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Dynasty Film Review: Ricky Pearsall, Jalen McMillan, and Keon Coleman

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Ricky Pearsall | Credit: Cary Edmondson
Bruce Matson Posted On October 26, 2024
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We are almost halfway through the season, and we are getting a lot of data on these young wide receivers. There have been a lot of injuries throughout the NFL impacting depth charts. We’ve also seen a few trades involving veteran wide receivers which could shake things up down the stretch.

Just like martial arts, there are levels to being a good wide receiver in the NFL. Everybody is good at what they do on the field, but there are different levels of good with the finer nuances of the game that many talented players fail to exploit.

Ricky Pearsall, SF

Pearsall made his debut in week seven against the Kansas City Chiefs. He was on the field a lot in this game, running 31 routes for an 83.8 percent route participation rate. Brandon Aiyuk suffered an ACL injury, ending his season and giving Pearsall a chance to carve out a much larger role in the offense.

Looking at his tape we see him consistently create separation off the break. He ran a lot of shorter routes. A few out routes combined with some in-breaking routes. His feet are very fluid off the break and his footwork is snappy, allowing him to slip away from the defender.

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The play above is a simple out route ran by Pearsall but there are some subtle nuances to get excited about here. We start with him located in the slot at the bottom of the play. The safeties roll back indicating a two-high look meaning that even if the outside wide receivers win the safeties will be over the top of the play. There’s a linebacker in coverage at the depth of George Kittle‘s break. From pre-snap, as the play is starting, there’s a high likelihood Pearsall will be the go-to wide receiver on the play due to how the coverage is presented.

Pearsall releases from the line and he attacks the defender’s leverage at the break by stepping his plant foot down the center of the defender’s mid-line while staring him straight in the eyes to not tell where he’s going to go with the route. The defender freezes for a split second and Pearsall can create separation off the break. He knows the target is coming his way and instantly looks back for the ball. Pearsall read all of this pre-snap and knew the odds were in his favor to see the target on this play. This puts him in lockstep with Brock Purdy and their pre-snap reads and how they want to flow with the offense.

Pearsall is a smart nuanced route runner. He got better at his craft throughout his collegiate career. His situation right now is very unique considering the team lost Aiyuk for the entire season and Pearsall will get the opportunity to be one of the key weapons in the offense.

I don’t see his dynasty value rapidly increasing right now. If anything, he might be a little more liquid for dynasty gamers trying to get out from under his stock. More than likely he’s a hold at this point as the market is waiting to see how he will be implemented in the offense and if he can deliver with these opportunities.

Jalen McMillan, TB

McMillan was one of the most highlighted under-the-radar prospects this off-season. Right before the season, he built a good relationship with Baker Mayfield and was receiving heavy praise from the coaching staff during training camp. The start of the season was very encouraging since he opened the season playing a 75 percent snap rate or higher in his first three games.

He suffered a hamstring injury in practice leading up to his week four contest, causing him to miss two games. Last week was his first game seeing a sizable workload since the injury.

McMillan is a very technical route runner with very strong hands. He has the ability to create separation downfield to earn deep targets. The Buccaneers like to move him all over the field to get him into space. This was also demonstrated in training camp where they would use him in motion, out of the backfield, and in screenplays to get him in favorable situations.

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During pre-snap, the safeties try to disguise their look before they break off into position right after the snap. We are looking at a one-high look with the safeties. Another indicator is the blitz that happens on the play, odds are telling us that a safety would need to crash down and take coverage either in man or zone in the middle of the field. The safety dropping back makes it less likely to want to target the deep middle of the field. Fundamentals says you will have your best matchup with McMillan running the out and up on the right side of the field. There’s no safety help to that side of the field and all he has to do is beat his man.

As McMillan releases from the line of scrimmage we see him sell leverage for his first break on the out. We get separation on the first break which means we are more than likely going to get more separation when we break up the field. When McMillan makes his second break, he sells the route by turning his head back towards the line of scrimmage while twisting his shoulders to the quarterback. From here, we release up the field and create separation. He earns the target but is unable to convert the catch in the end zone around the sideline.

What we learned here about McMillan is he’s very good at selling his routes and uses the finer details to create separation. What we saw from him in college was his ability to twist up defensive backs on downfield and this is what he did on this play.

Against the Baltimore Ravens McMillan ran on 56.9 percent of the routes. He was targeted eight times, leading to a 17.8 percent target share. He saw 100 air yards in this game. The deep targets are very encouraging. All he must do is bring in one or two deep balls and he has the potential to score big in the box score.

Much like Ricky Pearsall, McMillan is in wait-and-see status in dynasty value. If he hits big soon then we will see fantasy gamers, trying to attempt to sell him on the high on the market. There’s a chance we might see a stale mate considering he’s sharing routes with Sterling Shepard and Trey Palmer. The Buccaneers also have matchups against the Falcons, 49ers, and Chiefs next which are all tricky matchups for young wide receivers.

Keon Coleman, BUF

The Buffalo Bills traded for Amari Cooper last week. In his first game, he ran 12 routes and was targeted five times. He will be more involved in the offense going forward and there’s a high possibility he commands a top-tier target share.

Coleman had the best performance of his rookie season against the Tennessee Titans, scoring 16.50 PPR fantasy points. He was targeted seven times, catching four balls for 125 yards.

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This target was earned during the pre-snap read. We saw the linebacker leveraging blitz, indicating that he’s not going to cover Dalton Kincaid. The safety is leaning in showing us that he’s crashing down to either be in zone or lock in man with Kincaid. This means that we will have a single-high safety on both sides of the deep field with one-on-one coverage. The read is likely man coverage at the pre-snap.

The corners are tight on the wide receivers, and we have a single-high look. We also have a blitzing linebacker on the play increasing the probability that the safety is going to take on Kincaid.

We do not know the result of the blitz pre-snap. On the bottom part of the play, we have routes that will take more time to develop, and Coleman is streaking straight down the field in a one-on-one situation with the single-high safety out of position to disrupt the play.

This play was originally called a touchdown but was reversed. What we can take from this play is the contested catch scenarios downfield will be Coleman’s bread and butter in this offense. This is what we saw from him in college.

With Amari Cooper siphoning a large portion of the workload, we should expect Coleman’s volume to be volatile. However, his targets should be highly leveraged for fantasy production. There’s an increased chance with Cooper in the offense that Coleman gets more one-on-one looks like this to attempt those 50-50 balls downfield.

This screams up and down production. He’s still acclimating to the NFL game and once developed this could look like Gabe Davis’ production in the future. The argument to this, is him developing to more than what’s projected and exceeding expectations. Or the opposite we never develop from this point and it’s a rough future for Coleman. Staying in the middle, you are likely getting a good NFL wide receiver who provides volatile fantasy production throughout his career.

Bruce Matson
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