The secret to drafting a wide receiver is looking at the numbers that matter

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Here’s a quick peek under the hood for you: back in February, the process for creating SB Nation’s NFL offseason app began with a semi-blind exercise on my part. I took a look at the statistical profiles of each NFL team, listed out strengths and weaknesses, and asked myself, “If I knew nothing about the roster at hand, what would I deem to be each team’s needs heading into 2019?”

Occasionally, the process got a little strange — “The Seahawks’ pass efficiency was lacking, especially on passing downs? Normally I would say that maybe means they need a better QB...” — but most of the time, it was enlightening.

It also helped to emphasize just how many teams need extra receiver help. For all the talk of an offensive revolution in the NFL, said revolution has left a lot of teams behind.

Listing four supposed needs for each team, I ended up mentioning wide receivers 20 times. More than 60 percent of the league could use receiver help. Some obviously need more help than others, but this would be a very good time for a bounty of a WR draft class.

This WR class doesn’t necessarily have a “bounty!” reputation, but while there might not be any top-10 overall prospects, the depth isn’t bad.

As we did last year, let’s once again dive into the college stats of the major 2019 receiver prospects to see what we can find out. Here are the primary takeaways from when we underwent this exercise last year:

1. As with QBs and RBs, your college stats mostly define your pro ceiling. Thanks to improvement in overall quarterback play at the pro level, there are a few more exceptions to this rule at WR, but the ceiling exists for most.

2. Ceilings aside, there were pretty strong correlations between the following factors: 40 time-to-explosiveness, college catch rate-to-pro catch rate, and college marginal efficiency-to-pro marginal efficiency.

Receivers are trickier to figure out than quarterbacks or running backs, which makes sense — no matter how good you are, someone has to deliver the ball to you before you can prove it. But we can still make sure we’re looking at the stats that give us the best, most accurate picture of a prospect’s capabilities.

Before we dive into this year’s class, let’s see how last year’s fared.

Including tight ends, 22 first-year NFLers caught at least 20 passes last year. Atlanta’s Calvin Ridley was the clear leader, but four other wideouts had over 40 receptions.

2018 NFL rookie pass catchers Player Receptions Yds/Catch Yds/Tgt Ctch% Rookie mEff College mEff Player Receptions Yds/Catch Yds/Tgt Ctch% Rookie mEff College mEff Calvin Ridley (ATL) 64 12.8 8.9 70% 9% 8% DJ Moore (CAR) 55 14.3 9.6 67% 15% 2% Christian Kirk (ARI) 43 13.7 8.7 63% 4% 5% Antonio Callaway (CLE) 43 13.6 7.4 54% 4% 2% Courtland Sutton (DEN) 42 16.8 8.4 50% 4% 8% Chris Herndon (NYJ) 39 12.9 9 70% 14% 12% Marquez Valdes-Scantling (GB) 38 15.3 8 52% 1% 1% Ian Thomas (CAR) 36 9.3 6.8 74% 13% 10% Mark Andrews (BAL) 34 16.2 11 68% 17% 19% Dallas Goedert (PHI) 33 10.1 7.6 75% 11% 15% Michael Gallup (DAL) 33 15.4 7.5 49% 4% 15% Anthony Miller (CHI) 33 12.8 7.8 61% 5% 13% DaeSean Hamilton (DEN) 30 8.1 5.4 67% -5% 8% Tre'Quan Smith (NOR) 28 15.3 9.7 64% 24% 10% Dante Pettis (SF) 27 17.3 10.4 60% 3% 13% Zach Pascal (IND) 27 9.9 5.8 59% 6% 8% Robert Foster (BUF) 27 20 12.3 61% 6% -1% Tim Patrick (DEN) 23 13.7 7.7 56% 1% 15% Jason Croom (BUF) 22 11.8 7.4 63% 11% 10% Mike Gesicki (MIA) 22 9.2 6.3 69% 4% 4% Equanimeous St. Brown (GB) 21 15.6 9.1 58% 5% 10% Jordan Thomas (HOU) 20 10.8 8 74% 9% 17%

The receivers here enjoyed an overall plus-9.3 percent marginal efficiency* in college and a plus-7.5 percent marginal efficiency in their respective rookie seasons. Those who were higher in this regard in college had a higher average than those who were worse.

There were some interesting exceptions, however. While high-level draftees like Ridley (the No. 26 overall pick) and Christian Kirk (No. 47) saw their rookie-year efficiency levels nearly mirror what they produced in college, three receivers in particular overachieved by a good amount.

* What’s marginal efficiency? It takes your overall success rate and adjusts it for down, distance, and field position. A positive marginal efficiency means your success rate was higher than expectation. Ridley being at plus-9.4 percent means he was 9.4 percentage points higher.

DJ Moore, the 24th overall pick in the 2018 draft, had just a plus-2.2 percent marginal efficiency in college, the worst of any of the major prospects. But he benefited perhaps more than anyone from a QB upgrade. He went from serving as the go-to receiver for a vast array of soon-to-be-injured Maryland QBs to catching passes from Cam Newton and serving as a cog in a fascinating, young Carolina receiving corps.

Three Panthers wideouts (Moore, Devin Funchess, and Curtis Samuel) were targeted between 65 and 82 times, and if none of them were open, Newton simply checked down to Christian McCaffrey with often fantastic results. Moore, meanwhile, enjoyed a marginal efficiency of plus-14.6 percent, just about the most positive college-to-pro translation you’ll ever see.

Obviously we’ll see if he keeps this up — there’s a reason I looked at a prospect’s first four pro seasons to compare to their college production — but this was a very, very good start.

Two more rookies who drastically overachieved what their college stats suggested possible:

Tre’Quan Smith , the No. 91 pick, was either the Saints’ No. 2 or 3 WR (depending on if Ted Ginn was healthy), and with Michael Thomas and running back Alvin Kamara hoovering up targets, he carved out a three-targets-per-game niche and thrived, turning a good plus-9.6 percent college marginal efficiency into an unsustainably brilliant plus-23.6 percent. That will absolutely come down, but he’s obviously well on his way to, at worst, matching his college efficiency.

, the No. 91 pick, was either the Saints’ No. 2 or 3 WR (depending on if Ted Ginn was healthy), and with Michael Thomas and running back Alvin Kamara hoovering up targets, he carved out a three-targets-per-game niche and thrived, turning a good plus-9.6 percent college marginal efficiency into an unsustainably brilliant plus-23.6 percent. That will absolutely come down, but he’s obviously well on his way to, at worst, matching his college efficiency. Robert Foster is the poster boy for all the “I just need a chance” prospects out there. Foster caught just 35 passes over four injury-plagued seasons at Alabama, but he ended up with 27 receptions on a desperate Buffalo receiving corps, 25 of which came over the final seven games. He went from a horrid minus-0.6 percent college efficiency to a solid-for-the-Bills plus-5.8 percent. We’ll see how much of this was novelty and how much of this was sustainable, but it was a nice initial burst.

Now it’s on to this year’s rookie class. What can stats like marginal efficiency, yards per target, and good, old-fashioned 40 times tell us about who’s most likely to succeed?

First, a data dump. Here are the primary stats for the 30 WRs I’ve seen most frequently in mock drafts and prospect rankings, sorted by their full-career college marginal efficiency.

Listed alphabetically, here are the players who ended up above average (compared to the rest of those in this class) in terms of catch rate, marginal efficiency, and 40 time:

A.J. Brown, Ole Miss

Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, Oklahoma (OK, he was rehabbing an injury and never ran the 40 during combine/pro day exercises, but you and I both know he’d have been in the 4.3 range)

Parris Campbell, Ohio State

Gary Jennings Jr., West Virginia

Terry McLaurin, Ohio State

The Browns and the Buckeyes listed here are pretty high on most analysts’ lists, and it isn’t hard to see why. A.J. Brown might have been the most consistently awesome receiver in college football over the last two years, Hollywood Brown has blazing speed, and while neither Campbell nor McLaurin got all that many downfield opportunities in Ohio State’s quick-passing offense, they both got opportunities to prove both their route-running abilities and, with the number of screens the Buckeyes threw, their blocking abilities.

If you asked me to create a list of the most sure-thing prospects in the draft, Brown, Brown, Campbell, and McLaurin might be the list. Their inclusion here backs that up.

Saying good receivers are good isn’t very entertaining, though.

I enjoy looking for sleepers, and Jennings’ name is an interesting inclusion here.

Sleeper No. 1: The Morgantown slot machine

Jennings received an “NFL backup or special teams potential” grade at NFL.com and appears projected as a fourth- to sixth-round pick.

As a slot receiver in Dana Holgorsen’s air raid-ish college system, Jennings was on the receiving ends of plenty of stat-padding screens and hitches, but he was also prolific on crossing routes and a lot of the other underneath routes he’d be asked to run as an NFL slot man. The NFL.com scouting report listed “chunk plays created by scheme” as one of his weaknesses, but it is my belief you can still scheme slot receivers and tight ends open at times. His potential seems high for a fourth-round type.

Sleeper No. 2: The Go Routes master

Two receivers above ended up with quite similar profiles. Both Ole Miss’ D.K. Metcalf and Missouri’s Emanuel Hall combined mediocre catch rates with extraordinary yards-per-catch averages and 40 times. They were also both injured a *lot* in college. They were both high-maintenance, high-speed sports cars.

Metcalf will likely go in the first round, but Hall might still be available in the third or fourth. It’s hard to ignore his injuries — he either missed or left injured in nine of Missouri’s 26 games in 2017-18 — but in his last 13 complete games, he caught 61 passes for 1,358 yards. His per-catch averages are what you would typically see from a wide receiver in a triple-option system, averaging two targets per game, not a No. 1 option in a prolific SEC attack.

To be sure, Hall struggled with drops at times and with injuries even more. But when healthy, he was college football’s best deep threat, and he backed up his stats with a 4.39 40 times this spring. He isn’t the absurd physical specimen the 6’3, 228-pound Metcalf is, but at 6’2, 201, he’s not small either.

Sleeper No. 3: The 5’10 red zone master

Out of curiosity, I wanted to look at some situational stats just to see what it might tell us about this year’s prospects. I figure there are two particular “situations” where a receiver can provide a large amount of extra value: red-zone passing and blitz downs.

First, the red zone. For the purposes of my advanced stats, I tend to use my own red zone definition: the opponent’s 40-yard line and in, not the 20. Why? Two main reasons. First, I’m anti-social. It is what it is. Second, and more importantly, good offenses tend to distinguish themselves more if we stretch out the bounds a bit. The difference in scoring averages between good and bad offenses inside the 20 isn’t really all that wide a range, but if the playcalling usually begins to change as a team approaches the opponent’s 30, then stretching out the definition helps to better distinguish between good and bad.

It evidently helps to distinguish good receivers from bad, too.

I’m not even sure you can call Hunter Renfrow a sleeper at this point after his standout Senior Bowl performance, but he’s still projected to go in the fourth round or so, so I say he qualifies.

Either way, through his four seasons, Renfrow went from complementary possession man to All-American once Clemson started getting close to the end zone. He scored probably the most famous touchdown catch in Clemson history on a two-yard throw, after all.

The saying goes you need a nice, big-bodied target to score in the red zone. This list could not push back harder on that truism. Metcalf, the biggest of big-bodied receivers, had the second-worst red zone catch rate and the worst per-target average of the group. David Sills V, another big body, scored an absurd number of touchdowns in college (33 in 2017-18) but required a metric ton of targets to pull it off. Notre Dame’s 6’4 Miles Boykin was also on the low end of the catch rate equation here.

Meanwhile, Renfrow was by far the most efficient here, proving mesh does what we think fade routes do in the red zone. Hollywood Brown, the second-best of the bunch from a catch rate perspective, is 5’10 as well. A.J. Brown and Terry McLaurin are 6’0, Terry Godwin 5’11.

In fact, the only big body near the top of this list is that of Tennessee RB-turned-Baylor WR Jalen Hurd.

Granted, part of this is the type of passes being thrown. Fade routes are, by nature, low-percentage passes — most of the draw of them is knowing either your guy is going to catch it or it’s going to fall incomplete. But it’s not Renfrow’s or Brown’s fault that other offensive coordinators were calling inefficient plays.

One final reminder: A.J. Brown was Ole Miss’ No. 1 receiver

I define blitz downs as the downs in which the run-pass rate skews extremely pass-heavy. The college and pro definitions there are different, but for the college level, it’s first- or second-and-22 or more and third- or fourth-and-5 or more. Those are the downs in which college defenses can safely try to tee off on the quarterback.

Here are prospects’ catch rates and yardage averages on blitz downs.

Because of Ohio State’s screen-heavy ways, Parris Campbell had a lovely 72 percent catch rate on blitz downs but didn’t average as many yards per target as others. Emanuel Hall was a great “lob a 50-50 ball down the sideline” guy, and Hollywood Brown was even more dominant in these key situations than in others.

One name stands out in particular, though, and not in a good way: D.K. Metcalf was absolutely, positively awful on blitz downs.

Let me rephrase: on the downs in which the offense needed its playmakers to most step up, Metcalf was not only mediocre — he was horrid. He caught one of four blitz-down passes and generally went nowhere with them. His battery mate DaMarkus Lodge didn’t do much either.

No, when Ole Miss quarterbacks — be it Shea Patterson (before he transferred to Michigan) or Jordan Ta’amu — needed a completion, they knew to go to A.J. Brown. He not only provided pretty easy pitch-and-catch opportunities out of the slot, he also actually did something with those catches.

That should mean something, shouldn’t it? Metcalf is an exciting downfield threat and looks extraordinary with his shirt off. But he’s like a one-pitch reliever — an intimidating, Lee Smith-level one, for sure, but still a reliever. Brown was the staff ace. (And, to be fair, is not exactly chopped liver as a specimen.)

Drafting on potential is great, but Brown has potential and was a proven producer. Based on what we know about each, it’s absurd Metcalf will probably go before Brown in the draft.