ADP Trends: First-Round Flop Wide Receivers

Every year, we as dynasty players, are inundated with countless buy-low articles, tweets, and podcast hot takes regarding all the players we need to go out and “buy-low” on. Now, there are absolutely buy-low targets out there worth chasing but what I am here to tell you is that wide receivers who struggled from the first round of dynasty rookie drafts are not worth your time.

Here is a list of every wide receiver drafted in the first round of dynasty rookie drafts back to 2007 who face-planted in year one by losing 12 or more spots in startup ADP.

This gives us a list of 27 wide receivers. First, let’s take a look at how these players performed for their careers to date. So far there have been five wide receivers among this group to have put up one or more top 24 seasons; Demaryius Thomas, Golden Tate, Tyler Boyd, Will Fuller, and Sterling Shepard. Only two of those have had two top-24 seasons or more so far – Thomas and Tate – but the other three are just entering their prime so they have plenty of time to strike again.

That means that in total five out of the 24 (not including 2019) wide receivers to flunk year one per ADP went on to hit one or more top-24 seasons for a hit rate of 20.1%. Comparing this rate to the rate of all dynasty rookie draft first-round wide receiver picks dating back to 2007, we have 29 of 63 who hit at least one top-24 season for a hit rate of 46%. So there is no doubt that face-planting in year one per ADP data is a major red flag. The next step is to compare the players who recovered to see if they have anything in common.

Draft Capital

This one is pretty irrelevant as every player who flunked was selected in the first three rounds of the NFL draft with the exception being Hakeem Butler from the 2019 class. It should be noted that he experienced a rather extreme draft day slide in the NFL draft and that dynasty leaguers were slow to react which shows because the very next month his ADP had fallen out of the first round of dynasty rookie drafts.

Our group of successes included two first-round NFL picks and three second-round NFL picks. Based on overall hit rates between second and third-round NFL picks, I wouldn’t draw the conclusion that thirds can’t bounce back so much as five players is a crazy small sample.

Size

When it comes to wide receivers, I don’t really care so much about their height or weight individually. I care about them together. There are very few (if any!?) successful low BMI wide receivers. Our group was relatively thick with the exception being Will Fuller. Fuller measured in with a 25.2 BMI. That puts him right in line with one of the most prominent sub-25.5 BMI wide receivers in DeSean Jackson who measured in with a 25.1 BMI.

There is nothing to worry about on the size front with this year’s crop of busts. Each guy is plenty thick enough with the lowest BMI being Butler’s 26.9.

Production

I weight college production pretty heavily in the Bulletproof Prospect process. I use a couple of different ways of measuring college production. The first is in looking at a particular player’s body of work throughout college in terms of their share of their team’s receiving yards. Ultimately if a player does not dominate their teams passing attack in college with weaker target competition, there is little reason to believe that they will suddenly command a higher share once they have NFL players to compete with.

Here is a look at how our successful group fared on a market share of receiving yards spectrum. Special thanks to @zenoismyname and @pahowdy for providing this slick tool.

As you can see, for the most part, these players were wildly successful in college. At maximum, each player only had one season below the regression line. In this case, the regression line is set at the average of all wide receivers to have a top 36 season. So it’s a pretty low bar.

This is where the bad news comes in for our 2019 busts – only JJ Arcega-Whiteside has a somewhat passable production profile and I would still consider it to provide more questions than answers.

The Next Step

This information is interesting, but I am assuming that those of you that made it this far want to know what to do with these players.

Here is how I look at it; the year-one busts have a value recovery rate of 29% after their second year. We also know that rookie wide receivers drafted in round one of dynasty rookie drafts have a safe rate of 62% (meaning gained or at least maintained their ADP).

So if I can reroll my bust from last year into a shiny new first-round pick, I would snap it up in a heartbeat. The options look like this:

	Bust	New First Round Rookie
Production hit rate	20.1%	46%
Value safe rate	29%	62%

 

It would take an awfully special player for me to turn away from a chance to reroll.

If my busts value has sunk to second-round pick value this is what it would look like:

	Bust	New Second Round Rookie
Production hit rate	20.1%	28.6%
Value safe rate	29%	63%

 

Here is a look at wide receivers taken in the third round of dynasty rookie drafts vs our first-round flops.

	Bust	New Third Round Rookie
Production hit rate	20.1%	15.4%
Value safe rate	29%	35%

 

And lastly, here is the comparison for fourth-round wide receivers.

	Bust	New Fourth Round Rookie
Production hit rate	20.1%	4%
Value safe rate	29%	26%

 

Based on this, I would say that trading a first-round flop for a first or second-round pick absolutely makes sense. Trading for a third would be a toss-up and you should just hold if their value sinks to fourth-round pick value.

So let’s look at what you can get for each of our first round flops today according to the DLF Trade Analyzer for each of the rookies in question and as a bonus, let’s include N’Keal Harry as he is dangerously close to being an ADP bust come May.

Trade Analyzer

We will start at the back of the class and work our way up the ADP as I am certain it will build suspense… or something.

It should also be noted that all of the above ADPs are using non-superflex leagues as the ADP data for superflex doesn’t go very far back, so we will look at the trade analyzer on the single quarterback leagues settings.

JJ Arcega-Whiteside, WR PHI

This one is a slam dunk. If you can get the 2.08 for him, you increase your production hit rate from 20.1% to 28.6% and your value hit rate from 29% to 63%.

Parris Campbell, WR IND

This makes Campbell an easy sell as well.

Hakeem Butler, WR ARI

There is almost certainly someone in your league who will give you a third for a player who many thought was the best wide receiver in the class prior to the NFL draft. I had even seen someone say that Butler was the best wide receiver he had EVER scouted. Pull up those scouting reports and send them to everyone in your league to remind them why they need to give you a late second for Hakeem the Dream. If it just isn’t possible to pry away a second round pick for him, a third might make sense considering how hard and fast his value dropped from May in his draft year to June.

N’Keal Harry, WR NE

Before we talk about Harry, it should be noted that I was a very staunch supporter of Harry through the draft process which can be seen here:

WR N'Keal Harry Bulletproof Prospect

Here is why I think that N'Keal is a #bulletproofprospect

College Dominator: 88th percentile
College YPR: 55th percentile
Breakout Age: 95th percentile

(cont.) pic.twitter.com/2jXy4iewH5

— Bulletproof Beancounter (@DFBeanCounter) April 16, 2019

Harry hasn’t actually busted to this point but once the 2020 class gets added to the startup pool for ADP, I suspect he might qualify as a first-round flop come May. While he has the college profile that shows he might defy the odds like our group of successes, I’d feel more comfortable making the move and trading Harry for a 2020 first.

In so doing, you will increase your production hit rate from 20.1% to 46% and your value rate from 29% to 62%. I tend to play very risk averse so this is the avenue I will be taking. I certainly wouldn’t fault anyone for looking at his college profile and claiming that he will defy the odds though.

Conclusion

There are going to be lots of narratives out there about how players develop at different rates, and it takes time to learn how to play the wide receiver position in the NFL etc. I feel like the stats are overwhelming in that those are merely narratives and are in fact exceptions to the rule, not the rule.

I think knowing when to sell and for how much is valuable information. Hopefully, it can help you add some hardware to your trophy case.

You can find me on twitter @dfbeancounter if you’d like to know more.