Rookie Rebuilding: Part 3 – Wide Receivers

Jeff Haverlack

In Part 2 of the series, we took a look at the running backs, finding that it pays to overweight by round, at least with what we’ve seen so far (stay tuned).  Now we turn our attention to the receivers to see what we can learn when looking back at a decade of results.  Does size really matter?

In the past five years, there’s been a resurgence at the receiver position.  I wrote an article in early 2016 that looked back on fantasy drafts with respect to receivers, a once crap-shoot of a position, to find that NFL teams have become quite savvy at finding first round difference makers.  Where once the only reliable variable we could key on were receivers taken by pick six in the NFL draft, it now seems that most receivers in the first round are drawing fantasy blood early in their careers – or so it seems.  We’ll take a closer look at that specifically in the near future.

Until then, we’re going to look back on a decade of fantasy top-ten performances for the receivers, seeing which players occupy those 100 slots (ten years * top-ten) and whether we should over-weight height/weight attributes as I’ve always done.  Much like I have always favored, born from a previous study, running backs at or near 5’11” and 218 pounds, I also strongly favor receivers at or near 6’3″ and 215 pounds, give or take.  Receivers, similar to most NFL players, usually add weight in the NFL.  Run a 4.40 forty and I’m usually on the floor, a quivering mess.  Note here that this study is focusing on a PPR format.

But do these measurements still hold water or has the success of receivers such as Antonio Brown, Doug Baldwin and Julian Edelman broaden the position?

Let’s find out.

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wrs

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Draft Position

Taking a quick look at the breakdown by round:

wr-round

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, we’re seeing a clear trend of first round NFL-drafted players owning the top-ten positions over the past decade.  And as has been the case for all positions, familiar names grace this list multiple times.  Once you find a performer in this regard, you likely have a long-term asset.    Let’s go a bit deeper.

  • Of the 48 slots NOT owned by a first round receiver,  16 are owned by Brandon Marshall (7), Wes Welker (5) and Antonio Brown (4).  That’s an additional 16% of slots.
  • Of those the 48 slots, 18 of them were held by players that only appeared once.
  • Of those 18 players that only appeared once, half (9) of them were first round selected.  That said, Mike Evans, Brandin Cooks and DeAndre Hopkins have not been in the league long enough to be included in my estimation.  Removing those three, six only appeared once on the list.

Size

Does size matter?  When last I did a full receiver study, as previously mentioned, I found that I’d much rather risk selections of receivers standing 6’3″, give or take an inch.  My research then showed that size did tend to be directly correlated with top producers.  What about now?

For this next look, I’m breaking receivers up by height only in one of three categories as seen in the table below:

wr-size

 

 

 

A full 53% of the slots are owned by receivers standing 6’2″ or taller.  That is impressive but a bit less than I expected.  Of course, that means that 47% don’t quite measure up to that standard and, even more surprising, receivers in the lowest tier edge out their taller brethren in the middle tier.  Let’s take a bit of a closer look.

  • While 25% of the slots are owned by receivers standing 5’11” or less, Wes Welker (5) and Antonio Brown (4) did account for 9% while OBJ and Steve Smith are hot on their heels with three each, or another 6%.
  • Of all 5’11” or less players represented, only two (Percy Harvin and OBJ) were first-round-selected.
  • Of the 53 slots held by receivers standing 6’2″ or taller, 34 (64%) were first-round-selected.
  • Looking at the 22 middle-tier slots, Reggie Wayne and Roddy White occupied nine of them while 11 other receivers were represented.  A pretty even distribution.
  • When considering 75% of slots are held by receivers standing 6’0″ or taller, coupled with four players comprising 15 of the 25 5’11” or less slots, taller receivers do seem to still be favored producers.  When combined with the fact that 64% were first-round selections, it seems fitting to overweight taller receivers for risk-reward.

Summary

Obviously, when looking at statistics like these, there’s many different ways you can break them down to derive value.  My intention here was not to create a complex statistical model but, instead, take a look at top fantasy performers at the positions to see if generalized trends can be seen.  With receivers, much like size for running backs, there’s enough fire beneath the smoke for me to continue to overweight first round receivers at a height over 6’2″.  But what we haven’t seen yet is going to alter your view even more.  You’ll have to stay tuned for that.

In the next three parts of this series, I’ll be building upon this performance view and begin looking at overall fantasy productivity when considering the NFL-selected round for the players.  For example, while these statistics may show that top-ten performers come most often from receivers standing taller than 6’2″ AND from the first round, this does not tell us the likelihood that a first round receiver will be a performer.  For this to occur, we will need to take a look at ALL players drafted by round and gauge their performance accordingly.   We’ll then end by looking at a history of fantasy drafts to see how likely those coveted draft selections perform.  What if I could tell you that only twice in 14 years of my longest league, the 1.04 fantasy selection panned out only twice?  All leagues draft a bit differently, but I’ve found very similar results over all that I’ve reviewed.

With any luck, when this series concludes we’ll have a decade of NFL-to-fantasy related performance that you can use to, hopefully, increase the effectiveness of your draft selections, leaving those historically-based risky picks to other coaches while you follow a more concrete trend.

Follow me on Twitter:  @DLF_Jeff

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jeff haverlack