2016 Wide Receiver Combine Analysis – Part Two

Jacob Feldman

The NFL draft has finally arrived and rookie draft boards are getting a bit of a makeover this time of year. I’m back in order to attempt to help you break a few of those ties on your own draft board. Before I go any further, you can see that this is part two of a series. If you haven’t read part one yet, stop right now, click the link, and go back to part one. Otherwise, you’re going to be completely lost on what is going on. In fact, even if you already read part one you might want to go back for a quick refresher.

In part one, I outlined the general process I’m using, my goals, my disclaimers and took a look back at recent draft classes to help give you an example of what this metric tells you. I’m going to trust that you actually looked at all of that and get right down to business with the current draft class. I’m going to talk a bit about each prospect and what they bring to the table, both in terms of their physical traits and their other abilities. For the top receivers, I’m going to push them to a special article because they deserve a little extra attention in my eyes.

Keep in mind that a score of a zero is the average for the best wide receivers in the NFL, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with being around zero or even a little bit negative. Where I start getting concerned is when a player gets below a -2 and especially when they are below a -4. The score in the parenthesis is the score without height and arm length factored in for those who feel height is overrated. On with the show!

**Special note: This is being written prior to the NFL draft, so I don’t know where any of these players are going to be playing right now.

[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]

Top Dog

Devon Cajuste: 7.04 (6.48)

How many guesses would it have taken you before you picked Cajuste as this year’s top dog? I know I was floored when I put the numbers together and his name came out on top. To put his number in perspective for you, there has been only one player in the last five years to top a six, and that was Chris Conley with his insane performance at the combine last year. If you take height out, you can roll Odell Beckham Jr into that group as well. Scores at this level are extremely rare and definitely demand a special look. For current receivers we are talking about being at the level of Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, and Andre Johnson in terms of physical traits. Before you get too carried away with this, it is important to realize Cajuste is a very, very different case from all of those guys.

Everyone else I mentioned, including Conley, possesses rare athletic ability. They have speed, quickness, and with the exception of Beckham they also have size. Cajuste is by far the slowest receiver to ever score this well. His 4.62 second time in the 40 yard dash is almost to the point where it is a deal breaker for a receiver. In fact, it is more than two standard deviations below the mean or in the bottom 2.5% of top NFL receivers. It is at the level where it becomes a major red flag.

So what happened that he was still able to post a number of this magnitude? Aside from his straight line speed, he is pretty much at or above the norm pretty much everywhere else. In fact, in some cases he is near elite or even elite. His jumps and shuttle run are very close to the average of the baseline group, but he brings great size, massive hands, and the best three cone drill time in recent memory. His three cone time was so good it puts him in the top fraction of a percentage point all time, and he’s 6’3” and 234 pounds! This means he’s able to keep going at full speed while changing directions, which can be a real asset. In fact, a lot of NFL teams have shown this is much more important to them than straight line speed.

Of course there is another side to Cajuste. His college production was quite poor and at times he struggled to separate from defensive backs. He is one of those tweeners. He isn’t a great fit as an outside receiver, due to the lack of speed and limited separation ability, but he also might be a bit too small and not strong enough to make the transition to tight end, which is where some project him.

He’s a very interesting case and someone to watch very closely.  Regardless of where he goes, he’s one of my favorite targets in the third round of my fantasy draft because the potential is there.

Great Scores (Scores between 2 and 6. Larry Fitzgerald, Alshon Jeffery and Odell Beckham Jr.)

Marquez North: 3.79 (2.92)

Josh Doctson: 2.52 (2.91)

Ricardo Louis: 2.27 (2.23)

This is normally a small group, but the fact that there are only three receivers in this group (with another four in the next group) highlights what we’ve all believed for several months now. Thanks to some of the potential prospects in this draft going back to school for another year, this is a very weak receiver class. If you mixed this group in with any other year over the last several or with the 2017 group, this group would definitely make up the minority of the top ten receivers, and in some cases it wouldn’t even be close. This is a year where other positions should dominate the draft, especially once you get out of the top five to ten slots. There just isn’t a whole lot at the position after that point in time.

With that said, let’s take a look at these guys. Doctson will be part of the follow up article on the top receivers which leaves lots of time for a look at North and Louis. Both of them are physically fairly similar to each other. They check in at 6’2” and both managed 40 yard dash times in the 4.4s. North is slightly better built with a more muscular frame, but Louis is a little more athletic and explosive according to the drills.

Louis is coming out of Auburn with some mixed results. He was a spot starter and part time player until his senior year when he posted 46 receptions for 716 yards and three touchdowns to go with another 158 and a score on the ground. Those aren’t stellar numbers, but Auburn wasn’t a very good passing team this year. Plus, his numbers on the ground show his dual threat nature. He’s great with the ball in his hands, but the issue is getting the ball there. He’s not a very good route runner and his hands are rather inconsistent. If someone is willing to work on him, he could turn into an asset, but that’s going to take a lot of time and effort.

North is a rather interesting case. He was a four star recruit out of high school and has a nice bloodline coming from a father who was a track star and played professional football. Unfortunately for him, his freshman year was the highlight of his time in college. Injuries caused him to have a steady decline as the years went with his production bottoming out this past year at only six catches. His main assets are his size and his hands, but he is terrible when it comes to his routes. He struggles in all phases of route running from the moment he needs to get off to the line until the very end. He won’t have a chance to catch the ball if he can’t get open.  If you have a taxi squad slot, he might be someone to look at towards the very end of your draft. He has the size-speed combo to do something, but he’s very much a project.

Good Scores (Between 0 and 2. Mike Evans, Michael Crabtree, Dez Bryant, Allen Robinson)

Chris Moore: 1.53 (1.10)

Michael Thomas (Ohio St.): 1.16 (0.91)

Malcolm Mitchell: 0.73 (1.35)

Trevor Davis: 0.06 (1.61)

As I mentioned above, the lack of players in this range tells you something about this draft class. The fact that Thomas is only the second of the top receivers to show up so far, meaning he is just the second of this year’s top receivers to be above the baseline group tells you even more. This class, especially the middle and back of this class, isn’t anywhere close to what we’ve had in past years. The chances of you getting a star in the second round or later at the wide receiver position is drastically reduced this year.

Outside of Thomas, who will be covered in the follow up article, these three guys are likely to be late round picks and project players in the NFL. Moore is the perfect example of this. He had an impressive 21.8 yards per catch average this last year, which was the second lowest of his college career.  It was good enough for fourth in the FBS, and it wasn’t even his personal best. Unfortunately, the go route is about the only one Moore can run right now. His 4.53 second time in the 40 is good, but isn’t going to be good enough to be a top notch deep threat in the NFL. He will need to work on his game and develop options for his routes if he is ever going to see the field in the NFL.

Mitchell is a much more intriguing prospect than Moore, but he is still a project in my eyes. He was impressive as a freshman with 45 receptions for 665 yards and 4 touchdowns on a team which ran first, ran second and most of the time ran third as well. This trend continued until he tore his ACL, which required him to miss a year. He was a little slow to come back from the injury due to some complications. He has great hands, his body control is exceptional and he almost always wins at the point of the catch. Physically, aside from being a little bit lean, he is very much the average of the baseline group, meaning he could turn into a solid WR2 if all goes well. In order to do that, he’s going to need a good coach to help him improve his route running since his tree was rather limited at Georgia. The potential makes him a solid pick in the third round of your fantasy draft if he lands on the right team.

The project theme continues with Davis. He’s much too lean and is more of a build up speed guy than a sudden athlete.  He was the primary kick returner for Cal, and I think that is likely to be his role in the NFL. He struggles to gain separation as a receiver and needs some time to get up to full speed. If he’s returning kicks, he has that space and time to get up to speed and put his talents on display. I don’t think there is much fantasy value here, unless your league is one of the few which has a special slot just for returners.

Respectable Scores (Between -2 and 0. Marques Colston, Greg Jennings, Sammy Watkins, Michael Floyd)

Jalin Marshall: -0.43 (2.01)

Laquon Treadwell: -0.73 (-1.60)

Braxton Miller: -0.90 (0.03)

Byron Marshall: -1.50 (2.42)

Leonte Carroo: -1.79 (-0.11)

Demarcus Robinson: -1.83 (-1.96)

We are now dipping below the norm for this metric, but keep in mind the system. A zero is the average for some of the best receivers in the NFL. Think back to how productive guys like Colston and Jennings were as well as what Watkins and Floyd have done recently. While they aren’t elite, we are still definitely looking at guys who can be high end WR2s for a very long time. This is just the group where their ceiling might not be quite as high, but they are definitely still assets. Two more of the top receivers, Treadwell and Carroo, make their appearance here and will be a part of the follow up.

A pair of Marshalls makes their appearance in this group as well. Byron’s score is very incomplete since he didn’t participate in any of the drills at the combine due to recovery from a major ankle injury during this past season. He’s a bit of a tweener who might struggle to transition to the NFL. In college he filled that hybrid role of a RB/WR they are so fond of in Oregon. Unfortunately this means his hands and his route running ability are significantly behind where NFL teams will want them to be. He’s well build, but quite short for a receiver. If I factored in his pro day numbers, he would drop down this list a bit as well. I think he’s going to struggle to find a spot in the NFL and probably doesn’t belong on fantasy rosters.

The other Marshall, Jalin, is an interesting case. He was a high school quarterback who was transitioned to receiver in college, and likely projects as a slot receiver in the NFL. He really, really could have used another year or two in college to help him learn the wide receiver position. Yet for some reason he decided to come out after his Sophomore year. Had he gone back for a year or two he might have developed into a middle round pick in the NFL, but as it stands he is a very incomplete receiver. His routes are poor, he rarely wins contested balls, and he seems to lack the instincts of the position. He’s going to need to show some special teams ability to stick on an NFL roster and have the time to learn the receiver position.

I’m a little surprised that Robinson wasn’t higher on this list. He has really flashed at times over his college career, looking the part of a future NFL receiver. He seems to play faster than his 4.59 second time in the 40 yard dash would suggest, but that might be because he does have a great first step off the line and the ability to make defenders look silly. He has the athletic ability; however, he can’t seem to get out of his own way. He was suspended multiple times (four to be exact) during his college career, and he seemed to be lazy and disinterested multiple times during games. As a result, he had several concentration drops and there were times when he just didn’t try as hard on contested catches as he should have. He could be a solid starter in the NFL, but he really needs to grow up and be willing to be a part of a team. Otherwise he will be just another in a long line of talented but troubled athletes.

I left Miller until last for this group because he is one of my favorite prospects in this draft class. I’m not saying I’m going to draft him in the first round or anything crazy like that, I’m just saying he is one of those high upside players I look for late in my rookie drafts. The chances are pretty high he never makes a significant impact in the NFL, but the chance is there and NFL teams know it as well. We all know the story about his college career, so I’m not going to go into it. From an athletic standpoint, what separates him from the group isn’t size or superior speed (though 4.5 is pretty fast) but rather extreme quickness and suddenness. His short area burst will make most running backs drool. He’s a natural athlete who is willing to do whatever it takes. That is great news because he has a lot of work ahead of him. His routes are terrible, and he needs to work on his ability to get open with something other than superior athleticism. I think he’ll learn, but it is going to take a while. He’s a great pick if you have the ability to wait for him to develop.

I’ll be back with part three of this series, where I start to look at the receivers who scored below a -2. This is the point where I start to get a little more concerned about their ability to produce at the NFL level. It is still definitely possible, but their ceiling starts to decrease dramatically as the number decreases. If you haven’t seen a receiver so far, it means they either fall into this group or they didn’t participate in the combine. If it is the former, think carefully about what kind of upside they bring to your team. I’ll be back to share my thoughts on that very question. Make sure you check it out!

[/am4show]

jacob feldman