Buy Terry McLaurin: Buying High On a Young Receiver, Part Three

Bobby Koch Posted On July 7, 2020

In the past two off-seasons, I have advocated buying high on a young receiver. First, it was JuJu-Smith Schuster who I advocated buying when his ADP was 28th overall in May 2018 DLF ADP. In the time since, Smith-Schuster has seen his ADP go as high as ninth overall and now “down” to 22nd overall. You could argue that Smith-Schuster’s ADP dipped only because of circumstances outside his control, but he’s still up from when I recommended him.

The next recommendation was DJ Moore. At the time I recommended him, his ADP was 39th overall. What’s happened since? Moore is now the 17th player off the board and the WR6.

So, we have established I have had a pretty good history with these articles. It could be luck. However, the formula is not much of a secret. You look for receivers who performed well at a young age and despite what many see as an inflated price, you buy before it goes up even further. It can burn you if they don’t hit, but even if they just repeat similar numbers, they have a tendency to go up in ADP.

Who are we going to talk about this off-season? There is honestly a ton of candidates. Darius Slayton is a favorite of mine, but you can still buy him cheaply enough that I don’t consider him a “buy high”. Deebo Samuel was a candidate for this article before he got injured. Instead, we are going to discuss a receiver who I was admittedly late to the party on and that’s Terry McLaurin. McLaurin can currently be found as the 48th player off the board and the WR24. We are going to examine why I think you should be buying high on him, starting with some history.

Background

McLaurin was a third-round pick in the 2019 NFL draft. He played his college career at Ohio State and honestly, was never all that impressive from a statistical perspective. He did have 11 touchdowns his final season which is likely most notable because Dwayne Haskins was also his college quarterback at the time. The connection between the two is likely what caused Washington to draft him.

The 2019 season

To say McLaurin impressed as a rookie is a bit of an understatement. He caught 58 balls for 919 yards and seven touchdowns on 93 targets. This made him the WR29 on a points-per-game basis, and 26th overall. Let me give you some historical perspective on McLaurin’s rookie season. Here is a complete list of rookie wide receivers who 900 or more receiving yards as a rookie (via Pro Football Reference):

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There are two names that stick out right away: Sammy Watkins and Kelvin Benjamin. Neither has gone on to have particularly productive fantasy careers after those explosive rookie seasons. Arguably, Mike Williams has never lived up to his hype either. However, the rest of those guys? All either fantasy superstars or on their way to being one.

Something to keep in mind is that Haskins did not start the entirety of McLaurin’s rookie season. In fact, he caught passes from three different quarterbacks his rookie season. I’m not convinced Haskins was ready to start, and Case Keenum/Colt McCoy certainly aren’t impressing anyone. So, in context, this 900-plus receiving yard season was truly special.

What’s interesting to note is that according to splits (courtesy of DLF’s splits tool), McLaurin was actually worse with Haskins than with the other two quarterbacks. However, if you examine the splits more closely, you’ll notice they’re almost identical. The key change? McLaurin scored significantly fewer touchdowns while Haskins was starting.

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There’s hope for progression from both Haskins and McLaurin. As my friend Tom Kislingbury has pointed out, young players don’t always improve just because they are young. Additionally, Washington has a new head coach in Ron Rivera and a new offensive coordinator in Scott Turner. Changes in offensive scheme can be a reason to doubt players, but at least we know that the number one wide receiver on Rivera’s teams has been a top-12 option for fantasy four out of his nine head coaching seasons.

Counter-Arguments

If I had to guess, most of the counter-arguments for McLaurin center around Washington being a dysfunctional franchise and lack of confidence in Haskins. To the credit of these two counter-arguments, these somewhat convinced me to take DJ Chark in a dynasty startup over McLaurin only a few short months ago. What made me change my tune?

I think they made a great hire in Rivera. He may have worn out his welcome in Carolina, but I believe he will be a breath of fresh air for this organization. When interviewed, some of Rivera’s former players talked about what a great culture he brought to the locker room. Perhaps more importantly, the organization finally got rid of Bruce Allen who had been dragging them down for years.

What if Haskins is the problem? Admittedly, I cannot blame you for thinking that. Pretty much all of Haskin’s rookie season was ugly. I do still believe he was thrown into the mix before he was ready to start and another off-season to prepare will help him. It was not that long ago that we saw this happen with another first-round quarterback in Jared Goff. In fact, we used to acknowledge that most rookie quarterbacks are going to be bad, but we have been spoiled by the past few classes.

I should note that COVID-19 could have an impact on everything I am discussing here. It may impact Haskins’ development. It may impact the coaches’ ability to really guide the team to learn the new offense. It could impact the chemistry that Haskins and McLaurin have, but I am not as worried about this since they played together in college.

Trade Value

Now that I have laid out the arguments for and against McLaurin, it’s probably time we took a look at some recent trades for him. Here are some examples from DLF’s trade finder where McLaurin was the only piece in the deal:

Sammy Watkins, 1.11, 2.03, 2.11 for McLaurin
2021 first and 2021 second for McLaurin
Jarvis Landry and the 2.03 for McLaurin
David Montgomery for McLaurin
Devonta Freeman, 2.02, 2.07 for McLaurin

This is a limited sample size, but I would want McLaurin in every one of these deals except perhaps the Watkins one. No, not because I like Watkins. But because I believe this class is deep enough that the 1.11 and 2.03 are about the equivalent of two firsts in a normal year. To give an idea of how I m valuing McLaurin, I’d want him over Stefon Diggs. Diggs has been a valuable player, but he’s getting close to that age where the dynasty community tends to abandon ship and he’s joining a new team which may cause him to underperform. Here’s a look at how the two compare in DLF’s Trade Analyzer:

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Just remember, the formula is simple. When young receivers produce early and then repeat that production, they fly up the boards. It may seem expensive to buy McLaurin now, but if he comes close to repeating his rookie season, he will be at minimum a third-round startup pick this time next year if not even higher.