2023 Dynasty Fantasy Football Rookie Prospect: Quentin Johnston, WR TCU
Our NFL rookie profile series begins with this analysis of 2023 NFL Draft Prospect Quentin Johnston, WR from TCU. We will continue to provide you with these in-depth rookie profiles and a ton of other fantasy football rookie analysis right up through the NFL Draft. Stay tuned, and stay ahead of your league.
Jalen Reagor was the last first-round wide receiver to come from TCU. Everyone still has a bitter taste in their mouth from that experiment. Quentin Johnston will be a good example of why drafters will need to scout the player and not the helmet. Even if the results end up the same, these are different players who can win in different ways on the field.
Johnston enters this year’s draft class with tremendous upside. This year’s batch of receivers has a lot of players who list in the 170-185 pound range. Johnston will give us something different in the size-adjusted speed realm of the draft. He is slotted to go in the first round of the NFL Draft and it’s hard seeing him fall out of the first round. He seems locked into top-tier draft capital.
Will he develop into the next cornerstone player in dynasty fantasy football or is this another wide receiver who does not live up to the hype?
THE STATS
Courtesy of Sports Reference.
Johnston led the team in receiving as a true freshman. He turned it on at the end of the season with 247 yards and one touchdown in his last two games against Oklahoma State and Louisiana Tech. He was the team’s downfield threat with a 17.5 average depth of target. He also owned a 24.81 percent market share of TCU’s passing production while also averaging 1.78 yards per team pass attempt.
The following year was also very productive considering the counting stats weren’t elite. He still managed to own a 21.56 percent market share of his team’s passing production. His biggest game came on a Saturday night at Oklahoma when he reeled in seven passes for 185 yards and three touchdowns. This performance will be the highlight game of his career. The following week he would hang 113 yards on West Virginia. He posted a career-high 18.7 average depth of target in 2021.
The media pegged Johnston as one of the best wide receivers in the country and a potential first-round pick going into his junior season. In 2022, he had his most productive season by catching 60 passes for 1,069 yards and six touchdowns. He also averaged a career-high 3.05 yards per route ran. He had four 100-yard games with his best performance on the road against Kansas, catching 14 balls for 206 yards and one touchdown.
Johnston is one of the few wide receivers in this draft class to breakout at age-18. He capped off his career during his junior season at age-20 with a 27.23 percent market share of the team’s passing production and 2.35 yards per team pass attempt.
His production profile boasts a lot of good things. It’s very encouraging that he was able to instantly breakout during his freshman season. He also maintains his production throughout his career. One thing to mention is he did this on a low-volume passing offense, which limited his counting stats to just 2,190 yards and 14 touchdowns in his career.
THE FILM
The video posted above is a montage from his 2021 season. I chose his 2021 season because it was the only video on YouTube with clips from his huge performance against Oklahoma. That game was the highlight of his career.
In his highlight compilation, you will catch him winning downfield with tremendous ball skills and strong hands. Johnston can make the toughest catches look easy. He’s good at catching the ball in tight quarters. One issue that he has is taking the ball into his body at times.
His ability to eat chunks of yards after the catch makes him a dangerous playmaker. He’s a bigger wide receiver and is tough to tackle in open space. Johnston is tough to cover on the slant and crossing routes over the middle due to his size. Once he crosses the defensive back’s face, his size-adjusted athleticism makes it almost impossible to break up the pass.
Johnston knows how to attack leverage when running routes. He also does a good job at using his size at the catch point to create separation. He separates at the catch point with his leaping ability and assertiveness. He’s also very aggressive off the release. He doesn’t win by creating separation with nuance. That’s just now how he plays the game. He’s not a Stefon Diggs or a Keenan Allen who can win with elite sell tactics and lateral ability. His size-speed ratio and ball skills are what make him a dangerous playmaker.
THE MEASURABLES
Johnston didn’t run the 40-yard dash at the combine. However, he did hit 21 mph on his big touchdown catch and run against Michigan in the College Football Playoff. This indicates that he does have the top-end speed to blow past the defense. Due to angles and play speed, there’s a chance he could post a faster time, but right now, we can easily say that he has some speed to burn.
The vertical and broad jump measures more than how high or how far a player can jump. It also measures a player’s burst. It takes pop off your initial step to generate inertia and jumping movements are indicators of how explosive an athlete can be.
At the combine, he posted a 93rd percentile vertical jump at 40.5 inches. This is an incredible marker considering he’s 6-foot-2 and 208 pounds. He also delivered a 97th percentile broad jump at 134 inches. All this means is that he can jump out of the building and he’s capable of hitting his top-end speed at a rapid rate.
His catch radius makes him a huge target. This is where we also catch him posting top-tier numbers with a 91st percentile arm length at 33 1/8th -inches and a 96th percentile wingspan listed at 81 5/8th inches. Keep in mind when you watch him on tape, he’s not a player who wins with short-area quickness and nuance, but can create separation when the ball is in the air and eat chunks of yards if he gets the ball in space.
DYNASTY VALUE
Courtesy of DLF’s March ADP.
Johnston is currently the WR2 and the fourth overall player in DLF’s latest ADP. He will easily be a first-round selection in rookie drafts this year. Unless he falls in the draft or gets drafted into a very undesirable situation, I don’t see him falling out of the WR1-WR2 range.
Courtesy of DLF’s ADP Comparison Tool.
Just from the historical odds from ADP ranging from 2017 to 2022, the odds of him returning some fantasy value are very good. The odds of him hitting top-end value also appears to be very good. The market is letting us know that wide receivers drafted in this range have a good chance of producing for our fantasy teams. Just like any market, when there’s group-think involved there’s a chance the market busts. The depth of this class is not as stout compared to previous years. Therefore, there’s less talent fighting for the top spot in this year’s draft. We have to be leery since we haven’t had a WR2 in ADP nosedive in a very long time. With that being said, his historical market analysis states he is in good company if he can hold his WR2 status after the draft.
The top rookies in this class are holding good value in startup ADP right now. We are finally seeing the market realize that rookies jump in value during the first 6 to 12 months of their careers. Johnston is being valued as the WR26 behind Jordan Addison, Treylon Burks, Terry McLaurin, and Jerry Jeudy. A lot of these players are former WR2s in their initial rookie ADP that we previously mentioned. I think his current startup value is fair because the dips would be minimal since he’s a young wide receiver prospect. Even if he provides just a handful of games of production during his rookie season, he’s going to hold or even exceed his value.
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