743: Wide Receiver Prospects Who Produced Like Studs

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha, j J Zachers. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode seven hundred and forty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Last week, I talked about this year's running back class, finding which players produced like studs while they were in college. This week, it's all about wide receiver. Before we get into things, I wanted to send another reminder about the Late Round Prospect Guide. The guide features profiles for every running back and wide receiver who are going to the Combine this year, and it also shows their pre draft model score. Once the draft is over, you'll get a new copy of the guide sent to your email with post draft scores. But the guide also has a section on a year two model, which is a model that helps predict how well a player is going to perform in year two or year three of his NFL career. So I explained what goes into that model, and then I have profiles for every relevant second year running back and wide receiver. It's a lot of nerdiness, but it's also a lot of fun. You can pre order it right now for eleven ninety nine over on lateround dot com, and when the guide launches on March thirteenth, that price will jump to fourteen ninety nine. So head to lateround dot com and pre order it now. Okay, So, like last week's episode, the goal with this one is defined players in this year's wide receiver draft class who produce like studs in college. What exactly does that mean? Well, here's the deal. Good wide receivers in the NFL, good fantasy football wide receivers were typically very productive in college. That shouldn't be surprising. Good players see the ball and they produce. So if players good in the NFL, he was probably pretty good in college too. The goals to look at successful fantasy wide receivers in the NFL, see what their college production profiles look like, and then compare those profiles to players in this year's class. That way, we can see if anyone from this class produced like a stud. But what is being a stud wide receiver really mean? Well, like last week, we got to get a little arbitrary here. I defined stud wide receivers any wide receiver since twenty eleven who had multiple seasons of fifteen plus PPERO points per game, and they had to play a minimum of eight games to qualify in a given season. Since twenty eleven, a solid forty six wide receivers have hit that mark. My prospect model dates back to twenty eleven as well. Like I mentioned a week ago, I tested with data pre twenty eleven, but the wide receivers in the model were drafted or went to the NFL Combine from twenty eleven onward, So that eliminates some of the forty six wide receivers that we're going to look at in this stud sample. Antonio Brown, for instance, was drafted in twenty ten. Not all of the successful wide outs went to the combine. That kind of thing. When you remove those players, the sample gets cut down quite a bit, down to twenty six. That speaks to the idea that wide receivers can be really good for a long period of time. If a guy was drafted in two thousand and seven or two thousand and eight, he could have been productive in the twenty tens. So we have this sample of wide receivers who scored fifteen or more PPR points per game in multiple seasons since twenty eleven. We'll call that our stud sample. My prospect model uses three main production metrics for wide receivers. Each get a different weight in the model, but the three metrics are best season receptions per game, best season touchdown share, and the most important one, best season yards per team pass attempt. There's more that goes into the model than those three things, breakout age, early declared status, a teammates scorer, a conference factor. You can learn about those things in the Late Round Prospect Guide. I lay it all out, but for today we're focus solely on production. The stud sample averaged six point seven receptions per game. Their average best season touchdown share was thirty nine point six percent, so on average, one of these STUD wide receivers had almost forty percent of his collegiate teams receiving touchdowns during his best season. And then as for best season yards per team pass attempt, the average was three point zero one. Within our sample, there were fifty wide receivers who were invited to this year's combine. They averaged a best season receptions per game rate of five point three, so one point four receptions lower than the STUD sample. They had a best season yards per team pass attempt rate of about two point two. That was point eight yards lower than the STUD sample. And while the STUD sample had a best season touchdown share close to forty percent, this year's draft class was closer to thirty percent. This shouldn't be surprising. Like I said earlier, good players in the NFL were also good in college, so of course the STUD sample has better numbers throughout. They're all good players. The players going to the NFL combine this year. Some of them might not even get drafted. The question, though, is which players from this year's class produced like these studs. To figure that out, let's go metric by metric and talk about some of the higher profile players who have red flax. And let's begin with best season receptions per game. Best season receptions per game as a standalone statistic may not matter that much. Collegiate offenses are so different, so if a player happened to be on a pass heavy team, he's gonna benefit here, And the number doesn't get as much weight in the model as something like best season yards per team pass attempt, but receptions per game works in the model to sort of level out some of those other things like yards per team pass attempt. Regardless, there is still some signal here. For example, in our stud NFL sample, only one player saw receptions per game rate below four point three, and again that's for his best season. That was Tyreek Hill. Tyreek Hill's going to pop up a lot within these three metrics because his collegiate journey was not normal. He ended up becoming an outlier, and he's been an outlier at the NFL level too, So he's not exactly a profile that we would ever want a bank on, but he's the only player with the receptions per game rate below four point three in our stud NFL sample. Within this year's draft class, ten wide receivers were under that four reception per game mark, and another four were under four point three. By far, the highest profile player who was under that four point three mark was Quentin Johnston. Not to be fair, he's at four point twenty nine. He's literally right there. But let's at least talk about him because he could very easily be the top wide receiver in this year's class. He could be the first one taken, at least in the Prospect Model's database. So all wide receivers who were drafted or who went to the NFL combine since twenty eleven, we really haven't seen many higher end wide receiver seasons come from players with low receptions per game rates. We've actually only had six wide outs have one season of fifteen or more PPR points per game over their first three in the league while being under that four point three receptions per game mark. Those players were DJ Chark, Tyreek Hill, Marteva's Bryant, DK Metcalf, Hunter, Renfro and T. Higgins. What's funny is that a lot of people are comparing Johnston to that kind of player, to the Martevas, Bryant, T Higgins, DK Metcalf type players, the physical wide receivers who can win down the field. And actually, in my prospect model, T Higgins is an early comp but that's the upside play. We can't assume that he gets there. It's still really early in the process and I've got more work to do with these prospects. But Johnson seems like a volatile prospect at the moment. My model has him at wide receiver three. But it's easy to see why an NFL team could fall in love with that upside. The athleticism is there, the upside is there, and the comps are at least relatively there. But I think in the end, my model's probably not gonna like him as much as the NFL draft does. That's what it's looking like right now, at least now. The only other player with decent projected draft capital according to NFL mock draft database dot com, who has concerns and receptions per game is Marvin Mims. Mims had a four point two receptions per game rate in his best season within that statistic, but fortunately his best season yards per team pass attempt rate it's pretty decent. It's two point sixty six. Mims is looking like a one and eighty five pound wide out who produced immediately as a freshman. He has one of the best breakout ages that you can find in this class. He ranked as a top thirty wide receiver this past year in college football on yards per route run, and he was top fifty as a sophomore. So he's an early declare wide out who had strong production at a young age. He may be on the smaller side, and he may have a borderline receptions per game rate, but with his projected draft capital inputed, my model currently likes him more than where he's expected to go. Now, let's move on to best season touchdown share. Remember the stud wide receiver sample saw an average of almost forty percent within this metric. Our twenty twenty three class only saw nine players get to that mark, or eighteen percent of the sample. Now, within that stud sample, only Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle were under the thirty percent best season touchdown share mark. I already mentioned that Tyreek Hill was an outlier and Waddle was someone who didn't have a complete production profile because of injury. Now, Garrett Wilson will likely be part of this group next year or the year after. That's where things are trending for him because he was just under that thirty percent mark. But basically thirty percent was a number that these studs were getting to pretty frequently. And now I've got to talk about Jackson Smith and Jigba. There are definitely JSN Truthers out there. It's hard not to like the guy after what he did in twenty twenty one while sharing a field with the aforementioned Garrett Wilson and my guy, Chris Olave. His receptions per game rate, his yards per team pass atten number, which are both taken from that season because it was his only productive season in college. They're both great, but his best season touchdown chair is actually just nineteen point six percent. Now, as I talked about on last week's Mailbag episode, everything works together. You don't want to just focus on one number and throw a player out because of that one number. But we're analyzing these production metrics on today's show, and this best season touchdown sheer mark technically is a red flag, even if we can explain it away a little bit. With team competition, We've actually only had three wide receivers in the Prospect Model's database hit a fifteen plus ppo point per game season across his first three in the league with a sub twenty percent best season touchdown chair Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle, Hunter Renfro and only Tyreek Hill and DK Metcalf were able to get to sixteen plus PPR points per game with a sub thirty percent best season touchdown chair. Again, this isn't me telling you how I feel about JSN as a prospect right now. He's a ninety fifth percentile guy in my model given his projected draft position. If he goes higher, that'll get better. If he goes lower, that's gonna get worse. Everything works together, but for purposes of what we're doing on this episode. His touchdown share is a flag. Lastly, is the most important production metric in the model, and that's best season yards per team pass attempt. Within our stud sample, the average was three point zero one, which is really impressive because only four wide receivers in this year's draft class had a best season yards per team pass attempt that high was the aforementioned Jackson Smith and Jigba. That's a very very good sign. Again, he's a good prospect. My model doesn't look at per game yards per team pass attempt because it didn't matter when I tested it. I know that might seem unfair, but there are plenty of other places in the model for players to make up for a bad yards per tem pass attempt that's maybe due to injury Subjectivity's okay too. I didn't mind Jalen Waddle when he was drafted despite that production score. Now, Tyreek Kill and Jalen Waddle were the only two wide receivers with a yards per team pass attempt south of two within our stud sample. Shocker, the same guys we've been talking about. Forty percent of the players in this year's class were below that two point zero mark, and that's kind of a big deal in the prospect database. So this is since twenty eleven, only Tyreek Hill, DK Metcalf, and Deebo Samuel hit sixteen plus pper points per game in one of their first three seasons with a sub two point zero mark. Tyreek Hill, again, he's an outlier. DK Metcalf dealt with injuries, and he had a good teammates score coming out too, and he also had a solid breakout age. And then Deebo Samuel arguably another outlier. He's not exactly a traditional wide receiver. So a player's odds of being a very good fantasy asset they're not that high if they have a sub two point zero best season yards per team pass attempt rate, and forty percent of this class is below that mark. One of the higher profile players to be below that mark is Kaishan Boudi. Many ones thought that Booty would end up being one of the elite pass catchers in this class. His freshman season was pretty incredible. That season, he had a one point seventy five yards per team pass attempt rate. Unfortunately, that was his best season. As a sophomore, he was only able to play six of thirteen games for LSU and then things didn't really develop in eleven of fourteen games in twenty twenty two, potentially due to the injury year over year. So the game's play thing is definitely in play here for Booty, but his numbers still weren't off the charts. The best thing that we can point to with his profile is a great breakout age, because he did well as a freshman. Elite breakout ages are always a good thing, But the model doesn't see him as someone who's bound to be a wide receiver one type in the NFL and in fantasy a wide receiver two or a wide receiver three. That could absolutely happen. We just have to hope that the draft capital is there. So we have these red flags all over the place of this class. Are there any wide receivers who hit on every stud wide receiver mark, a six point seven receptions per game rate, a three point zero one best season yards per team pass attempt rate, and a near forty percent touchdown share. No, there wasn't. Not a single wide out from this year's class got there. But there were a few players who got close. Jackson Smith and Jigba is one of them. Yes, his touchdown share is lacking, but the other two metrics are fantastic within the model. He has one of the best analytical profiles in the class, which is why the dynasty community is going to be all over him this year. Jordan Addison is probably the player who's closest to our stud sample. Addison absolutely dominated at my alma mater, Pitt back in twenty twenty one when the Panthers won the ACC with Kenny Pickett. All of his best season marks came from that season. He was just shy of that three point zero one mark for best season yards per team pass attempt, and he was just one or two percentage points away and best season touchdown share. So if there's any player in this class who produced like a stud across the board, it's probably Addison. But another player to shout out is Josh Downs. In this class, Downs is second and best season receptions per game and he's first and best season yards per team pass attempt. The only thing bringing him down a little bit was a pretty average best season touchdown share. But Downs looks really good on paper. He had a strong breakout age and his cumulative stat scorer when you're looking at everything, is the best in this year's class. It's better than Jordan Aison's right now, his top comp of my model is one hundred percent Elijah Moore. Analytically, they're like the Spider Man meme, which, yes, I understand that Moore had a rough second year in the league, but we know the potential and potentially still is there with him. So jsn Addison and Downs look like the most productive in this class. But shout out to Jalen Hyatt too. His marks across the bord are pretty close to this stud sample. Aside from his receptions per game rate, we're seeing him fly up draft boards and I don't mind his production profile at all. He's a vertical threat that's surely going to get teams to fall in love with him now. Like last week, this is just a glimpse of some of the higher end rookie wide receivers in this class. I didn't talk about some of them, like Zay Flowers, but you're more than welcome to hit me up with a mailbag question about this class. There's gonna be more episodes about these wide receivers. We're officially in prospect season, so that's what the focus of a lot of these offseason shows. Is gonna be. That's it for today's show, though thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by shooting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. You know. For to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Remember to check out Lateround dot com pre order that prospect guide. Otherwise I'll talk you later in the week with the Mailbag show m