Bulletproof Prospect Process: Bryan Edwards, WR South Carolina
If you are new to the Bulletproof Prospect Process, how it works is we run through a number of metrics and data points that correlate to NFL success, look at player comparisons, and ultimately I give the player a prospect grade.
The possible grades are:
Generational – Extremely rare. I have five active players in my database who have a generational grade.
Potentially Generational – These are players who smashed all of the boxes but didn’t have the requisite draft capital to end up in the generational tier. Odell Beckham and DJ Moore fall into this category.
Bulletproof – This is a grade I give players when I think they have a good chance of becoming a quality NFL producer – players such as Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
Bullet Resistant – This tier is for players who leave one glaring question mark but otherwise have a fantastic profile. Courtland Sutton getting out produced by Trey Quinn in their final year of college is a good example.
Maybe – The players in this tier often have some element of intrigue but have a few holes in their profile. Think DJ Chark with his lack of college dominance and slight frame.
Bust – This is for players who have prospect profiles that are full of holes. A player who would fit in this category is Dante Pettis.
For wide receivers there are quite a few things to look at, so let’s dive in!
Draft Capital
When I am looking at wide receiver prospects, I pretty much eliminate anybody who isn’t drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. The hit rate on day three picks is atrocious. There is plenty of talk of Edwards being drafted early enough to matter so I am going to assume that he is drafted at least by the third round. If he slides into day three, all bets are off.
Size and Athleticism
Bryan Edwards is a prototype bully wide receiver. He stands 6’3” and weighed in at 213 pounds. His BMI of 26.5 is certainly adequate.
The big question for Edwards is athleticism because he was unable to participate at the Scouting Combine. However, a few google searches have eased my fears. Draftscout.com has him listed with an expected 4.52-second 40-yard dash which would be excellent at his size.
ESPN recruiting had Edwards at 4.53 coming out of high school at a similar size.
Edwards’ physical comparison list is impressive. Players such as Michael Thomas, Kenny Golladay, and Alshon Jeffery show an archetype that can have a ton of high-level success in the NFL.
Early Declare
When a college player elects to forego his senior season and enter the NFL draft, it immediately increases his odds of hitting at the NFL level. Thanks to the excellent work by Blair Andrews (@AmItheRealBlair on Twitter) we can see that this is a great indicator of future success.
Edwards was unfortunately not an early-declare. He played four seasons of college football but what is unique about Edwards is that he is a remarkably young senior.
Here is the age of the top five early-declare WR prospects per DLF rookie ADP and Edwards:
- CeeDee Lamb – 21.0
- Jerry Jeudy – 21.0
- Jalen Reagor – 21.3
- Justin Jefferson – 21.2
- Henry Ruggs – 21.2
- Bryan Edwards – 21.4
He is the same age as the early-declare prospects. I would have to think that if you changed the narrative on Blair’s study to look at age-21-and-younger drafted WRs, we would get similar percentages to that of early declare.
Breakout Age
Thanks to this chart courtesy of Peter Howard (@pahowdy on Twitter), we can see that based on breakout age alone, Edwards has a decent enough chance at hitting. His 17.8 breakout age (rounding up to 18 because nobody has an age-17 breakout age) would put him at 66.7% if he ends up a first-round pick, 46.2% as a second-rounder, and 50% in the third round. If we blend that percentage for the first three rounds, he would have a 54.3% hit rate if drafted in the top three rounds of the NFL draft.
College Production
The single most important factor for me when looking at prospect profiles is college production. I do not look at yards and touchdowns on their own because college offenses are substantially different. One school might be extremely run-heavy while another is exceptionally pass-oriented. A player’s counting stats are often a reflection of the type of offense he played in in college.
Therefore I use Market Share of Receiving Yards. This compares a player’s production within the context of his team’s overall passing game. Good players may not always put up eye-opening numbers but they do tend to dominate their own team’s passing work.
Here is a thread where I went through each of the top 25 wide receivers according to Dynasty League Football’s ADP to plot each of their market share of receiving yards in college.
As you are building your rookie draft boards pls keep this in mind
Here is the current top 25 WR's per DLF ADP and their college market share of receiving yards
Pls note, that Tyreek played RB in college (and mostly as a rookie in the NFL as well)
Thread. pic.twitter.com/DxCRqmAoQx
— Bulletproof Beancounter (@DFBeanCounter) February 12, 2020
A quick browse through there should tell you all you need to know about college market share. It matters.
There are two things I am looking for when looking at these graphs. First, I want to see them consistently dominate. Second, I want to see them do it from an early age. Edwards played four seasons in college and he dominated. Every. Single. Year.
Comparables
At this point, I like to take the size/speed comps and split it into hits and misses. From there, I plot Edwards and the hits on one graph and Edwards and the misses on another to see how things look. I use two top-24 seasons to weed out the one-hit wonders.
The comparables who registered as hits are Kenny Golladay, Alshon Jeffery, and Michael Thomas.
As you can see, Jeffery and Golladay both had productive college careers similar to Edwards. On the other hand, Thomas struggled through most of his college career.
Here is Edwards and the bust comparables plotted by college market share.
This isn’t exactly a reassuring list. Tre’Quan Smith and Rueben Randle both had productive college careers and day two NFL draft capital and still flamed out in the NFL.
Competition for targets
One of the biggest things detractors of market share stats fall back on is that it’s hard to produce with quality teammates. Yet as we looked through the market share for each of the top 25 wide receivers per DLF ADP, we found very few non-producers which either meant they weren’t held back by their teammates or THEY were the ones holding back their teammates. Nevertheless, I think a quick browse through the players who Edwards was competing for targets with is warranted.
At age 17, Edwards played alongside a couple of quality future NFL players. Hayden Hurst would go on to be a first-round pick and Deebo Samuel would be a second. The fact that Edwards was able to carve out a role and nearly match them at such a young age is incredibly impressive. This put Edwards on the devy maps very early in his college career.
Statistics from sports-reference.com.
In 2017, Edwards was able to capitalize on extra opportunities as Samuel missed all but three games. This gave Edwards the ability to dominate his team’s passing game at age 18, another impressive feat.
Statistics from sports-reference.com.
In 2018, Samuel was back and he and Edwards went toe-to-toe in the battle to dominate the receiving game. At this point, I would like to point out that Edwards is currently 21.4 years old while Samuel is 24.2 years old. That means that Edwards is 2.8 years younger than Samuel and was every bit his equal in the eyes of the coaching staff and the quarterback.
Statistics from sports-reference.com.
In Edwards’ final season in college, he was utterly dominant. He nearly doubled the receiver with the next most receiving yards on the year.
Statistics from sports-reference.com.
Conclusion
In taking his whole profile into consideration, Edwards has done everything we could ask him to do except declaring early for the NFL Draft, but considering how young he is, it is understandable that he stayed in college for his senior season.
If Edwards is drafted on day two, he will undoubtedly be a bulletproof prospect.
- CeeDee Lamb vs Jerry Jeudy: Teammates and Quarterbacks - June 27, 2020
- ADP Trends: Positional Value Gains by Round in Rookie Drafts - April 22, 2020
- Bulletproof Prospect Process: Bryan Edwards, WR South Carolina - April 20, 2020