After a spectacular collegiate career at East Carolina in which he set the FBS record for most catches (399), wide receiver Zay Jones had a tough transition to the NFL during his rookie season with the Buffalo Bills.

He went from dominating opponents on Saturday’s to being ruthlessly criticized on Sunday’s by countless Bills’ fans.

In today’s day and age, where there are more mock drafts than one can read and nearly everyone suddenly believes they’re a draft pundit, the bar for immediate success seems to be set at a more unattainable level than ever before.

In the NFL, and in Buffalo, fans have a false notion that nearly every skill player will come out of college performing on the level occupied by Odell Beckham Jr. or Julio Jones and suddenly become a show-stopper. But cases like those are the outliers and not the norm. Throwing a player into an equation doesn’t all of the sudden solve quarterback problems or offensive scheming issues.

While it would be ideal if every skill position immediately became contributors to their respective offenses from Day One, that simply isn’t the case – and we used Pro-Football-Reference’s Play Index tool in order to identify wide receivers that are now all but household names, but statistically struggled during their rookie seasons, as Jones did.

Premier wideouts such as Jordy Nelson, Golden Tate and Demaryius Thomas each struggled during their rookie years, failing to eclipse 400 receiving yards due to a lack of chemistry with their new quarterback. And coincidentally – Jones racked up more yards than two of the three players listed.

When The Bills Wire’s editor, Robert Quinn, spoke with Jones’ father on The Bills Wire Podcast, he gave some perspective and some clarity on just what it was like for Jones and how that criticism may have been bestowed unfairly upon him.

“Here’s a guy that’s going into surgery on Tuesday to get his shoulder repaired and people hardly knew that he played the entire season with, you know, a torn labrum,” said Robert Jones.

He then directed a question back to you, the reader, on how you would feel to receive that criticism when you’re working your hardest, knowing that one drop or one miscue with a bum shoulder could leave you ostracized by your own fan base.

“So how would you like sitting around and you’re going to grab a glass of water and your arm falls out of its socket?”

With the injury aside, Jones could be someone that thrives in Buffalo’s new offense. New offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and the Erhardt-Perkins system he will most likely deploy will help out a smaller, quicker receiver like Jones. Think Julian Edelman. The system takes advantages of mismatches to exploit the defense, something Jones did at East Carolina University when he snuck by linebackers and set the FBS record for most receptions in a career.

At the end of the day, even if Jones still has Tyrod Taylor under center, the system works in a way to simplify success. Fans often criticized the Bills’ quarterback for not making checks at the line and now he could be in a system that depends on checks at the line with mismatch makers lined up such as Kelvin Benjamin, LeSean McCoy, and Zay Jones.

For Jones, history and the system are on his side. In 2018 and possibly beyond, he’s primed to turn some heads and make some noise in the NFL. He could see great sophomore success when the others slump.