LOGIN

Is it me or are a lot of guys injured? Normally, I’d have some little cutsie intro to get into the carnage but sheesh, man! I don’t know about you but I’m getting killed out here! I actually sprained my right knee on a fishing boat last weekend and was listed as limited but here I am, dammit.

When I see the players I roster in person someday, I’m gonna tell them: If I can man up and type up a bunch of nonsense about fake football with a ligament injury, well then YOU GOTTA PLAY TOO, YOU BIG BABY!

As you can tell, this has been a tough week. Between my injury, all the injuries on my fantasy teams, and what’s happening to my Raiders… Well, we’ll get into that last part later.

And to add to the prevailing roster chaos we have our first bye week of the year! See you next week Jets, Falcons, 49ers, and Saints!

Let’s segue right into Sunday morning with an Intra-Florida showdown in London.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

There are a handful of players I fell in love with combing through college production data that the NFL didn’t seem too keen on. My process is outlined here but breakout age, receptions per game and top 3 round NFL draft capital remain important pillars in my prospect evaluation.

The following 3 players met one or more of my thresholds but fell very short of being a day 2 selection in the NFL draft. I wanted to dig deeper and watch some tape to see if the NFL missed something or if I did.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Welcome to the back half of my top 30 rookie WRs! Kudos to the degenerates reading this, as you’re obviously in a deep dynasty format. If you’ve been following my offseason process, you know what I look for when ranking prospects. If you are a first timer please check out this article explaining my general rationale. 

Additionally, you can see the ascent and decline of various WRs since February with my pre-combine rankings and post-combine rankings

There are some major shakeups now that we know draft capital and landing spot. There were some bubble guys that got surprising draft capital and some late round picks falling into nice situations that got a bump. After the 3rd round, I weigh draft capital a little less round to round. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The back end of my WR rankings for 2020 include some crushes that I hoped would have generated some buzz at the combine but didn’t, plus one athletic freak that caught everyone’s eye but I still have doubts about. 

In the pre-combine top 30 rookie wide receiver rankings I laid out the key factors I was looking for and why I ranked the players where I did. As a follow up I am now adjusting based on new information such as body mass index (BMI), athletic testing and overall post-combine buzz coming out of Indianapolis. 

There was a lot of movement within the WR rankings because so many players are very close and small details can cause big ripples. I did penalize the players who did not run at the combine because I think in a class so tight, that will matter on draft day, impacting projected draft round.  

A Word About BMI

Numberfire ran a nice study in 2015 and their conclusion was “If we’re talking absolute, elite production, your best bet is more than likely a tall wide receiver, and a heavy one, too.” The correlation was fairly weak, but in general bigger WRs had more success. The study found that the average BMI for WRs that scored 10+ touchdowns was 27.09 and the average BMI declined in groups with less touchdowns. While that was from 2015, this past season saw 10 of the top 12 WR finishers in points per game had a BMI of >26.5 and 7 of them had a BMI >27.

Only DJ Chark (24.1) came in under 26.  I don’t think it’s linear, as in a 28 BMI is better than a 26.5, but I do think a threshold is probably needed. Most WRs at the combine hit at least 26 because that’s just the typical pool of NFL players. This year is odd because the top 2 consensus WRs did not register a 26, but draft capital cures a lot of ills. The lesser known players that didn’t get to 26 got dinged for me because their draft slot was already tenuous. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Welcome to the back end of my top 30 rookie WRs. Because you are reading this, I already have mad respect for you as I know only the deepest degenerates want to know who the incoming WR30 is. As stated in my initial post, I used receptions per game in college, along with breakout age and projected draft capital to rank this class. 

Most of these guys have a small chance of getting drafted high enough to be projected as a fantasy star, but they all have something interesting to keep an eye on! For those that didn’t read the WRs 1-15 article, I explained some of the methodology below. Otherwise, skip to the list!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It is hard enough to pick the right fantasy WRs in a given season, even with years of NFL production under their belt. It is much more challenging to select a rookie to bolster your dynasty roster. Even with all the fantastic resources via Twitter, ranging from film junkies to data nerds, picking the next stud WR feels like a shot in the dark. There are some things we do know about college prospects that can guide us through these muddy waters:

Please, blog, may I have some more?