Wr-3 Plus
Meggan Shankman
Our goal is to identify the top rookie prospects based on data points that correlate most with future NFL production. I have been working on NFL rookie models for the last three years, and over that time, I have studied and measured hundreds of predraft variables against future NFL production.
Football is a sport with countless dependencies played by notoriously unpredictable creatures known as human beings. When you add in plain old variance, you can see how this activity can become challenging. But that is what makes it so interesting, and it fuels me to test new ideas every offseason.
McConkey was not a super highly lauded recruit coming out of high school as a three-star WR, but he found his way into a sizable role at a strong program at Georgia. His expected draft capital has risen from Round 5 to a borderline Round 1 pick over the last nine months, making him one of the biggest climbers at the position.
McConkey redshirted as a freshman before earning playing time in his second year on the Georgia campus. He never earned a full-time role, and his highest route participation came as a redshirt sophomore, at 68%.
That said, McConkey was the third-best prospect in the class in the QB Rating Index, with a 79th-percentile score. If McConkey can land in the right situation with access to more playing time, he could have sneaky upside.
McConkey is my preferred prospect in this range. Tier 4 contains many players who have questions about their game. With McConkey, the question is whether he can earn a more prominent role at the next level.
Mitchell played his first two seasons at Georgia before transferring to Texas as a junior. Technically, he would grade out slightly higher if we gave him credit for being a Georgia recruit, but he was a three-star prospect.
Mitchell might be an uber-athletic specimen, but his athleticism never showed up in the way you would expect in his production profile. If he goes in the first round of the NFL Draft, his 35th percentile Adjusted Career RYPTPA would be the lowest on record. The average first-round pick is at the 65th percentile since 2018.
No other player is being propped up more by their projected draft capital than Mitchell. His hit rates with draft capital are far higher than without, so he needs the first-round capital to have any value.
Georgia initially recruited Burton, where he played for two seasons before transferring to Alabama. Technically, his Program Quality Index might need to come down, and we will look at it in the model next season for transfers.
It is encouraging that Burton graded out at the 63rd percentile in the QB Rating Index, which tells us he was a plus player on a per-target basis versus his peers. When we add it all up, we have a solid player in light of the team but showed upside when using his opportunities as the basis for evaluation.
Nothing guarantees future success, but George Pickens and Nico Collins possessed this interesting low-key combination and hailed from quality programs. Both have gone on to become factors at the NFL level despite neither securing elite draft capital as Round 2 and Round 3 selections.
Burton was a deep threat in college, with 28% of his targets coming 20-plus yards downfield. Unlike many of the other field stretchers in the tier, Burton exceeded expectations by 8% after adjusting for his aDOT of 16.9 yards.
Burton is free in best ball and dynasty formats, possibly making him the most important name in this tier. His post-draft grade in the WR Super Model is the least dependent of the group on his draft capital, and we have seen some players with his makeup find their way to success in the NFL, like Pickens and Collins.
However, Wilson is similar to McConkey in that on a per-target basis, he flashed, as we can see with his 75th-percentile Career Targeted QB Rating Index. Michigan passers enjoyed a 127.5 rating when locking onto Wilson.
Wilson saw 29% of his targets come on throws of 20-plus yards, nine percentage points above the NCAA WR average. He finished his career with a 14.1 aDOT, and similar to Adonai Mitchell, he performed below expectations in RYPTPA after accounting for target depth (-9%).
Historical data suggests that someone from this tier will surprise us and make noise in fantasy football. This profile has produced a top-24 finish in their first two seasons 25% of the time. However, figuring out which player it will be is the hard part.
The best part about Wilson is that he is priced the second-lowest out of the WRs in this tier, which makes him someone we can throw a dart at in drafts. You can get Wilson five rounds later than Mitchell, which is the type of arbitrage we want to exploit.
Program quality uses the draft capital value to determine the total value each collegiate program has contributed to the NFL Draft at the WR position since 2014. Those scores are then indexed to form the Program Quality Index.
WRs who come from stronger programs score better. Program quality has been a factor in the model before, but this is a better way of quantifying it. Additionally, this metric helps offset lower production numbers from WRs with more target competition.
However, RYPTPA tells us how a player performed in the context of their team, while targeted QB rating tells us how well a WR performed when targeted. That critical distinction allows these two metrics to work well together.
From 2000-2011 (two collective bargaining agreements ago, now that the latest one just passed a week ago) the average amount of underclassmen that entered the NFL draft was 49 players. Since 2012, that number is 89 with the past four years seeing over 100 players declare for early draft entry and a record-115 players declaring for early eligibility for this upcoming draft.
The table above is simple. There have been 313 total wide receivers selected over the past 10 draft classes. Of those 313 players, just 21.7% (68) have had at least one season as the WR36 or higher in PPR points per game thus far over their careers. 15.3% (48) have reached WR2 status or better while just 8.3% (26) of those players have had a WR1 season in points per game. The same rates for early and non-early declare wideouts are below those marks.
In a full drafted sample, the number of non-early declare wideouts more than double those who were afforded the opportunity to leave school early. With fewer overall players in the sample, At that surface level, early declares more than triple the hit rates of the non-early declares across the board in every arbitrary measure.
Success rates rise across the board on all levels, but heads up with nearly an identical player pool and equally relevant draft investment, early-declares are much more successful than their non-early declare peers. When we get to the higher-end scoring buckets, they more than double up on WR2-plus hit rates and triple up in elite WR1 scoring season rate.
Just 12-of-59 non-early declares above have produced a WR2-plus season with just six of those 12 players having multiple WR2-plus seasons to this stage of their career. Just five total have reached WR1 per game status.
What we can also do here is incorporate collegiate breakouts and production. Wideouts selected in the first three rounds of the draft are all typically successful decorated collegiate receivers. That includes the non-early declare group. Just seven of those 59 players above failed to have a collegiate breakout season with a 20% dominator rating over the entirety of their collegiate careers.
Looking at final year production entering the NFL draft, 39 of those 59 wideouts had a final season dominator rating of 30% or higher. 15 of those 39 have posted a WR3-level season with 11 at WR2-plus status and five at WR1 levels.
Going to the final lengths here and reducing our sample to just first-round players, the early declare wideouts dominate the sample. Again, we should give the NFL some credit here in their assessment of prospects.
The sample is our smallest, but success rates are the highest. A player selected highly is going to be given a chance to produce. Even under the assumption that many wideouts bust, half of these players have had a WR2 or better season with over a quarter turning in a WR1 season.
As for the early declares, all the numbers rise and once again dwarf the non-early declare group. The only player here from the non-early declare group to produce a WR2 or better season in points per game so far has been DeVante Parker a year ago in his fifth NFL season (and likely not for the team that drafted him in your rookie draft coming out).
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The Jets, using some of the "flexibility" that general manager Joe Douglas said they acquired in their three-picks-for-two trade with Minnesota on Thursday night, made another trade to move from high in Round 3 to the top of the round tonight and spent their second selection of the 2024 NFL Draft on WR Malachi Corley of Western Kentucky.
Corley saw increasing action in his four seasons with the Hilltoppers. The 5-11, 215-pound senior moved all around the offense and set the school record with 259 career receptions for 2,943 yards and 29 touchdowns. He was a starter his last three seasons and was named first-team All-Conference USA in his final two seasons.
He wasn't able to participate at the Combine due to injury, but a month later at his pro day, Corley wowed 31 of 32 NFL teams who sent representatives to observe him. He ran his 40s in the 4.45-4.47-second range and also put up a strong 4.26-second 3-cone drill.
"It's amazing," he told NFL Network's Total Access before the draft. "Coming from small-town Kentucky high school football and then even playing small-town college football at Western Kentucky, it feels amazing to have players who are Hall of Famers that I've modeled my game after who have appreciation for my game. That's something special."
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