class and the guest. It's the same guests that I bring on every year, which is my good friend Matt Harmon. If you're not familiar with Harmon and his work, he charts wide receiver film with reception perception and he's done a lot of that charting for this year's class. Matt and I discussed Travis Hunter's skill set, whether Ted McMillan should be the consensus top wide out, Matthew Golden's analytical concerns, and so much more. It's a really fun conversation for me to have each and every year. Now I'll get to that discussion in just a second, but as always, I got to remind you to check out the Late Round Prospect Guide.

00:01:08
Speaker 2: This is a longer episode.

00:01:09
Speaker 1: I won't bore you with the details, but check out that late Round prospect guide.

00:01:13
Speaker 2: It's over at.

00:01:14
Speaker 1: Lateround dot com. Now let's get to this discussion with the one and only mister Matt Harmon. All right, mister Harmon, mister Reception Perception, mister boy, young boy, we meet again for our yearly wide Receiver episode talking about the twenty twenty five class. You know, like I said, we talk every year, but not everyone has heard every episode that we've done. Not everyone has heard about reception perception, even though.

00:01:41
Speaker 2: They should have.

00:01:42
Speaker 1: But let everyone know about what reception perception is and sort of what your process is for evaluating wide receivers.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you having me as always. I always look forward to this conversation with you, even though we talk a lot about prospects on the side as well, But it's good to do it on the air for the people.

00:01:57
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, for for reception perception.

00:01:59
Speaker 3: If you're not familiar, what I do is for NFL players for college prospects.

00:02:03
Speaker 4: I go in and I.

00:02:04
Speaker 3: Turn an eight game sample on film and basically just try to give you a full picture of who that wide receiver is as a player. Every single snap that they take in that eight game sample, every route that they run gets logged. For me, the biggest thing is like what type of role does this player play? You know, where do they line up? Are they outside in the slot even maybe more importantly are they off or on the line of scrimmage? But the main metrics that everyone loves is the success rate by routes and how often they get open on each route type, how often they get open against man's own press coverage. So again, really trying to it is important for prospecting because right now we don't know where these guys are going to land, but man destination really can be destiny for these prospects. So trying to get a full sense of who the player is and then what they might be best at doing, I think is super critical at this point in the calendar.

00:02:52
Speaker 4: And that's really what reception perception is all about.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: So you've done a lot of the reception perceptioning of this year's draft class on a scale from zero to ten, just to kind of, you know, high level introduce this class. How would you how would you rate this class if last year maybe give last year's too, last year's probably like a nine.

00:03:08
Speaker 2: I would assume, But what would this year be?

00:03:11
Speaker 3: Like, I love that you've just given it like a zero to ten. That's that's instead of rather like, you know, let's compare it to last year. Maybe some of these more like kind of holistic sort of thing, like just give it a next year will be thumbs up, thumbs down, we're.

00:03:26
Speaker 4: Gonna do that.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: I would actually do that.

00:03:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I like that. Let's let's do that. But for this, for this class, I'd say it's probably like six and a half seven because we certainly don't have the players at the top that we had in last year's class, you know, to me, Harrison neighbors a Dune's ay, I said this all throughout last year, like all those guys were Tier one prospects and you could basically put them in any order, and I really wouldn't have fought you on it, obviously. I think all those guys had success in year ones to very varying degrees, obviously. And then Brian Thomas Junior was a great prospect in his own right, and I think he would be the number slam dunk number one in this class if we don't include Travis Hunter. And I know we're gonna have the Travis Hunter here discussion here in just a second. But of all the guys that just played wide receiver, I think I ranked Thomas on the stacked rankings on reception perception ahead of those guys as prospects. So it was definitely like a better class at the top last year. But the more I dug into this group, JJ, I do think it's a really nice group of Day two players. You know, maybe they're not going to be which is kind of my least favorite term in the dynasty space.

00:04:32
Speaker 4: Maybe they're not going.

00:04:33
Speaker 3: To be difference makers or whatever for your dynasty team, but good quality NFL players who can be Number two's maybe best as like number three throughout the course of their careers.

00:04:42
Speaker 2: You know.

00:04:42
Speaker 1: It's funny the more that I because I think that early on in the process, when I first kind of looked at things at a high level within the ZAP model, I was like, this class kind of sucks. Like that was my original, like my initial reaction to the class. But I think you're right. The more that I have dug into it, and after writing more of the you know, the prof for the Prospect Guide, I would argue that like this class compared to last year's analytically has more intrigued with a lot of those Day two guys, because last year we had a lot of I mean, we had five first round picks, or we had more. We had five, five really solid analytical first round picks, a wide receiver, and then we had like Pearsall who had some question marks with his age and stuff like that. And then we had Laget who definitely had some weird production question marks and stuff because he only did it, you know, his final season. But then you got into round two, and to me, last year's class like had a lot of just general question marks analytically, you know, profile wise, in this class, I don't actually see you know, maybe that's just the result of like not as many first rounders happening this year versus last year, and we're just getting.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: More quality players into that that Day two group.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: But I do think that the Day two guys are are pretty intriguing.

00:05:53
Speaker 2: So we're definitely gonna dig into, you know, some of those players.

00:05:55
Speaker 1: But first let's talk about the guy who you would hypothetically have as the wide receiver one in this class and that and that's Travis Hunter. And I know that because I've not only read reception perception, but we texted about Travis Hunter a lot over the last couple of months, you know, and what you saw and what the analytics see. So talk to to me about Travis Hunter and what you saw while charting his game film.

00:06:19
Speaker 3: Man, this is one of my favorite quote wide receivers I've ever evaluated. I think he is just an awesome, awesome receiver prospect does everything. Number one, He does everything that you want. And I don't know, like, how how much college football do you watch, like during the season, if at all?

00:06:38
Speaker 2: Not I watch it.

00:06:39
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a pretty big bandwagon pit fan just because it's my college. And look, look, when you when you pay tuition, you can be whatever you want as a fan.

00:06:47
Speaker 4: Totally.

00:06:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Like like when Pitt Pitt was was great to start this past season and then they started sucking, I'm like, Okay, I don't need to watch you anymore. There's no there's no need to write. But that's really the extent. Like I watched the big games, you know, the college football playoff and stuff like that, but I'm not It's just really really difficult to do both whenever you especially like you know, you're married, you know, you got to you gotta be doing things with the family and such. It's just it's a difficult thing to ask of yourself and the rest of your family.

00:07:16
Speaker 4: Honestly, Yeah, I.

00:07:17
Speaker 3: Think it would be a pretty tough sell to missus Harmon to say, like, hey, yeah, I know football ruins like four other days out of the mere exactly, but.

00:07:25
Speaker 4: That's my job.

00:07:26
Speaker 3: This if I'm just let me, let me binge watch college football on Saturday for no other reason exactly, I love football.

00:07:32
Speaker 4: It's a tough sell.

00:07:33
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I don't watch a lot of college I don't watch a lot of college football all during the season. But I was aware of who Travis Hunter is. Yeah, but I didn't know like, you know, I just knew he was a two way player obviously, like you played on both sides of the ball. But you know, going into just like pulling up the game log to chart, I was blown away that the guy is playing like one hundred plus snaps in eleven of thirteen games last year. That's just like Bonker stuff. So I was kind of like, Okay, we're gonna get into something pretty interesting here. You know, you just watched Travis Hunter play you look at him through reception perception, again, the guy does everything that you want. He is an elite separator. I don't think he is an elite route runner yet, because I think there are some technical nuances of the game that he still needs to catch on to, which is totally expected. When the guy didn't go to offensive meetings at Colorado, which I know, that's like something we've now all just kind of like said in passing, but that is bonkers.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: Think about that, like everyone, let that just just sink into your brain, like it's crazy, that's nuts.

00:08:27
Speaker 3: It is absolutely outrageous. Like when I when I heard that for the first time at the combine from somebody, I was blown I was like blown away that he's as good as he is as a wide receiver, and he's I wouldn't even say majoring in defense, minoring in offense. From a preparation standpoint, he's basically like getting a PhD in defensive preparation and like maybe going to community college in terms of like the of the offensive preparation, so maybe getting the damn ga g A d or whatever what GHD what gv G there. It is like he's get one of them things in terms of like offensive preparation at Colorado that is nuts. But again, he's an elite separator. Ninety seven percentile success rate verse zone, ninety seven percentile success rate versus press. He's the best in terms of Power five players I've charted as prospects that have seen press on twenty two percent of their routes. At least, he is the best press beater I've charted. He's got just natural movement ability off the line of scrimmage, and again, he is an elite separator, even if some of the details as a route runner aren't all the way there yet. But he also has I would say rare catching ability, great in contested catch. He just doesn't drop the football, and he went down on first contact on under forty percent of the in space attempts I charted, Like he really does check every single box. So he's clearly the best wide receiver in this class. And I would put him right there with the guys that went in that top ten last year. Like, I think he's that good of a wide receiver prospect.

00:09:58
Speaker 1: So were there were there any players that you've charted in recent history that that matched up well with him? Was he more like a Garrett Wilson type prospect to you or was he what did he look like from a comp stamp or was he just so unique you hadn't seen anything like it obviously, like it like like an OBJ comp comes like that's what a lot of people have used.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: But you know, where where's he at for you?

00:10:20
Speaker 3: That was the first thing that he compared to from like a NFL Odell Beckham, like early career reception perception very similar, and I just think like the way they play is very similar. So yeah, I said that, like after the first three games I charted that he reminded me of prime Odell Beckham.

00:10:34
Speaker 4: Now, from like a.

00:10:35
Speaker 3: Prospect reception perception standpoint, like success rate versus man wise, he's in the same ballpark as guys like Chris Olave and DeVante Smith, which is ironic because, like I said, those guys were the route runners, you know, they were A plus technicians and Travis Hunter is certainly not an A plus technician at this point. And it's obviously different levels of competition there. Davante Smith, the SEC Hawks are always on me this time of year, like they didn't do in the SEC. It doesn't matter, like you gotta throw out every Pac twelve player. You gotta throw out every Big twelve player you got, And now that all these conferences are such a mess, who even really knows? So I do you realize though that Yeah, obviously, DeVante Smith Chris a Love a different competition levels in terms of what Travis Hunter is facing the Big twelve, there's probably some influence there. I'm not like hiding from that fact. I think there're probably some influence there in terms of the Big twelve prospects. But nevertheless, like, yeah, I think those guys from a separation standpoint, he does compare pretty fair with me too.

00:11:27
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you this so analytically, and I've talked about this on the show. I talked about this with you. Analytically, his marks are.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: Not very strong.

00:11:35
Speaker 1: He's about like a twentieth percentile wide receiver among first rounders since twenty eleven. When it comes to things like breakout score, which is predictive. I mean, breakout score alone is basically as predictive as what we'll see from draft capital. If you want to correlate draft capital linearly. You know, if you look at you know, his yards per out run numbers, which isn't even part of the model. They're not that fantastic, They're not terrible. It's not like I'm looking at this and being like, you know, there's other there's another first round wide receiver who this year who has far worse production metrics than Travis Hunter. But with that being said, I've sort of explained this away, and I want to hear if you agree or disagree with this. I've sort of explained this away in a few ways. Where number one, he's obviously one of the most unique prospects, if not the most unique prospect we've ever seen. The fact that you know, he played both ways and he was just as good as a defensive back as he was a wide receiver. He won the Heisman. The other side of this is preparation. You know, he wasn't in the wide receiver rooms and getting reps in the normal way. And then the other thing to piece of this is the Colorado offense ran a lot of like four wide receiver sets. They were obviously really pass heavy and in that situation, in those scenarios, it's just naturally difficult for players to have exceedingly good yards per out run rates whenever you're competing against other wide receivers and not you know, this goes back to like you know, I you know, when you look at the metrics, you can still say yards per out run is predictive. It is predictive, right, But there's going to be new to these numbers. And so like Drake London his rookie year is a good example in the NFL where he had a really high targets and yards per out run rate. And obviously Drake London is a good wide receiver, you know, I've liked him throughout this his entire career, but we also have to recognize that in an Arthur Smith offense, he's basically competing with just one other wide receiver more you know, on a lot of his snaps, compared to more of a spread or more of a you know, McVeigh offense, where we know we're going to see a lot of eleven personnel and more wide receivers on the field, which makes it then difficult to sort of boost up that yards per out run rate. I think that's what we're getting a little bit with Travis Hunter's numbers. And I've seen folks who have the data I don't have the data that have said that his like adjusted yards per out run is actually phenomenal, looks really really good when you adjust for scheme and adjust for you know, that the number of players on the field. Not only that, but some of the Colorado guys are are trying to get drafted this year too. It's not like they were you know nothing, you know, So do you think that that's all logical? I'm basically from a zap model perspective, I'm just letting draft capital take the wheel, and I'm like, look, ye, if this dude's gonna be a second or third overall pick, and if that team is the Browns and the Browns want to use him primarily as a wide receiver, he's probably if he does get that kind of draft capital, there's a very real chance with some of the other guys kind of sliding and mocked drafts and maybe not going as high as we originally thought a couple months ago, he'll probably be the wide receiver one in the model post raft. And I'm just gonna let that be, not overthink it, and just be like, Okay, this is a unique circumstance.

00:14:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think all that was really well said, And yeah, I mean from the draft capitol standpoint, Like I saw ESPN's Ben Solak point this out that if Travis Hunter gets drafted the second overall pick, he'll be the highest drafted wide receiver since Calvin Johnson was the second overall pick. Pretty good career, albeit too brief, but pretty damn good career for Calvin Johnson. And he'd actually be the highest drafted cornerback ever at the second overall pick. So that comes back to kind of your original point there that this is just a completely unique player, Like it's he doesn't he has the whatever lowest this or that and the other of first round wide receivers. Well, this is like truly never ever been a first round wide receiver like Travis Hunter. So I think that's the main like explanation, and from a yards per out run standpoint, like it's a great metric, you know, I think it gets you, It gets you in the right neighborhood a lot of times with players, but it's not fully player isolating, you know, like no stat truly is. That's there's ale of reception. Perception is to try to isolate the player from surrounding variables as much as possible, and from the yards per out runs standpoint, you got a great point about the you know, the formations, and obviously the more wide receivers are on the field, the lower you're expected yards per route run is. But also like, and this is really like film based, nuanced stuff that I actually don't think the vast majority of data collecting sites account for this very well.

00:15:50
Speaker 4: But like what is a route? You know?

00:15:53
Speaker 3: And for the podcast folks, like I'm doing the air quotes here, you know, like what is a what is a route?

00:15:58
Speaker 4: Like?

00:15:58
Speaker 3: You know, he has a lot of what I joked with my buddy Charles McDonald from Yahoo as like they're like little bs hitches that he runs where he's just like on the back side of the formation and like he's out there and defenses have to account for the fact that he's out there. But he's running like a little three yard little come like little tiny little route there. That's like is that even really a route? You know, He's never gonna get the football on that play unless the play breaks down he goes into a scramble drill and then shoud or finds it, which does happen at times. So from a charting standpoint, there are definitely plays that I think just you got to throw out in terms of what are routes and what are not, especially for a guy like this where they're obviously trying to conserve his body.

00:16:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really important to note, Like you know that I'm never gonna sell the ZAP model or analytics in a way that is going to solve everything for you.

00:16:44
Speaker 3: This is a way of nor am I gonna sell reception per seven as a thing that is going to solve for everybody, Like, I don't think either of us operate is if we have the skeleton.

00:16:54
Speaker 2: Right exactly exactly.

00:16:55
Speaker 1: And I think that it's just really important to get that across though, because it's easy for people to listen to something like this and think that you know that that's that's the approach and that's the way that we're thinking about things when the like realistically, I see prospecting analytically, especially as a way of calling out red flags, calling out the green flags, and looking at range of outcomes for a player. Right, There's gonna be some players where I feel more confident in them based on what we've seen historically, and there's gonna be players where I have a wider range of outcomes.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: There.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna really write a guy off because we've never seen this before, or because you know, his his school and we'll get to this guy in a minute in Luther Burden, but his school, you know, used him in a in a very particular way that was unlike most wide receiver prospects. I don't think that's enough to just say no, no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go after this guy just because this is the way they drew things up. There's just gonna be more to it. But before we get to a guy like Burden, let's talk about Teed McMillan. Because McMillan right now is I'd consider outside of Hunter, the consensus wide receiver one. You know a lot of the mock draft, you know, NFL mock draft database has him going as the wide receiver one. Still, even with the Matthew Golden hype, do you think he should be the wide receiver one, assuming we're not considering Travis Hunter as part of that discussion, and then what are the sort of the pros and cons to his profile that you saw.

00:18:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he's the He's my wide receiver one outside of Travis Hunter, So I think he should be kind of used a consensus guy there. Now, I do think there is a tear drop from the guys last year Harrison Neighbors at Duneesa down to the profile of Ted McMillan, and I actually have him pretty clear. And like I said, I think Brian Thomas was a better prospect than McMillan is, but it's pretty close like I think those guys, and obviously Thomas was a freak show in the NFL. He maximized every bit of his potential profile. We have to see what Ted McMillan's gonna do, honestly from a reception perception standpoint, Like their overall numbers, Teed McMillan and Brian Thomas Junior are pretty close from a success rate versus man zone and pressed stamp point. And now I do think obviously Brian Thomas is a little bit freakier where I think that Teed McMillan is more. He's like a smoother X receiver because he's a true ex like just born and bred to be that right. He's big, he's long, he beats press coverage, he separates pretty well, but he's he's not quite like in the Drake London tier either, which I do think London was a Tier one prospect to me, Teed McMillan is not, but I think he belongs on that like family of wide receivers. And if we're talking about like a family of wide receivers, I think it's like Michael Thomas, it's Drake London. Those are like the top end guys, and I'm thinking, like better separating X receivers and you think that can play across the formation. And then I think there's like Courtland Sutton, Michael Pittman in this family as well. And I think McMillan comps really well to a guy like Courtland Sutton, so he's not great on these like quicker routes, which is part of the reason why I think London's just a better player, because you can just like London is a guy you can give one hundred and fifty targets too in a season and never think twice about it if you're running like a good functional passing offense. McMillan, I think, is a guy that like you can get away with being a number one receiver on you on your team. He's probably best as like a high end two, which is what I think Courtland Sutton is It's what I think Michael Pittman has been throughout the course of his career.

00:20:11
Speaker 4: So that's why I kind of land on those comparisons.

00:20:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sutton was one of his closest comparables in the in the Prospect guide in the zapp model you Know tet you know, as you noted with the Drake London thing. I'm glad you said that because it almost feels like I've been fighting against tet to people like the way that I've been portraying my feelings about McMillan as.

00:20:30
Speaker 2: A prospect, partially because Burden was.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: The top prospect in the model, but I actually ranked McMillan wide receiver one in the in my you Know Prospect Guide, the pre draft version of that guide, and I feel like I've almost been like having to like argue against McMillan just to like to show people that there are some red flags. This is not a you know, flawless prospect even analytically. But I like McMillan a lot, Like I think he's a really really good prospect. It's not that, you know, I just think that I want to poke holes to make sure that you know, we're all on the same page. If if people are gonna be coming at me from the perspective that this guy is flawless, I'm gonna say, well, you know, his breakout scores eighty three, when usually first round wide receivers that have success are over the ninety mark.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: You know, Drake London was over that ninety mark. He did not. He does comp relatively well to Drake London.

00:21:21
Speaker 1: It's just that London was a little bit better, and I just was not willing to just say, yeah, this is you know, Drake London copy paste.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: That's why I think the Sutton thing makes sense. He did com pretty well to.

00:21:32
Speaker 3: Like a T.

00:21:32
Speaker 1: Higgins as well, you know, just a player, you know, I think Sutton just makes a lot of sense in terms of like the way that people can think of how he might be able to impact fantasy football, where you know, is he going to be able to be quarterbacks slash scheme proof and just be thrown in like if he I'll ask you this, if he goes in New England, like if New England trades back or something or they just get him at their spot, do you think that immediately he could be a really effective one without anything really surrounding him or do you think that him having some other pieces around him would just be really helpful for him and his development.

00:22:12
Speaker 3: It's a great question because as you were talking, I was sort of thinking, like, I have a really stupid take. Maybe it's better to be a worse prospect if you're just hoping that they land in like a they go later in the draft, right, I mean, because I think this this class comps pretty well to the twenty twenty three class where there were a lot of guys that went in the back half of the first round, and a lot of those guys, like I mean, Jordan Addison just went to the perfect situation for his skill set, you know, and like you can end up in a situation like that as opposed to last year the four guys go in the top ten, and it's just kind of a roll of the dice, right in terms of are you are you with a good quarterback, are you with a young quarterback?

00:22:49
Speaker 4: Are you like in a crowded situation.

00:22:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, that can all happen obviously later in the draft too, But I just was thinking on that idea, and I think, like Ted McMillan in New England one, I am pretty high on the Steph Diggs edition, I think that that's a nice move for that, right.

00:23:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.

00:23:03
Speaker 1: I've completely like because that happens, like two weeks after the free agency period happened, and it's still not like in my brain that they got Digs.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: That's a good point with Digs.

00:23:12
Speaker 4: It happens.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: It happened in a time where like you're kind of like the eye of saar On switching to the draft. At that point, you've kind of forgotten about the NFL. So yeah, I mean I totally get that, but I like the Digs addition for them, and I think he would because what they just need is and they do need an X receiver, like they need this particular skill set. So I think New England's like not the like most Plus they have a quarterback and at least I have a lot of faith in Drake may So. But if if he went to a team like I don't know, let's just say the Saints, let's throw that out, yeah, because I actually think he's actually says I know that the Saints loved Tech McMillan. I think that's actually a very realistic landing spot for him, and there he's obviously he's not he It just depends on the olave thing, which is such a bummer. But I do think that he's he's probably the one be there at least to start Ornumber two across from a lobby. They also have Shaheed, and like, I'm just not quite that confident in that offensive situation at that at this point, like, yeah, is he's so good that like he would just be great no matter what. I'm not one hundred percent convinced about that. That's why I didn't want to make him like a Tier one prospect, because I do think there are some flaws in his game, like I said, not being like, he's not gonna threaten you over the top unless it's on like contested catch situations. He's not a guy that just the thing with neighbors last year could he could go to. And I said this when he was drafted, that he was uniquely skilled and talented to not maybe not thrive, although he did end up thriving, like survive a landing spot like that is because you can manufacture touches for a receiver of that quality and and that particular skill set. McMillan actually does sneak up on you after the catch, but He's not a guy that you're gonna feed him. And Drake Lennon was this way too. You're not gonna feed him a bunch of like design touches underneath, and like, hey, we're just gonna pump this guy with production and he's just gonna do things on his own.

00:24:55
Speaker 4: He's not quite that type of player.

00:24:57
Speaker 1: All right, Let's talk about Matthew Golden, who has just been climbing and climbing and climbing these draft boards. I mean, I remember looking at NFL mock draft database and clicking Matthew Golden's name, and back in December he was like a fifth round pick from a mock draft standpoint.

00:25:13
Speaker 2: Now, obviously, you know there's other there are people who are.

00:25:16
Speaker 1: Doing my like I don't know where that data collection is like coming from and the source of all of that. But he's obviously, you know, he had the playoff and then he has the combine and more and more people are talking about him, but his production profile is lacking, and I can get I'll get to the pros and cons after you talk about Matthew Golden, because I think he's probably, especially in the fantasy football space, he's probably the most polarizing wide receiver. Him and Burden are probably the two most polarizing wide receivers in this class.

00:25:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, Golden, I think is a nice player. You know, I kind of come down somewhere in the middle on him as a prospect. I think he I brought up Jordan Addison earlier. I think that would be the perfect situation for a guy like Matthew Golden, like be A and I actually think some of the reception perception metrics are pretty similar. So I made that comp pretty early on. I think Golden is a little bit better in the vertical game. Now. I don't think he's a four to two nine player, and I think I kind of believe the like Combine conspiracy stuff that that was yeah bull start because he does. He doesn't play to that speed. Like when I watched him, I was like, Oh, he's clearly fast, and like he can he could rip you on vertical routes, but it's not really And even though he does have a good nine route success rate, it's less of like he's just gonna run by the entire defense like Jamison Williams style. It's more that he just absolutely snaps guys off at the break points. And like when he gets that separation, he's gonna get a lot of separation and be very quarterback friendly in that regard, as long as your guy can get the ball down the field and is aggressive and all the things of that nature. But seventy seven percentile success rate for zone coverage eighty two point five percent, that's a pretty good mark, but there are some issues against press. He's another guy that I don't think is great on these like quick routes and generally, like if you're going to be a wide receiver one, you've got to get open on those underneath patterns for me to like feed you a lot of targets and you know, really be like a matchup dictating guy on critical down and distant situations. So to me, I think he profiles as a really good and dangerous number two in the right offense. And I'm thinking the offense this that I'm imagining here is kind of off the McVeigh tree, like very inbreaker heavy and.

00:27:21
Speaker 4: Things of that nature. So I like Golden.

00:27:24
Speaker 3: I think he is more like a Jordan Addison, more of like a back half of the first round, very early second round type of player.

00:27:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I think that analytics can at least if you squint a little bit, could back that up. The cons to his profile, I'll just read, because there are some really scary flags to his analytical profile. We've had very very few hits from from players who had sub two point zero max season yards per team pass attempt rates.

00:27:50
Speaker 2: I mean that number.

00:27:51
Speaker 1: Getting two yards per team pass attempt is not something that we I mean, like, it's not that difficult. I mean it's difficult for me and you like we wouldn't be able to do that, but speak for yourself, that's fine.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: But you know, a.

00:28:02
Speaker 1: Collegiate wide receiver with first round capital, you know they should be able to get to that mark. Since twenty eleven, here's a list of the first round wide receivers with breakout scores below eighty. Okay, he's at fifty one point point four I think it is, so he's not even close.

00:28:19
Speaker 2: So he's well below this.

00:28:20
Speaker 1: He is technically above average and breakout score that's above average compared to you know, wide receivers that are both undrafted and going in like the seventh round. But here's a list of the wide receivers in the first round since twenty eleven who had sub eighty breakout scores. It's long, so everyone get a drink. Cordero Patterson, Tevon Austin, Calvin, Benjamin Breshad Perriman, Kevin White, Philip Dorsett, Josh Doxon, Mike Williams, Henry Ruggs, Kadarius Tony, Zay Flowers, Xavier Leaguette, Ricky Piersall.

00:28:50
Speaker 2: Matthew Golden.

00:28:51
Speaker 1: Now technically Travis Hunter is actually there too, but we talked about those extenuating circumstances and the weirdness to his profile, so that's scared. Since twenty eighteen, only four wide receivers have had a career yards per route run under two and given us a wide receiver two season or better, as dk metcalf, Hunter, Renfro, Terry McLaurin, and Brian Thomas, and all of them, aside from Renfro, who obviously only had that one spike season, had a better max season yards per out run than Golden, like Brian Thomas for instance, like the model like Brian Thomas last year, and it was largely because he had highs. His highs were way way higher than a guy like Matthew Golden because of what he did. His junior season. Now those are the cons. Those are some of the cons. I mean, I could I could iterate that and say different things about it, you know, in different ways.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: But here are the pros. His top comp in the model is Lad McConkie.

00:29:41
Speaker 1: Now, the model is also not looking at yards pro out run, which is where McConkie thrived analytically, it's just that Georgia didn't use him and put him on the field that much. But some of the other metrics, you know, size and projected draft capital, and you know, obviously the receiving yards per team pass at ten stuff and breakout score, it does match to McConkie, and his receiving hours for team pass attempt does look better when adjusted for strength of opponent and strength of schedule because of what Texas faced last year. And then there's also we'll see what happens with Isaiah Bond after the stuff that's come out with him. He seems like and you know, Steve p and Sam Monson talked about this on their show. I saw a clip of this where Steve was saying that there's Jermaine Burton level issues going on with Isaiah Bond. And then literally a week later, this comes out about him, you know, turning himself into to police. So you know, the way that the model works for teammates scores that it looks at draft capital of teammates.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: So if his draft capital.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: Falls based on off the field stuff, it may not capture how good the competition was for Matthew Golden at Texas, So we can you know, take that with a grain of salt. He's an early declare wide receiver too, which I think a lot of people think early declaire as just this like checkbox.

00:30:52
Speaker 2: We're like, oh, yeah, he's early declare. That means that he's better at a young age.

00:30:55
Speaker 1: But it also matters because when a guy does only play three years in college football, that means that he doesn't have a fourth or maybe even fifth year to compile better numbers. And to me, it could be a situation, if we want to look at this in a rosier way, it could be a situation where things started to just click more for Golden and Texas wanted to use them more. You know, Thorneistrom had a nice narrative that he put together where they had Isaiah Bond and Matthew Golden as transfers this past year and they were trying it with Isaiah Bond first to be their true one, and it just wasn't really working out, and part way through the season, they're like, hey, let's give Matthew Golden more of a shot. Now, you know, do I think that's that things are as simple as that, Not necessarily, but I do think that, you know, there are situations where that could be true, and there could be some truth to that. So I do think that, you know, I don't want to make excuses number one, for a poor analytical profile, like it's a poor profile, and I think there's a lot of variance there. But I'm looking at the fantasy football landscape right now, and I'm looking at rookie drafts and you try to rank wider, and how does Matthew Golden if he gets top sixteen, top twenty draft capital, how is he not in your top five wide receivers.

00:32:07
Speaker 2: At the end of the day.

00:32:08
Speaker 1: You know, like it's gonna be hard to not put him there if the draft capital is that strong, in my opinion, and the fantasy football market is just down on him for all the reasons I just talked about, and for the fact that you know, like a lot of people aren't going to buy into the hype based on a forty time So there's still a chance that I would even be higher than the market on Matthew Golden despite having all these concerns. But yeah, I mean there's there's definitely concerns there.

00:32:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely concerns. And you know, I wonder just what the landscape of college football now is going to do to some of the some of the work that you do, like when we're looking at like the player's journey, you know, and like transferring to a new school. And yeah, I think I think that narrative of that Thor put out there that you just relayed, like, is kind of compelling, even just based on charting both of these guys and and kind of watching over the course of the season, because I think Golden just clearly was the more consistent player, But you know, Bond had a little bit more pop to him coming in because he was coming from Alabama. I've heard, I've heard he just i mean just drove that program crazy there at Alabama. And so yeah, I mean the Jermaine Burton stuff there. But who was also on that twenty twenty that's right, who was also on that Alabama team. So geez, what a mess But yeah, no, I think there might have been more hype to Bond coming in. So yeah, just Golden was a guy who was kind of a messy player at Houston too. He had a lot of drop issues. He still has some drop issues at Texas, by the way. But he's one of these guys that the higher degree of the difficulty of the catch, he actually is a little more reliable. Like he has great a great contested catchrade in reception perception, he works really well on those like tight spaces downfield, but he will have like a focus drop here and there. But honestly, I think the reality is this guy is just more players of this archetype. And this doesn't always work out for NFL teams when they think this way, But I think he is more tactically valuable to an NFL team and that is why he will go higher in the draft. Then he just will Then he will be a fantasy producer, I think is the most likely range of outcomes here.

00:34:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make.

00:34:08
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Luther Burden, who's the other I think pretty controversial wide receiver in this class. You know, if you look at his usage at Missouri, it was very much Wandel Robinson esque if you will, where there was just tons of slot work, a lot of screens. You know, he got deep a decent bit, but like if you look at it across the board, like where he was seeing his targets, it really matches up well with Wandell Robinson. And I can get deeper into that as well. But you know, the athleticism profile is there for Burden. The yak profile is strong. You know, probably one of the best, if not the best, in this class. Where are you at with him? Because you know, I had Waldman on Waldman has him at wide receiver one in this class. But I've heard a lot of people who are like, no, this is just a gadget guy at the next level.

00:34:54
Speaker 3: Well, he's definitely not just a gadget guy. And it's funny you bring the name Wandeale Robinson Nate Tice, who I do football three oh one with at Yahoo.

00:35:00
Speaker 4: We were taught.

00:35:01
Speaker 3: We did our like two hour wide receiver preview the other day and I Wandale somehow came up as like a Mickey Mickey Mouse receiver and he's like, you really use that like Wandale Robinson like it's a slur. I mean, like there's like we should bleep this out, like we should bleep out Wandell Robinson like it's a curse word or something.

00:35:19
Speaker 4: But that I do.

00:35:20
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it's like he's the peak arc type of just Mickey Mouse targets kind of inflated nonsense stuff, and I don't think Luthor Burden fits into that regard. Now he's definitely used that way, but like you said, the goal of this should be to not evaluate them as how they were used collegiately, but like, is their potential beyond that? I think the answer in terms of what reception perception tells us is there is there more beyond Luther Burden's usage is definitively yes, I think in my opinion, because there's no question he's a good after catch player. He's there's actually a weird, weirdly like high amount of yards after catch players I like in this class, like tackle breakersily, but Burden went down on first contact on just thirty seven point five percent of the in space attempts I charted. Like he's bigger than you think, he's faster than you think, Like he really and he plays he I wish he played as physical and as hard as he did, like all the time, as he does when he has the ball in his hands. So here's no question he does. He does that really well. And I think that, by the way, like that's really valuable in today's NFL. I started talking about this at the beginning of last season, like we all collectively, and me especially because I've these I've usually been biased towards kind of like the small vertical route runners, and I still like those players. But in today's NFL, when it's like, hey, we got to get the ball out quick, they're trying to take away the deep pass, but it really helps to have a guy that you can get them the ball easily because they could separate and they could do something with it after the catch. I'm thinking, obviously Chris Godwin, Khalil Shakir, and I think like Rashid Rice too, And I think that Luther Burden profiles is kind of like a souped up Khalil Shakir at his best. It just from a usage standpoint. Now, the thing that's interesting with him is I really liked his limited work against man coverage because he's got one of the highest zone coverage rates I've charted as a prospect because of the role that he is in because he is a slot heavy player. But seventy one point two percent success rate versus man and the guy's got good hands, there's no question about that. I mean, he consistently shows you when he gets chances downfield, he tracks the ball well, his shields defenders, he adjusts passes in flight. There's some bud light Malik Neighbors stuff to his game. I do think the thing is that it's not all clean, Like the entire film is not all clean here. I mean he's a mess at times against zone coverage. I mean, for a guy that faced that much zone to be under eighty percent success rate verse zone is not ideal, especially on like downfield routes. He's much better on outbreaking routes than in breaking routes, although he's pretty solid in terms of like digs and some of those success rates. But yeah, I think I think the long and short of it JJ is just like, how good is Luthor Burden gonna be? It's kind of up to Luthor Burden because he's a guy that we've heard about, like work ethic concerns and character concerns and stuff like that. So like, how dialed in is he gonna be? This is why it's so tough to hit your horse to a wagon like this type of wagon in terms of a player standpoint, because there's just there's pretty clear, it's pretty clear stuff going on there. But man, I mean, he he has the highest potential. I think of all these guys we've talked about so far outside of Travis Hunter. That's not anything I say, Yeah, outside of Travis Hunter. It put that aside for a second. But like Tech McMillan, I think he's got a higher ceiling in techncmillan, Matthew Golden's definitely got a higher ceiling than Matthew Golden. I mean, we haven't talked about a mecha Boki yet, who I really like and I'm a big fan of. But I think Burden does have a higher ceiling. It's just like the range there is much wider on a guy like him.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what I've been writing about.

00:38:43
Speaker 1: I send a newsletter about this with Burden, is that you know, when you look at his comps, yeah, it's scary.

00:38:47
Speaker 2: But I'll say this.

00:38:49
Speaker 1: You know, obviously i've i've I've loosely made that Wanda Robinson comp in terms of the way that he was used. Number one, Luther Burden is like four inches taller and twenty five pounds heavier than Wandel Robinson, Which you could say it doesn't. That matters just in terms of facing bigger, like stiffer competition at the NFL level, regardless of what they can and can't do on a football field. But the other thing that's that's important is like when you look at the usage comps, not the production comps, just the usage comps, you'll get guys like Canarius Tony or Paris Campbell. You know, these players that had similar usage a lot of a lot of like screens and behind the line of scrimmage stuff. The difference, though, is that Luther Burden, from a production standpoint, I've said this so many times on the show, his sophomore season from strictly a production standpoint, is the most impressive single season age adjusted of any wider and program adjusted, of any wide receiver in this class. What he did as a sophomore production wise does not happen very frequently.

00:39:52
Speaker 2: At all, So he is the highest because of that.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: He has the highest breakout score in the class, because again, breakout score is not going to look at how many screens the dude had and break it down that way. And I actually, earlier today I ran a query because I'm trying to figure out, like, Okay, Burden gets round one draft capital, we're gonna feel better about the team not using him in sort of that Mickey Mouse way more than likely if he does get round one. But if he gets round two, maybe you start to think, Okay, maybe there's a little bit more to this and that they're not gonna be as confident in letting him really hit and reach his ceiling.

00:40:25
Speaker 2: Right, So I queried today.

00:40:26
Speaker 1: I looked at first and second round picks who had breakout scores above ninety five, so Burden fits that mold, and then who were low risk profiles. So low risk profiles are guys who look the model likes more than where they were drafted from a draft capital perspective, So this is based on draft capital delta. For those of you who have read the Prospect Guide, we've had fifteen of those kind of wide receivers since twenty eleven, so they're low risk profiles with a breakout score above ninety five draft in the first sixty four picks of the NFL draft. Of those fifteen, only two of them have failed to exceed their draft capital expectation in terms of best season PPR points per game. So you know a player who gets drafted sixty first overall, Alan Robinson, who actually was on this list as a low risk player who had a breakout score above ninety five entering the NFL. So you know, good jobs, a model. But you know Alan Robinson on this list at sixty first overall. His expected max PPR point per game across his first three years was eight point eight, which again is definitely low. I understand that's low, but that's because there's so many freaking busts that happened in round even round one, but definitely in round two that's going to drive down what that expectation really is.

00:41:36
Speaker 2: We've only had two of the fifteen give us like basically nothing.

00:41:40
Speaker 1: One of them was Rashad Bateman, who obviously, like I mean, he's he's brought it together a little bit more and he's been he was injured, you know, throughout the start of his career. The other one is a name that I shall not name, is Trey Long Berks, who you know, had kind of some question marks about his usage in in college and how that would translate to the NFL and his slot work and stuff like that. Lot of stuff down the middle of a much better prospect.

00:42:04
Speaker 3: I just want to get that out. I think he is a much better wide receiver prospect than trailing Burkes, right.

00:42:09
Speaker 1: So you know that's how the model was just viewing things obviously, you know, from a production standpoint. And thank god I didn't have this iteration whenever that class came out, because I wasn't overly high on Burks. But regardless, like and I think I would have still viewed Burkes as a guy that had a wide range of outcomes. You know, it wouldn't be a situation where I'm just like, yeah, his score is decent, I'm just gonna draft him no matter what.

00:42:29
Speaker 2: And I feel that way with Burden.

00:42:31
Speaker 1: We're like, if you look at the things that I know are predictive, and I know that you could explain some of them away with the way that he was used and such, but it's not like other wide receivers entering the NFL have not been used like this before. And his numbers are so so good that and I know that he saw a dip in production you know, this past year. Actually I should ask you about that. Do you do you think there's any substance that like, did you see I don't know if you charged anything from twenty twenty three, but did you see Yeah, did you see a difference in his game from twenty twenty three to twenty two for or do you think it really was just like a scheme and quarterback thing that was going on in twenty twenty four.

00:43:05
Speaker 3: Uh, definitely, scheming quarterbacks is part of it. But I do think he needs to own some of it as well. I mentioned that like success rate versus zone is lower than probably you'd want for a guy that plays in this role.

00:43:16
Speaker 4: I just think at times he just like flat out quit.

00:43:20
Speaker 3: Right kind of you know, Look, I don't want to get in the guy's head, but you know there's obviously people whisper about like did he did he just like view himself already as like a locked in top prospect? Did he kind of phone in some of those games and like there were hope some hopeless situations that he that the that their team was in where again like he just runs himself into his zone and just kind of hangs out there, runs himself into defenders and just kind of hangs out there. So but this is the thing that I think is so fascinating with him, is that all these things clearly based on your data and and just like what he did in that sophomore season and some of the indicators in his profile from reception perception standpoint, the guy's there's a good football player in there somewhere there Really is there really is. I think that is true, and I think most teams probably view that too. It's just is he going to live up to that? That's why I say, like, how good is Luther Burdon going to be? It's really just up to Luther Burton and your Brandon I you comparison in the draft in the prospect profile. You you mentioned that to me months ago, and I was like, this is so perfect for a player like this, because Brandon Ayuk was a guy that was kind of viewed as a bit of a gadget player coming into the league. He was not a refined route runner at all, but he showed you some flashes of being like a good offman coverage beater, which I think against seventy one point two percent success rate versus man for Luther Burden those he shows you those flashes too, in a kind of gadget heavy role. I you gets to San Francisco. Was good as a rookie, but there was some tension there in terms of like, we need you more finer on the details, We need you dialed in. And I took to that coaching. He was doghouse for a little bit, but he took to that coaching. He grinded his ass off, he started, you know, mastering in the final finer details of the game. And he's one of the Obviously he's hurt now and you know it's coming off a bit of a confusing little situation last year. But in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty two, he's one of the best rout runs in the league, one of the best separators. He was a hyper productive player for a very very good offense. So like that, I love that kind of career path. Hope for Luther Burton, it's just again like and honestly, JJ, maybe him going this is stupid and it's not analytical at all, but maybe I'm going in the second round is like the best possible thing for him. You know, I think, like, hey, bit of a wake up call, like let's let's let's get diled in here.

00:45:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point. You mentioned that you like a mecha Buca. Do you think that he could be considered like this again, this is the caveat of minus Travis Hunter. Do you think that a mecha Buka could be like the safest wide receiver in this class?

00:45:46
Speaker 3: Well, I think that there's a chance that he could be safer than Travis Hunter, just because like he's actually a wide receiver and like I really know what he I mean from a dynasty perspective, I still like these. Do you do any dynasty drafts before the NFL?

00:46:00
Speaker 1: I mean I try to, I've done. I've done rookie drafts. I did you know, rookie mocks and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean like for real though, like, oh the real I have a league that I do draft pre NFL draft, And I will say, there's an edge that you can have if you just research draft capital.

00:46:17
Speaker 2: There's a there's a big edge that you can have in that kind of format.

00:46:20
Speaker 4: I think it's for psychos, But and I say that lovingly to the people that do it.

00:46:24
Speaker 2: Nine percent of them are not pre draft to be fair, you know, and I have just one. But I am psycho. I understand that.

00:46:31
Speaker 4: Yeah totally.

00:46:32
Speaker 3: And again I say, dude, my highest year subscription on reception perception is called sicko for a reason, like we we love the.

00:46:39
Speaker 2: Sick Anyone listen, anyone listening to this has has an issue.

00:46:42
Speaker 3: Just yeah, is a total sicko. Yeah, people get people get mad when I said, it's like, no, no, no, you sickos. Keep the lights on, baby, like we love you guys. You're putting food on the table, folks. No, But like I mean I say that to say that, you know, people would have asked me, like what do I do with Travis Hunter? My my my rookie draft is before the NFL draft, like you got bravely, I don't know, good luck. But that's why I'm saying, like Guka might be even safer. Just I think the proof of concept is is so good it look like safe when it comes to prospecting is like a It's just it's a damned endeavor to call somebody safe. But I do think he is a ready made power slot receiver, really good zone beater.

00:47:21
Speaker 4: I think he's good.

00:47:21
Speaker 3: Enough against man coverage in reception perception to be a guy that plays a little bit of flanker for you. He's actually really good when he can work as an outside receiver on in condensed formations, you know, working these outbreaking routes. It's very similar to the guys off the rams Strae. You know, your Robert Woods is your Cooper Cups. They all had like really good outbreaking success rates because they could be these like condensed formation receivers even if they weren't a slot receiver. They have so much space to work with. And that's the thing with him is I think when it comes back to like destination is destiny, people whine about like the upside of players like this, guys who've always been number two receivers and all, he's gonna be Anmber two. How can you take me in the NFL first round the NFL Draft. Nobody plays by the upside of I'm on Rossaint Brown zero point zero. People like but that he is that archetype of player and in the right situation, with the right quarterback and the right system, I think he could have that type of production impact.

00:48:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, Robert Woods was the closest comp for him. In my in this app model, and I even wrote a newsletter about it last week. Some of my favorite comps and one of them was a Mecca Abuka and Robert Woods, and I showed sort of the side by side of all their metrics within the zapp model, and I got multiple responses where they were like, oh, that's really disappointing about Igbuca being, you know, a comp to Robert Woods.

00:48:36
Speaker 2: I'm like, guys, Robert Woods was was like like, this is like we talked about.

00:48:40
Speaker 1: This last year, where comps like people need them to only be like massive, massive ceiling comps, but a Robert Woods outcome as a median outcome for a guy like Agbuka is totally fine and reasonably had a great career.

00:48:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a great career.

00:48:55
Speaker 3: And this is kind of why I said it at the beginning the some of the Dynasty stuff where it's like, well, if they're not a difference maker, I don't even care. It's like, no, man, like, just let the guy be a damn good NFL player for a long time, like Robert Woods.

00:49:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Woods look and like you said a really good note that you made.

00:49:11
Speaker 1: You know, in the right situation, you get Woods going to LA and then seeing that offensive system develop the way that it did. He was really really strong in fantasy football for a handful of years, especially the one year that he had there, So like, I think that we do need to just at least pay attention to that side.

00:49:27
Speaker 2: Of things as well. You know, with these prospects.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: I got to talk about Jayden Higgins because you broke fantasy football Twitter when you released his reception perception chart because it was all red. So why do you not see all butterflies and rainbows with Jayden Higgins?

00:49:44
Speaker 3: You notice I never post the bad charts, Yeah, somebody somebody else does, and then I have to come out and be like, please read the whole profile. There's a reason there's a link to every single profile so you can share that lane in a little bit more context. And I think with him, it's very similar to Keon Coleman last year, a guy who was also pretty close to that like all red chart. Like, honestly, at times I wish I could adjust to this more, Like I'm sure there's some way people.

00:50:11
Speaker 4: I'm sure have ideas.

00:50:12
Speaker 3: People that are smarter than me will be listening to the show and then send me ideas and I'm totally I am open to it, although I don't want to, you know, obliterate my website manager with more work, like let's just change the charts or whatever. But you know, Jayden Higgins is like close to the average in terms of like dig routes, post routes, some of those like inbreakers. So it wasn't as if I watched his film and charted him and thought, like this guy just you can't separate.

00:50:34
Speaker 2: It was there was like a little yellow to the red, is what you're saying.

00:50:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we're like orange, these little orange on some of these routes, is what I would say. Like it's not just we're not talking about, you know, some of the guys that you know, justin Hunter or something. Okay, just the all red route tree. But yeah, no, I think that Jayden Higgins does have separation issues. To me, that's why I haven't been able to get like all in on him, like it appears that some people are and like even some people that watch tape loves Jayden Higgins, and I think, to me, it's just these guys who don't beat man in press coverage, and he is one of these players that is below thirty fifth percentile and success rate versus man impress. But he's a pretty solid zone beater. All those guys. I did a whole breakdown on this on YouTube last year about Keon Coleman. All the guys that go on to become high quality starters that are below thirty fifth percentile in success rate verse man in press coverage, all of them have gone on to be power slot receivers. I mean there's occasionally like a Christian Watson Will Fuller in there, you know, and you maybe people think those guys are high quality starters. I think they're more like inconsistent deep threats. And Jayden Higgins certainly, I guess could be an inconsistent deep threat because he has the size to win vertically down the field. But to me, like if we're talking about, hey, I want to feed this guy a lot of targets, you move those guys into the slot. I mean there's a long list of guys. Jujus, MTh Schuster, Cooper Cup is one of these players on our Saint Brown is one of these players where she Rice is one of these players. Like, if you can get those guys into positions to maximize him, and I think he would obviously be a big, big slot, so would Keon Coleman. But look at on Coleman's rookie year. They stuck him out at X receiver and at no point was he ever like we're going to feed this guy a lot of footballs. It's just a very volatile way to live. And that's with freaking Josh Allen at quarterback. Now imagine it's with the quarterback that maybe is not of that quality. But I do think there are good parts to his game. Like I don't hate him as a prospect, and I think he's a really good Day two option. Is where I ranked him as a player because he catches everything, he does, have the size, and I think he has the ability to beat zone coverage as a slot receiver.

00:52:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, his comps were kind of all over the place analytically, where I do, for the record, see the Coleman comp. I think that it was like a top five one for him where they're like identical in size, they had really really similar breakout scores. And then if you even like look deeper, you know both guys weren't just like only perimeter guys at the collegiate level, like Jaydan Higgins played like almost a quarter of his ran almost a quarter of his routes from the slot at Iowa State. He was actually really effective in the slot at Iowa State.

00:52:59
Speaker 2: But he got like.

00:53:00
Speaker 1: Cedric Tillman to Denzel Mims to Nico Collins, you know, from a so like it was everywhere. But again, like when I say like Nico Collins, he wasn't like a flawless, flawless prospect going out. Yeah, and he's gotten a lot better and he's now he's a stud. So you know, I think that there's at least some hope. But it's good to hear that perspective because a lot of people are like sincerely high on Higgins. But part of me, and maybe you disagree, but do you think that part of this is that there just aren't many like prototypical ex size wise wide outs in this class and so people were maybe a little bit more excited just because they just want that player and they would just reach for that guy.

00:53:37
Speaker 3: To be honest, I think there haven't been in the last few classes in terms of like guys who aren't elite prospects, because think about twenty twenty three, all the guys that were in that class, it was like JSN, it was Zay Flowers, it was a guy Josh Downs. Like the only true like outside X receiver was Quentin Johnson, and there was nothing on his profile from a reception perception standpoint that said, like you should stick that guy at X receiver. You know he's he's one of these guys that certainly did not profile as that player. So that was that class, and then even last year, like the guys that were interesting beyond the top few players, it's like Xavier Worthy, Lad mccaukey, Ricky pier Saw, there's just like it's it's I'm not gonna say those guys are like a dime a dozen, but you know it's it is. Right now, I think there's more players that are kind of leaning into that arc type than there is these big perimeter X receivers. It's just to me, I do think the NFL is moving away from this archetype for a reason because it's just more efficient. We want efficient passing offense, and it's just more efficient to feed those guys targets as opposed to these like non separation ball winning X receivers.

00:54:42
Speaker 2: What about his teammate and Jalen Nole, do you do you are you.

00:54:45
Speaker 1: Are you a big Nole guy, because after you published the Higgins reception perception and I was, I needed you to chart NOL, So tell me about NOL.

00:54:53
Speaker 4: I love Jalen Nole.

00:54:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is ranked really highly for me, I having the same tier of prospects as Matthew Gold, as Luther Burden. I'm very very high on Jalen Nole. Beatsman coverage at a high rate, wins contested catches. He wins down the field too, like these routes you know, posts and digs like very high success rate there, play classic vertical slot receiver. He actually compares really favorably to Josh Downs. And look I'm higher on Josh Downs and just about Josh Fine, yeah, I mean get that guy into a different offense. I'm actually hoping for like a Wandale Robinson PPR scam for Josh Downs with Danny Dimes this year, which is the ultimate cope that is like disgusting, But I am hoping he gotses a lot of passes from Danny Dimes this year.

00:55:35
Speaker 4: I guess, I guess that's what I have to hope for.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think Jalen Nole profiles is on that archetype of player, which in the right system can be really good. But I also think he can play a little bit outside for you too. So yeah, he's one of my favorite rookies in this class.

00:55:48
Speaker 1: He was my favorite value sort of player at the time of writing the Prospect Guide. I wrote it when I was writing him up, because he he just checks so many boxes analytically where he was like above average across the board and the stuff that I look at, maybe not like elite, but at least above average. And then he also had special teams work and he got some rushing like they would randomly, they'll line him up in the backfield and move him, move him around the formation and stuff.

00:56:09
Speaker 2: Oh, some really fun stuff with him.

00:56:11
Speaker 1: And that's that's a sign of number one versatility but also talent, right because they're trying to get him the ball, because he's good with the ball in his hands. All right, Who are you higher on Trey Harris or elk iamanor uh Trey Harris?

00:56:28
Speaker 3: Now? I think Trey Harris has one of the most volatile profiles, you know, And that's kind of where I ended up ranking him, because when this arc type hits kind of the straight line X receiver. It can hit big right, it can be DK Metcalf. I think DK Metcalf's like the peak of that straight line X receiver arc type. But and Trey Harris has some good indicators.

00:56:48
Speaker 4: You know.

00:56:49
Speaker 3: I think his route running against man in press coverage, there are good flashes there, seventy three point two percent against man. That's seventy fourth percentile, seventy eight percentile against press coverage. But it's only on a small handful of routes. And he's not a good zone beater, you know, because of that offense that he plays in at ole Miss. It's very stripped down. It's a very vertical based routery. Like I said, very straight line. You look at his route success rate chart. Nine routes, curl route, slant routes like those are all really really good. It's just the rest of the rout tree. He doesn't have a good sense in terms of winning over the middle of the field on diggs and breaking towards the outside on out routes. But I do like him as again you take this to me, take this guy in the second round of the NFL draft, because again, when it hits, it hits big, big, and even if it doesn't. If he's just like an OK player, you could get like an Alec Pierce type where he's tactically valuable to his NFL team and the right quarterback will be willing to rip some of these throws. Although the thing that's keeping me from like really liking Trey Harris is just that, and I know that you had an affinity for this player as I did too. His collegiate profile is strikingly similar from a reception perception standpoint to Terras Marshall. Just signed with the Eagles, so shout out to him. That's his fourth NFL team going, still going, but has the second lowest success rate versus man coverage that I've ever charted from the from an NFL player, So he obviously did not work out very well. Did Terrace Marshall, but he was another guy like the overall success rate verse man and press numbers were good. They're very much in the same ballpark. But the route tree was very go and slant heavy, and I think that's kind of where Trey Harris is. So if he develops, I think he could be a really good again vertical straight line X receiver that is sacrificial at times to open things up for other players. But again, you can also take those throws if he continues to grow.

00:58:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had Terrence Williams as Trey Harris's.

00:58:44
Speaker 4: Top comp in the in the model sounds pretty similar.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: Cecil Schwartz was in there, SEAgel Shorts had a decent career. There's some stuff in there. And then Cedric Tillman had a shared comp of him with Higgins. Just from a just a size and sort of production standpoint, we got to talk about Jack Besh. You you published some content around him. You know, he had a great story with the you know, winning the MVP at the Senior Bowl. Great as in from like a perseverance standpoint, it's a it's a sad story, you know overall, with his brother being part of that and passing away from in the terror attack in New Orleans New Year's Day. Do you think that he could be a really impactful fantasy asset or is this a situation where you just think that he's an excellent route runner who's gonna really bring something to the table for an NFL team.

00:59:30
Speaker 3: Well, definitely the second one. Yeah, I man, I love this guy. The only well, there's two things that I think that are not great about his profile number one, And like sometimes I say, with the route tree, the graphics, the success rate by route, like you got to do a little bit deeper digging. I actually think for Jack Besh it's very very instructive as who is as a player, because the only two routes that are below the prospect average are the nine route and the corner route, And the nine route is actually well below average, like forty one percent success rate on nine routes stinks like that's not good. And that's Jack Besh's game. He's not gonna out run you. There's a reason he's not run a forty during the NFL draft process. At this point, He's not a He's not a just line up stat guys on the outside. That's one problem. The other problem is that he lined up as the right outside receiver on seventy two point four percent of his sampled snaps. That has proven over the course as I've charted prospects to be a red flag when the guys only line up at one position you read off a long list of names. I'm going to read off a long list of names here. Uh, these are the guys I've charted that have been seventy percent at one outside receiver position, Doyle Green, Beckham, Kevin White, Corey Coleman, Josh Docks and Kenny Lawler, Kierris Garrett, Laquon Treadwell, Michael Thomas, the other Michael Thomas from Southern miss not Ohio State, Michael Thomas, Roger Lewis, Jujusmith Schuster, d D Westbrook, Chad Hanson or Darius Stewart, Teywan Taylor, Ishmael Zamore, Josh Reynolds, DJ Moore, James Washington, d Tommy Brown, Tylan Wallace, Drake London, David Bell, Danny Gray, Cedric Tillman, Cedrick Silman has come up a lot Man Rah Rice, Charlie Jones, Quentin Johnston, Javon Baker, Devontes Walker, and Brendan Rice. So like I would say, there are four inarguable good players in that list, which is Juju, DJ Moore, Drake London, and Rashie Rice. And all of them honestly have been guys that have moved around the formation a little bit, are not just like pure outside receivers. That's what gives me a little bit of hope that Jack Besh can also be a bit of an outlier here because he's the guy that has played a lot of slot receiver over the course of his collegiate career. It's really just this one season where he's kind of tethered to that right outside position. And I do think he's a guy that is gonna move around because everything else, Like, those are the two red flags in the profile. Not a deep route runner and not a guy that And he did line up in that one outside position. But eighty fifth percentile success rate verse man, eighty point eight percent against zone, ninety first percentile success rate verse press. Like his route running off the line of strom is really good. Zero drops, best contested catch right in the class. He went down on first contact on fifteen percent of his in space attempts, Like that's crazy. He just checks so many bocks. Is very good player. And in terms of like will he be a fantasy asset, this is again I will say it. It's it's destination, his destiny here is he going to get to the right offensive system that can make use of a player like this. Jacksonville with Liam Cohen that would be a great spot. Maybe Houston with Nick Kayley as the new offensive coordinator. There like, there are spots where I think he could really thrive. It just cut down to can you deploy a player like this in the right way?

01:02:28
Speaker 1: When I watched him, he has a very very much like a Pukina Kua type mentality. Oh yeah, well easy, just just just throwing his body around, and it's so fun to watch. But you know, I would say, you know, analytically, there's he doesn't look great. I mean, his breakout score is forty two point five. That's not special. His career yards per out run isn't that special. But like you noted, like, I think it's interesting that he played a high slot rate through the first handful of years in college until his final year where things switched up. And actually that year was the year that he saw his best production in age, justin production. The other thing that you know, it was probably not something, but it is funny to me is his freshman year where he played at LSU, and he had better production than Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas did. Obviously played a different kind of position than they did.

01:03:16
Speaker 3: You know, in that even out produced like from a catch standpoint, Kayshawn Booty and Trey Palmer, I realized we're going like down the list and like Molie Neighbors, Brian Thomas, bigger names, but those guys are NFL players exactly exactly.

01:03:27
Speaker 1: It was just it's super interesting, Like I I see him as someone that the community, the fantasy ball community, from like an ADP standpoint stuff. They're not going to really like Jack Besh because there's not a lot of like obvious green flags with his analytical profile. But I think there's a lot of like substance that that you know, is not necessarily as measured, I mean, draft capitol I think is actually gonna be pretty strong for him. I think teams are gonna fall in love with him. But you know, there's this other stuff that's just kind of interesting to his profile where I'm like sure, like I I got him in the third in a mock draft the other day in a rookie Like that's that's the perfect kind of area, Like why not. It's not like you're you're worried about those third round picks anyway. So yeah, I'm actually in on Jack Besh, even though the analytics could be a little bit better.

01:04:12
Speaker 4: Totally. Yeah, He's one of my favorite prospects in this class.

01:04:15
Speaker 2: Let's look at Jalen Royle's real quick.

01:04:17
Speaker 4: He got it.

01:04:17
Speaker 2: He got a Rashi Rice camp in the ZAP Model. Do you think that's warranted? Do you think there's something there with with Royals?

01:04:24
Speaker 3: Dude, This, this Rashi Rice comp has been messing with my brain ever since you sent me this question, because Royals is the guy I've actually finished the most recently. I don't know, dude, He's a bizarre He's a bit of a bizarre player. For one, he fits into that group of players I just said earlier, only line up on one side of the field.

01:04:43
Speaker 4: He's even more extreme than Best's.

01:04:45
Speaker 3: Rashi Rice was on that list, and Rashi Rice was on that list, and like Rashi Rice definitely if you just look at the prospect rankings on reception perception, he is without question my biggest miss.

01:04:58
Speaker 1: But one, yeah, just for the record, I didn't mean to cut you off. For the record, the model doesn't didn't like Rashi Rice, and it doesn't really like Jalen Royals either. It just so happens that like the two matched pretty well analytically.

01:05:10
Speaker 3: So sorry, good well, well, no, no, no, And here's here's kind of the backstory. There is one the games I charted. I found out after the fact, you know, he was playing through a foot injury, so I think that's part of why it was just like a disaster profile. But two, he played a he plays a completely different role now than he did in college. Like he was a guy that, like I said, only lighted up a one side of the field and basically ran like goes and curls, like an even more extreme version of what I said earlier with Trey Harris, Like he was just like a vertical, straight line X receiver and now he's like this big slot gadget screen guy in Kansas City. And I actually got to ask him about it at the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, and you know, he basically said, like, yeah, this was outlined to me that this was the plan for me as soon as I got drafted here, that they were going to kind of remake my role basically, so that it is it is smart because he's just like, yeah, he can't really run routes and beat man coverage on the outside, but he's a load with the freaking ball in his hands. And the reason that this Rashi Rice Compas tripped me out with Jalen Royals is I get Jalen Royles one is Yeah, I mean it's very similar, kind of stripped down route tree one side of the field. But I actually kind of like the way he works with the ball in his hands. I think he's bothered by like press coverage and overall, like he's just kind of a whatever route runner. I think we're kind of starting from square one, not square one like Kadarius Tony level, but like where there's a lot of work to do with him as a route runner. But the most impressed I've been with him is when we get the ball in his hands. So like, yeah, with Rice, I wish we had gotten even more indicators what his role would be like in training camp, but that would be something I'd watch out for with Royals.

01:06:47
Speaker 1: I got to ask you about Kyle Williams because when I wrote the Prospect Guide at that time, he was projected to go like two hundred and fiftieth overall, and at the same time he had a top five breakout score in this So I wrote up the profile being like, hey, Kyle Williams looks good analytically, but you don't have to worry about it right now, because if he's going to be a day three pick. He's gonna be a Day three pick, but he's been rising and rising and rising. Uh, it seems like he's going to be a Day two pick at this point. Do you like Kyle Williams.

01:07:18
Speaker 3: I do like Kyle Williams, and I think he's one of these guys that fits into Day two very well in this class. Good, good receiver, just in terms of catching the football, reliable. He's another player that even better than Jalen Royal's with the ball in his hands, and like they fed him some screens at Washington State. He only went down on first contact of forty four percent of his in space attempts. He routinely makes the first guy miss, and he shows the makings of some pretty solid route running. And he's not somebody he was close, but he's he didn't quite make that seventy percent, you know, only on one side of the field, so it's at least something to keep your eye on there. But I think he showed enough like versatility across the formation, playing on the other side, playing in the slot a little bit too. I think he's probably somebody that is a slot flanker in the NFL, but he played a lot of X receiver at Washington State, and he was just relentless at separating on like bass routes, curls, digs, slants like I out Route success Or eight eighty three point nine percent.

01:08:11
Speaker 4: I really liked his route running. I really liked just the overall film.

01:08:14
Speaker 3: I'm not crazy crazy Kyle Williams, but he's definitely somebody I would take on day two and try to develop. Now I'll say definitely he fits in that bucket of players like our guy Jayden Reid. He fits in that bucket of guys like Elijah Moore. You know that I've tended to be, like I said very early on in the show, I've tended to like kind of overrate those read It's a bit of a different example. But the guys like that are are vertical route runners right that are more maybe slot based. I've tended to be a little too high on them. But so I'm kind of trying to not go all in on this profile. But I do think the fact that he gives you something after the catch is valuable.

01:08:49
Speaker 1: There's always one guy from pre to post drafts who ends up like having a totally different ZAP score based on the draft capital input that's gonna be Kyle Williams this year, Like we had that with Jonathan ming one year, which probably should have just kept his his pre draft draft capital at the end of the day, but Jonathan Mingo ended up getting way better draft capital than I than I had projected.

01:09:09
Speaker 2: Uh, Kyle Williams looks like that guy.

01:09:11
Speaker 1: So if you get the post Draft Prospect Guide and his score is a lot higher, it's because of that.

01:09:16
Speaker 2: All right, last question before I let you go.

01:09:18
Speaker 1: Any wide receiver outside of the guys that we talked about that that should be on people's radars.

01:09:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, in terms of on the radar, I think I could definitely see Xavier Ristreppo being like a boring slot receiver at some point. Yeah, he's a pretty solid He's not explosive at all, like the I don't know if he's four to eight slow, but he's not explosive.

01:09:40
Speaker 4: But I could see him just randomly in the now.

01:09:42
Speaker 3: I think teams have moved away from this type of slot receiver like that you need more from your slot than like the Jarvis Landry ARC type or the Jamison Crowder ARC type. When Sam Darnold was feeding him a bunch of passes with the Jets, but still I think there's some like I could see him being an NFL player. The two guys that are really interesting to me are actually the two Arkansas receivers. Andrew Armstrong is like a steel reserve Brandon Ayuk, and I like, so he's not even bud Light. He's very very poor man's Brandon Ayuk in terms of he kind of has some similar route running to him. He's an ex receiver, but he's an older prospect I know, so I'm not crazy about him. I actually think Tesla, the other Arkansas receiver who I know, has like no production.

01:10:26
Speaker 1: To be fair, he went to Hillsdale College and he had it was the first time I had Hillsdale College in the database, and he had a five point two two I think it was yards per team passed them, which is just like otherworldly.

01:10:38
Speaker 2: But he was playing, you know, at Hillsdale College.

01:10:40
Speaker 4: That that explained.

01:10:41
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, but yeah, So I just looked at the Arkansas tape from last year and I'm gonna have something on him on the site, and like, I don't know, there's something to him, like I actually think, and I was kind of confused as like, why is this guy like never get targeted because he gets open and he's like a freak athlete.

01:11:00
Speaker 4: The yeah, he's huge.

01:11:01
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen the mock draftable comps for him, but like from just an athletics standpoint size and all the measurables. His comps are like Javon Walker, Alan Robinson, Roma Dunz like said God Seder Tilman coming up again here, Andre Johnson, Like, I mean, what are we talking about here? Because he's just this like truly slot only kind of like inbreaking specialist, but he literally catches everything and he does separate and I could see him being like useful in that kind of create a touch archetype.

01:11:34
Speaker 1: Harmon as usual, This was great. Thanks for the time, Thanks for dropping knowledge. For anyone not following Matt in his work, make sure you check out Reception Perception dot com. He's also on Twitter at Matt Harmon Underscore BYB. I'm also on Twitter at Late Round QB Murder. Check out the Late Round Prospect Guide. You can find that over on lateround dot com. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you later this week with another episode of Late Round perspect ACTIVESH