1083: Wide Receiver Prospects Who Produced Like Studs

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode ten eighty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the topic today, I just want to send another reminder that the Late Round Prospect Guide is currently available for pre order and it's better than ever. This year's guide includes an outline of what goes into the models, prospect profiles for every running back, wide receiver, and tight end who's going to be at the combine over thirty year two profile writeups, rankings, and more. It'll launch in mid March, so pre order now for fourteen ninety nine. It's going to rise to nineteen ninety nine in just a few weeks. You can learn more over on Lateround dot com. Last week on the show, we talked through running backs in this year's draft class who produce like studs. Because there's some backstory to all of that. If you haven't listened to that episode, i'd pause this one, go to that episode, listen to it, and then come back here. We're gonna go through that exact same exercise today, but with wide receivers. We're gonna look at successful NFL wide receivers, see what kind of production traits they shared in college, and then we'll see which players from this year's class the guys invited. The combine produced like studs. To find our stud sample at running back, I looked at all running back since twenty eleven who had multiple seasons with fourteen or more PPR points per game. I then had to filterout running backs who weren't in the ZAP model because I don't have data for them. Like I said, if you didn't listen to the running backs episode, you probably are missing some context. But I think most would appreciate if I didn't repeat everything that I said last week. Anyway, I'll do the same thing at wide receiver, but looking at fifteen PPR point per game seasons. So look at how many ZAP model wide receivers since twenty eleven had fifteen or more PPR points per game in multiple seasons. Doing so gives me a stud sample of thirty five wide receivers. They range from Pukinakua It's he Higgins to Randall Cobb to Tyler Lockett to hold Leo Jones to Cooper Cup it's a little bit of everything. Now, the wide receiver ZAP model has a ton of inputs, but the main production input it's a metric that I call breakout score. It's predictive, it's tested, and it's all driven off of a player's receiving yards per team pass attempt rate, which is a metric that's intuitive. It's just a player's receiving yards divided by how many pass attempts this team had. Essentially, breakout score looks at every season the player played in. It looks at the receiving yards per team pass attempt rate that a player had in a given season. It then pro rates that for games missed. For a season, account the wide out had to play at least six games, and then from there it adjusts for strength of schedule. A player will get some multiplier, whether good or bad, based on his team strength of schedule. Lastly, there's an age layer to it. A wide receiver who produces really well in schedule adjusted receiving yards per tem pass attempt who is young, he's going to look better than someone who does the exact same thing when they're old. The degree in which that breakout happens that's important too. You guys have probably seen the metric breakout age out there, and while there is some predictiveness to it, to me, it's just outdated. It's a binary way of looking at a breakout and the metric that's being used in that metric and breakout age is dominator rating. Based on my research, that's not the best metric that you can use for age adjusted production. Breakout scores on a scale from zero to one hundred fifty isn't exactly an average scorer or like a fiftieth percentile score, but just know that anything above that is pretty good. Anything in like the eighty to ninety range, it's excellent. And for the record, the scaling for breakout score changed this year. The raw input in the model is the exact same, but I started to scale it a little bit differently for anyone who followed along last year. Now, on today's show, I'll look at both breakout score and best season receiving yards per team pass attempt, even though receiving yards between pass attempt goes into breakout score. Will see how these guys did in their best season in college unadjusted for age, unadjusted for strength of schedule. Breakout score covers a lot of ground from a production standpoint within the ZAP model, but there's also an input for best season age and schedule adjusted fantasy points per game. That's just fantasy points per game adjusted for both strength of schedule and age, and that's in a season with a minimum six games played. We'll look at that metric two, even though it's not nearly as important in the model as breakout score. Within our STUD sample of thirty five wide receivers, the average breakout score was sixty eight point one, the average best season receiving yards per team pass attempt was three point zero three, and the average best season adjusted fantasy points per game twenty five point one. Meanwhile, there were forty six wide receivers invited to combine this year. Naturally, because all of those players aren't studs, their breakout score average is thirty one, significantly lower than the NFL STUD sample. Their average best season yards per team pass ten just two point twenty four. The STUD sample was at three point zh three, and their fantasy points per game sixteen point two. Again, the STUD sample over twenty five, Each number is a whole lot lower than that STUD average, but that's not a surprise. Now, I could just say, okay, here's who produced like a stud, Here's who hit all of the STUD sample averages. But I think going through each metric and shouting out some players who do have some red flags within those metrics, that's helpful. That's useful. It also allows me to talk through this class as sort of a primer. So let's start with breakout score, the most important metric in the ZAP model. By far, the vast majority of this year's class is below that sixty eight mark from the NFL STUD sample. But let's look at some names that are well below that and who currently projects fairly high draft picks according to NFL mock Draft database dot com. I'll call out guys who are under the forty mark and breakout score. And keep in mind only Cooper Cup, Michael Thomas, and Tyreek Hill had break out scores that low in college in the STUD NFL sample, and the only reason Cups was that low was because of strength of schedule adjustments. Now I've got five callouts here. Let's start with Zachariah Branch. I'm not gonna lie. I think Branch is the exact type of player that NFL teams get wrong all the time. He'll probably crush the combine this week, he'll see his draft capital rise, but there are a lot of red flags. He's a smaller wide receiver who played a lot of slot at both USC and Georgia, but he ended up with just a thirty one point two breakout score. According to PFF data, almost forty six percent of his career targets came behind the line of scrimmage. If he goes in the top one hundred picks, he'll be the eleventh player drafted in that range since twenty twenty with a career behind the line of scrimmage target rate above thirty percent. Remember he was almost at forty six percent. He'd be the first one over forty percent. The players who he joined you do have Wando robin In Luther Burton, but both of those players had breakout scores above seventy five. The other players are Lynn Boden, Amari Rodgers, Anthony Schwartz, Kadarius Tony, Rondel Moore, Velis Jones, Trey Tucker, and Malachi Corley, which, by the way, I just mentioned his name, but rest in peace, Rondell Moore. I, like many of you, have been thinking about that a lot since the news broke, and I hope his friends and family can find some calmness through what's just a straight up tragedy. And it wouldn't be right for me to call out his name today and not recognize what happened over the weekend. It's just horrific. If anyone struggling out there, please reach out and get some help. And my email is always open too. Now it's hard to move on from a topic like that, but again, I couldn't just say his name and ignore the news. But let's shift our focus back to the research for this episode, over thirty five percent of Branch's career yards came on screens. Among top one hundred picksons twenty twenty, only two other wide receivers saw thirty percent of their career yardage totals come from screen, Malachi Corley and Anthony Schwartz. This is just a gadgety type archetype that's burned teams in the past, and it really really scares me. History is not on Zachariah Branch's side. Now, another player who I probably like best from a value standpoint out of this group of five with bad breakout scores is Skyler Bell. He's an older prospect. That's also a red flag. He's a little undersized, but he played both inside and out during his five years in college. He played at Wisconsin and then he transferred to Yukon, and his perimeter yards per out run was actually better than his slot yards per out run. Now, Bell's breakout score is only about twenty two because he didn't hit his peak until he got to Yukon. But the ZAP model doesn't totally mind him because there's a little bit of versatility to his profile and he should be able to align across the formation. The third player with a breakout score red flag is Malachi Fields. Fields has OK comps and the Prospect Guide and in the model, but I have my concerns. His breakout score is thirty three point six. His best season in yards per out run ranks thirty fourth among forty six wide receivers in this class. His career yards per out run is under two yards. I have this in the guide, but I'll just read it because it helps tell the analytical story here. It says, if Fields is selected on day two as projected, he'll need the buck. Recent history, since twenty twenty, only nine wide receivers drafted between picks thirty three and one hundred puts the best season yards per out run below two point three. Fields fall short of that threshold. As you just read, that group includes loads and loads of draft bus Van Jefferson, Josh Palmer, Jonathan Mingo, Keon Coleman, Adnai Mitchell, Jalen Polk, Luke McCaffrey, Saveon Williams, and Isaac Tesla. So chances are if the market is aligned with draft capital with fields, I'll be lower than the market. Next on this list of questionable breakout scores is Jacoby Lane. Now, he fortunately has early declare status in his favor, and he played with Mackay Lemon, so his teammate score looks pretty good. More on Lemon later. But his breakout score is thirty five point nine. That's below average. He's got a really long frame. He was first in this class and career contested target rate. Now that's not necessarily a terrible thing, But of the players who have been successful with that kind of contested target rate out of Day two in the past, they've come with better breakout scores. I don't think Laane is a terrible prospect, but the age adjusted production could definitely be better. And then lastly's Antonio Williams NFL mock draft database has Williams as a Day two selection at the moment, and as I say in the guide, he just has a really weird production profile. He was consistently productive throughout his time at Clemson, but he never gave us a really high end season. His breakout score was thirty eight point four, despite the fact that he gave us some production immediately in college. His best season in receiving yards per team pass attempt, though, was never above one point seven. That's a problem. There have only been seven ZAP model wide out to a twelve or more PPR points per game in one of their first three seasons with a max rate below two point zero. He's at one point seven. He's a versatile player, so not all hope is lost, and that's why Curtis Samuel was one of his early comps in the ZAT model, but it's not the kind of profile that I generally heavily invest in. Now, speaking of yards per team pass attempt, let's just focus on that metric. Now. Clearly, of the guys that I just talked about, they probably have that metric as a red flag too, because yards per team pass attempt feeds into breakout score. But there are four more players I want to talk about here. The first one's the biggest name of the group, and that's Casey Conceptsione. To be very clear, first and foremost, the model life Concepcione. I think he's a good prospect. There's a very real chance he gets the Elite producer tag in that model if he ends up going where he's projected to go in the draft. He's an early declayer, so he didn't get to play that final collegiate scene. And that's a reason that is max season in yards per team pass attempt is two point twenty five. That's just the twentieth best max season mark in the class, and as we know, it's well below the STUD sample average. The stud sample only had four wide receivers Tyreek Hill, Nicocollins, Amanas Saint Brown, and Randall Cobb with a max season yards per team pass attempts as low as conceptsiones. Funny enough, the model things Randall Cobb is actually a pretty good comp form. But the reason this doesn't matter that much for the Zapp model is because Conceptsion produced every year of his collegiate career, so his breakout score at ranks in the seventy six percentile. There's no reason to be worried about this, in my opinion, but it's worth the call out. Jeremy Bernard had a pretty similar receiving yards per team pass attempt as Conceptsione, but Bernard didn't have the same early career success. He only really gave a strong production when he transferred to Alabama as a junior. Something kind of interesting about Bernard, though, from a production standpoint, is that he spent his sophomore year at Washington in twenty twenty three. If you recall, that was the season they had Michael Pennix, Romadoonsay, Jalen poll Jayalen McMillan, and Denzel Boston, who's a twenty twenty six draft hopeful potential first round pick on that team. With all that competition, Bernard cut thirty four passes. Boston, for what it's worth, he cut five, and Bernard had thirteen rush attempts for forty three yards. It can't be a bad sign that he was seeing some production for that team, but overall, Bernard's profile isn't totally complete. He had a one point nine career yards run rate. That's not what we want to see. And he saw a lot of targets behind the line of scrimmage. He can be pretty dynamic. You just have to question how that translates. I don't mind him right now, though. He's definitely someone to watch. And by the way, just as a total aside, today's analysis on the individual players, it's just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the prospect Guide actually offers. I'm just trying to touch on as many guys as quickly as I possibly can here. There's a ton more detail within that guide. Okay. Next on this list with yards per team pass tempt concerns is Ted Hurst, not to be confused with Fred Durst. Hurst went to Georgia State. He's getting some love in the draft community, but the ZAP model isn't showing him the same kind of love. He had a top ten deep ball rate in this class. He has a lot of length. I see him in sort of that Darius Slayton archetype. Another one could be like a Ted Walker in Baltimore. But he had an OKA breakout score of forty two, and it's kind of crazy that a Georgia state. His receiving yards per team pass attempt marks never got above two point one four. Only three wide outs from the STUD sample were that low. I get the allure with a player like him, and maybe something that big playability will translate, but I see him as pretty volatile. And then the last one to call out here is Omar Cooper, one of the Indiana guys. Cooper had an OK breakout score of forty one point seven and his top year in yards per team pass attempt was just two point three to one. Fortunately though that got boosted by strength of schedule. The model actually really likes him for his versatility. He's getting Deebo Samuel and Rashi Rice type comps that shows that he might be good after the catch in the NFL. So it's a flag for Cooper, but I do like him. Now. Lastly, we have adjusted fantasy points per game in a player's top season. The STUD average was over twenty five, and there are two guys Chris Brazle and Denzel Boston who were under the twenty mark, albeit barely. Now, this metric doesn't get a ton of love in the model, but I figured i'd just say what the model thinks about both these guys who have volatile profiles. Boston's probably more interesting to talk about because he's projected to go in round one, but his breakout score was forty three point eight, and I have this in the prospect guide to give you guys some context about what that means for a first rounder, which is where he's currently projected to go. I wrote within the ZAP Model database, among wide receivers who played at least three NFL seasons, twelve were drafted in Round one with a breakout score between thirty and sixty, and Boston sits in the lower half of that band. That list includes Taevon, Austen Breshad Perriman, Kevin White, Philip Dorsett, Josh Doxon, Lakwan Treadwell, John Ross, Mike Williams, Calvin Ridley, Henry Ruggs, Kadarius Tony, and Zay Flowers. So it's not great. I think Boston has a great deal of upside, but he also has a great deal of downside. On one end of the comp spectrum, you have Courtland Sutton, on the other you have Kevin White, and then with brasl the dude has a lot of length and he can do work down the field. Though his production profile it's solid, it's not like excellent. Just like Boston, we're seeing a wide range of comps. Christian Watson's the top one, but then Terris Marshall and Denzel Mims they also show up. Brasl's pretty interesting, though. I do always worry about production out of Tennessee, which is where he went to school. So those are the big callouts. I know. I went through a lot of names, and I still have more than I didn't talk about. You're probably wondering which wide receivers met all three stud sample thresholds for these metrics, and I can tell you that only one wide receiver in this class hit all three of them. More on him in a second first, a handful of names who didn't get there, who he didn't talk about yet, and just one or two things about each of these players. Mackay Lemon, He's not that one player. He's not the guy who hit all three averages. The more I researched Lemon, the more I liked him. Some are gonna call him a slot receiver. They're gonna camp him to amanass Saint Brown, which might partially be due to the fact that they both played at USC. I think ARSB, though, is not a bad comp because Lemon should be able to do what Amanass Saint Brown has done, which is play inside out in the NFL. Lemon ran more than seventy five percent of his routes from the slot in college. But get this, Lemon posted the best career perimeter yards per route run rate in this year's class. That's according to PFF data. That's among all combine invites. Now, that was on just one hundred and sixty one round out wide. But I think that should give us a little bit more confidence about his transition to the NFL. The ZAP model likes Lemon. Now, many would say there's a big three in this class with Lemon, Carnel Tate, and Jordan Tyson. One of those three is the winner here, and I'll talk about the other guy who's not towards the end. Instead, let's shift our focus to Elijah Surrat. What an incredibly interesting profile and journey for him. He started out at Saint Francis as a zero star recruit. He transferred to James Madison and then he moved to Indiana with coach Signetti and across his three non Saint Francis seasons, he had adjusted receiving yards per team pass tem rates between two point five to eight and two point seven to five. Again, that's adjusted for strength of schedule. He's one of three wideouts in this class with multiple seasons above two point five, and he's the only one with three seasons over that mark. He had a solid production profile across the board. The only questionable thing about his profile might be separated. He had a high contested target rate, which up day two wide receivers. Over the last five years, high contested target rates has just brought a lot of high variance results. It can range from the terrorist Marshall and Keon Coleman and Denzel Mims types to T Higgins and Nico Collins. I'll probably be more in than out on Serrat. That's at least where I'm at right now. Chris Bell is another bigger, bodied perimeter guy who didn't quite have numbers worthy enough, calling out negatively on today's show. But they're not fantastic across the board either. His final season is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for him because he had a two point five to nine yards per team pass attempt rate when aj just for strength of schedule. That translated to two point seven to two. But I'm telling you guys, these day, two perimeter wide receivers with bigger frames average to above average production profiles. They just give a lot of volatile outcomes. But Bell had an ok breakout score forty eight. He's big, he should be able to play on the outside for a team in the NFL. He did tear his ACL though latent twenty twenty five. That makes his draft capital projection a lot more questionable. I don't totally mind him as a prospect, but I do like surrat More. And then one random wide receiver to call out here, Eric McAllister. He went to TCU, and yes, TCU wide receivers have absolutely burned the crap out of us in fantasy football over the last five years or so. The nice part with McAllister is that we don't have to pay that much to acquire him more than likely, and his breakout score is seventy five. That's the second best breakout score in this year's class of all the TCU wide receivers who have come out since twenty twenty. We're talking Jalen Rager, Darius Davis, Quentin Johnston, savey On Williams, Jack Besh. McAllister has the second best breakout score, only behind QJ, and it's barely behind QJ. One thing to keep in mind though, is that within the model and just in general, breakout score is far more predictive for early round picks than late round picks. I mean, even when you get to like round five, round six, Draft capital itself isn't very predictive. So McAllister's age adjustin production, it's really good. But we're gonna want to see draft capital follow and I don't think that's gonna happen. Just keep an eye on him throughout this process. He's got a Tory Horton comp and I think the median outcome for him could be like a Cedric Wilson type. That's not a bad, bad median outcome for a day three wide receiver. Okay, So after all of that, after me going through a ton of wide receivers, there are two obvious ones that I haven't talked about, Carnell Tait and Jordan Tyson. One of those two did meet all of the averages within the stud sample, and it's not Carnel Tait. Tait's a really good prospect, though he's a little bit thin. That scares me a little bit. And if you're comparing him to the other Ohio state wide receivers to come out over the last five years or so, his breakout score is lowest at sixty five point three, but sixty five point three is still an eighty six percentile number. He played strongly on the perimeter. That should help him stay on the field as a pro. And look, if he gets top sixteen draft capital, we know the odds are really really strong. He didn't force a ton of misstackles per catch, but I think Tait is a really well rounded wide receiver in this class. Jordan Tyson, he's him. According to the ZAT model, Tyson has a breakout score of ninety five. That's a ninety ninth percentile breakout score, and it's because of his twenty twenty four season, which was bonkers. His pro rated receiving yards per team pass attempt was three point three six that was adjusted even higher when adjusted for strength of opponent, and then when adjusted his fantasy points per game was almost twenty six. I'll just share this tidbit from the Prospect Guide to give you an idea of how the model is viewing Tyson. It says, if Tyson lands is a top twenty selection as currently projected, he joined an exclusive group of nine ZAT Model wide receivers with a breakout score above ninety and top twenty draft capital Mike Evans, Sammy Watkin, Amari Cooper, Corey Davis, Cede Lamb, Jamar Chase, Chris Olave, Jackson Smith, and Jigba and Malik Neighbors. So yes, we've seen some misses within that group, but that's a whole lot of studs, and Cede Lamb right now is Tyson's top statistical comp I'm very likely gonna have Jordan Tyson as the wide receiver one in this class, but that's not shade to some of the other guys. I think Carneal Tat and McKay lemon are really good, and I understand that people don't want to put Tyson up there because he has injury concerns. Even Casey Concepcion. In my opinion, he kind of forms a tier below them. I think he's really good, and then I just think the sheer number of decent wide receivers in this class maybe not analytically excellent but decent. Just the sheer number of them means that we're gonna see hits from other guys in this group. It's a pretty good wide receiver class overall. I think Dynasty managers should be relatively excited for it. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football pop pod, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Remember to tune into the YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at Late Round FF on Wednesday at noon Eastern, David Kitchen to myself, we're gonna talk about year two wide receivers and some comps for those players. Otherwise, everyone, I'm back in your ears later this week for that show Wants It hits your podcast feed, but also another episode of Late Round Perspectives. I'll talk to you then