Determining Most Comparable Prospects: Part One

Kyle Pollock

Player comparisons are constantly used in the fantasy football community. It seems every year, there is a new running back prospect who is “the best prospect since Adrian Peterson”, a small receiver who reminds people of Antonio Brown, or a quarterback who is reminiscent of Andrew Luck. While these comps are commonly used, very few players can actually live up to them. The same comparisons are commonly made with incoming college freshman to current or recent college superstars. Since I play in many devy leagues, I thought it would be good to actually know which players actually were most comparable to each other. With the help of Ryan Berger, I decided to use the K Nearest Neighbor algorithm to determine each player’s most comparable players based on athletic testing numbers. I’ll be outlining some players comps over this series.

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For reference I used all data from the Opening from 2013-2016, so some players might not be in the set. Notable players missing include Laquon Treadwell, Josh Doctson, Corey Coleman, Will Fuller, and Leonard Fournette.

Juju Smith-Schuster

jss

Juju Smith-Schuster is widely considered to be one of the top receivers in next year’s class. Sadly, his first three comps have a very small chance of ever being relevant. Montae Nicholson has moved to safety at Michigan State, Jalin Marshall went undrafted this year (he ended up signing with the Jets as a UDFA), and Trevion Thompson is currently sixth on Clemson’s depth chart and could fall even further.

Kalakaua Timoteo is not only a great name, but someone who could be a deep devy sleeper. An incoming freshman committed to Hawaii, Timoteo was the Rainbow Warriors second best commit of this year’s class. With a team that’s not exactly loaded with talent. He has a chance to make an impact right away.

Kyle Davis, Isaiah Jones, and Bryan Edwards are all relatively close comparisons for Smith-Schuster. Davis was one of the top receiver’s in this years receiver class. Like Smith-Schuster, Davis is a very physical player who looks like a natural on the field. However, he may not be best suited for Auburn’s run heavy spread offense, and I’m not sure if he’ll play early. Jones was at Florida State for a year before transferring to a community college. This off-season Jones decided to transfer again to Southern Mississippi. He could take over Michael Thomas’ role in the Golden Eagles high-powered offense, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him drafted. Lastly, Bryan Edwards is one of my favorite receivers in this year’s recruiting class. An early enrollee at South Carolina, Edwards had a huge spring game for the Gamecocks where he caught two touchdowns. At 6’2”, 209 pounds he already has a plus frame that will allow him to make an impact this year. He is also extremely young, as he won’t turn 18 until November.

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