1083: Wide Reciever Prospects Who Produced Like Studs

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I am Greg Rosenbough. I know that Greg. We're teaming up on 40s and free agents to podcast that owns the NFL off season. This is where teams are built. Free agency, combine, pro days, trade. Every move matters. From my draft boards and mock drafts. To my vaunted top 101 free agents and how rosters come together. Quarterback movement? Surprise signings. We'll tell you what it means and who really wins. Open your free I Heart radio app. Search for fours and free agents and listen now. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is the Lay-Round Podcast with your host, J.J. Zacharyson. J.J. Zacharyson. What's up everyone? It's J.J. Zacharyson. In this episode, 10-83 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the topic today, I just want to send another reminder that the Late Round Prospect Guide is currently available for pre-order and is better than ever. This year's guide includes an outline of what goes into the models, prospect profiles for every running back, wide receiver, and tight end who's going to be at the combine over 30 year two profile write-ups, rankings, and more. It'll launch in mid-March, so pre-order now for $14.99. It's going to rise to $19.99 in just a few weeks. You can learn more over on latround.com. Last week on the show, we talked through running backs in this year's draft class who produce like studs. Because there's some backstory to all of that, if you haven't listened to that episode, I'd pause this one, go to that episode, listen to it, and then come back here. We're going to go through that exact same exercise today, but with wide receivers. We're going to look at successful NFL wide receivers, see what kind of production traits they share in college, and then we'll see which players from this year's class the guys invited to combine, produce like studs. To find our stud sample at Running Mac, I looked at all running backs since 2011, who had multiple seasons with 14 or more ppr points per game. I then had to filter out running backs who weren't in the ZAP model because I don't have data for them. Like I said, if you didn't listen to the running backs episode, you probably are missing some context, but I think most would appreciate if I didn't repeat everything that I said last week. Anyway, I'll do the same thing at wide receiver, but looking at 15 ppr point per game seasons. So look at how many ZAP model wide receivers since 2011 had 15 or more ppr points per game in multiple seasons. Doing so gives me a stud sample of 35 wide receivers. They range from Pukin' Akua to T Higgins to Randall Cobb to Tyler Lockett to Julio Jones to Cooper Cup. It's a little bit of everything. Now, the wide receiver ZAP model has a ton of inputs, but the main production input, it's a metric that I call breakout score. It's predictive, it's tested, and it's all driven off of a player's receiving yards per team pass attempt rate, which is a metric that's intuitive. It's just a player's receiving yards divided by how many pass attempts this team had. Essentially, breakout score looks at every season the player played in. It looks at the receiving yards per team pass attempt rate that a player had in a given season, and then prorates that for games missed. For a season account, the wide out had to play at least six games. And then from there, it had just for strength of schedule. A player will get some multiplier whether good or bad based on his team's strength of schedule. Lastly, there's an age layer to it. A wide receiver who produces really well in schedule adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt to his young, he's gonna look better than someone who does the exact same thing when they're old. The degree in which that breakout happens, that's important too. You guys have probably seen the metric breakout age out there, while there is some predictiveness to it, to me, it's just outdated. It's a binary way of looking at a breakout and the metric that's being used in that metric in breakout age is dominator rating based on my research that's not the best metric that you can use for age-adjusted production. Breakout score is on a scale from zero to 100. 50 isn't exactly an average score or like a 50th percentile score, but just know that anything above that is pretty good. Anything in like the 80, 90 range, it's excellent. And for the record, the scaling for breakout score changed this year. The raw input and the model is the exact same, but I started to scale it a little bit differently for anyone who followed along last year. Now on today's show, I'll look at both breakout score and best season receiving yards per team pass attempt. Even though receiving yards per team pass attempt goes into breakout score, we'll see how these guys did in their best season in college, unadjusted for age, unadjusted for strength of schedule. Breakout score covers a lot of ground from a production standpoint within the ZAP model, but there's also an input for best season, age and schedule adjusted fantasy points per game. That's just fantasy points per game, adjusts for both strength of schedule and age. And that's in a season with a minimum six games played. We'll look at that metric too, even though it's not nearly as important in the model as breakout score. Within our stud sample of 35 wide receivers, the average breakout score was 68.1. The average best season receiving yards per team pass attempt was 3.03, and the average best season adjusted fantasy points per game, 25.1. Meanwhile, there were 46 wide receivers invited to the combine this year. Naturally, because all of those players aren't studs, their breakout score average is 31, significantly lower than the NFL stud sample. Their average best season yards per team pass attempt is 2.24. The stud sample was at 3.03, and their fantasy points per game, 16.2. Again, the stud sample over 25. Each number is a whole lot lower than that stud average, but that's not a surprise. Now, I could just say, "Okay, here's who produced like a stud. Here's who hit all of the stud sample averages." But I think going through each metric and shouting out some players who do have some red flags within those metrics, that's helpful, that's useful. It also allows me to talk through this class as sort of a primer. So let's start with breakout score, the most important metric in the Zat model, by far. The vast majority of this year's class is below that 68 mark from the NFL stud sample. But let's look at some names that are well below that, and who currently project as fairly high draft picks according to NFLMockDraftDatabase.com. I'll call out guys who are under the 40 mark in breakout score, and keep in mind, only Cooper Cup, Michael Thomas and Tyree Kill had breakout scores that low in college in the stud NFL sample. And the only reason cups was that low was because of strength of schedule adjustments. Now, I've got five call outs here. Let's start with Zachariah Branch. I'm not gonna lie. I think Branch is the exact type of player that NFL teams get wrong all the time. He'll probably crush the combine this week. He'll see his draft capital rise. But there are a lot of red flags. He's a smaller wide receiver who played a lot of slot at both USC and Georgia. But he ended up with just a 31.2 breakout score. According to PFF data, almost 46% of his career targets came behind the line of scrimmage. If he goes in the top 100 picks, he'll be the 11th player drafted in that range since 2020 with the career behind the line of scrimmage target rate above 30%. Remember, he was almost at 46%. He'd be the first one over 40%. The players who he joined, you do have Wando Robinson and Luther Burton, but both of those players had breakout scores above 75th. The other players are Lynn Bowden, a Marley Rogers, Anthony Schwartz, Caderius Tony, Rondell Moore, Vailess Jones, Trey Tucker, and Malachai Corley. Which by the way, I just mentioned his name, but rest in peace, Rondell Moore. I, like many of you, have been thinking about that a lot since the news broke. And so, I think that the purpose of his friends and family can find some calmness through what's just a straight up tragedy. And it wouldn't be right for me to call out his name today and not recognize what happened over the weekend. It's just horrific. If anyone's struggling out there, please reach out and get some help. And my email is always open too. Now, it's hard to move on from a topic like that, but again, I couldn't just say his name and ignore the news. But let's shift our focus back to the research for this episode. The research's career yards came on screens. Among top 100 picks since 2020, only two other wide receivers saw 30% of their career yardage totals come from screens. Malachai Corley and Anthony Schwartz. This is just a gadget-y type archetype that's burned teams in the past. And it really, really scares me. History is not on Zachariah Branch's side. Now, another player who I probably like best from a value standpoint out of this group of five with bad breakout scores is Skylar Bell. He's an older prospect that's also a red flag. He's a little undersized. But he played both inside and out during his five years in college. He played it Wisconsin and then he transferred to Yukon. And his perimeter yard per out run was actually better than his slot yard per out run. Now, Bell's breakout score is only about 22 because he didn't hit his peak until he got to Yukon. But the Zat model doesn't totally mind him because there's a little bit of versatility to his profile. And he should be able to align across the formation. The third player with a breakout score red flag is Malachai Fields. Fields has OK comps in the prospect guide and in the model. But I do have my concerns. His breakout score is 33.6. His best season in yards per out run ranks 34th among 46 wide receivers in this class. His career yards per out run is under two yards. I have this in the guide, but I'll just read it because it helps tell the analytical story here. It says, "If Fields is selected on day two as projected, he'll need to buck recent history. Since 2020, only nine wide receivers draft between picks 33 and 100 post the best season yards per out run below 2.3. Fields fall short of that threshold as you just read. That group includes loads and loads of draft bus. Van Jefferson, Josh Palmer, Jonathan Mingo, Keon Coleman, Ad9 Mitchell, Jalen Polk, Luke McCaffrey, Savion Williams, and Isaac Tesla. So chances are, if the market is aligned with draft capital with Fields, I'll be lower than the market." Next on this list of questionable breakout scores is Jacobi Lane. Now, he fortunately has early declared status in his favor. And he played with McCoy Lemon, so his teammate score looks pretty good. More on Lemon later. But his breakout scores 35.9, that's below average. He's got a really long frame. He was first in this class and career contested target rate. Now, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. But of the players who have been successful with that kind of contested target rate out of day two in the past, they've come with better breakout scores. I don't think Lane is a terrible prospect, but the age-adjusted production could definitely be better. And then lastly, Xantonio Williams. NFL mock-drap database has Williams as a day two selection at the moment. And as I say in the guide, he just has a really weird production profile. He was consistently productive throughout his time at Clemson. But he never gave us a really high end season. His breakout score was 38.4, despite the fact that he gave us some production immediately in college. His best season in receiving arts' per team pass attempt, though, was never above 1.7. That's a problem. There have only been seven Zat Model wideouts who had 12 or more PPR points per game in one of their first three seasons with a max rate below 2.0. He's at 1.7. He's a versatile player, so not all hope is lost. And that's why Curtis Samuel was one of his early comps in the Zat Model. But it's not the kind of profile that I generally heavily invest in. Now, speaking of yards per team pass attempts, let's just focus on that metric now. Clearly, of the guys that I just talked about, they probably have that metric as a red flag too, because yards per team pass attempt feeds into breakout score. But there are four more players I want to talk about here. The first one's the biggest name in the group, and that's Casey Conceptsion. To be very clear, first and foremost, the Model Lice Conceptsion. I think he's a good prospect. There's a very real chance he gets the Elite Producer Tag in that model if he ends up going where he's projected to go in the draft. He's an early declare, so he didn't get to play that final collegiate season. And that's a reason that his max season in yards per team pass attempt is 2.25. That's just the 20th best max season mark in the class. And as we know, it's well below the stud sample average. The stud sample only had four wide receivers, Tyree Kill, Niko Collins, Aminaross St. Brown, and Randall Cobb, with a max season yards per team pass attempts as lows conceptions. Funny enough, the Model Things Randall Cobb is actually a pretty good comp form. But the reason this doesn't matter that much for the Zat Models because Conceptsion produced every year of his collegiate career, so his breakout score, it raced in the 76% tile. There's no reason to be worried about this in my opinion, but it's worth the call out. Jeremy Bernard had a pretty similar receiving yards per team pass attempt as Conceptsion. But Bernard didn't have the same early career success. He only really gave a strong production when he transferred to Alabama as a junior. Something kind of interesting about Bernard, though, from a production standpoint, is that he spent his sophomore year at Washington in 2023. If you recall, that was the season they had Michael Penix, Roma Dunesay, Jalen Polk, Jalen McMillan, and Denzel Boston. Who's a 2026 draft hopeful, a potential first round pick? On that team with all that competition, Bernard cut 34 passes. Boston for what is worth, he caught five. And Bernard had 13 rush attempts for 43 yards. It can't be a bad sign that he was seeing some production for that team. But overall, Bernard's profile isn't totally complete. He had a 1.9 career yards per run rate, that's not what we want to see. And he saw a lot of targets behind the line of scrimmage. He can be pretty dynamic. You just have to question how that translates. I don't mind him right now, though. He's definitely someone to watch. And by the way, just as a total aside, today's analysis on the individual players, it's just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the prospect guide actually offers. I'm just trying to touch on as many guys as quickly as I possibly can here. There's a ton more detail within that guide. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenbach. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stopped. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency. The combine. The NFL draft pro days trades. This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money on 40s and free agents. We break down every move that actually matters. For my draft evaluations, mock drafts and team fits to my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. We got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. Well, I'm about to smart, but definitely analysis. Listen to 40s and free agents on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or ever. You get your podcasts. Okay, next on this list with yard-protein past tense concerns is Ted Hurst. Not to be confused with Fred Durst. Hurst went to Georgia State. He's getting some love in the draft community. But the Zat model isn't showing him the same kind of love. He had a top 10 deep ball rate in this class. He has a lot of length. I see him in sort of that darius slate and archetype. Another one could be like a Ted's Walker in Baltimore. But he had an okay breakout score of 42. And it's kind of crazy that at Georgia State, his receiving yard-protein past tense marks never got above 2.14. Only three wideouts from the stud sample were that low. I get the allure with a player like him and maybe something that big playability will translate. But I see him as pretty volatile. And then the last one to call out here is Omar Cooper, one of the Indiana guys. Cooper had an okay breakout score of 41.7 and his top year in yard-protein past attempt was just 2.31. Fortunately though, that got boosted by strength of schedule. The model actually really likes him for his versatility. He's getting Debo Samuel and Rishi Rice type comps. That shows that he might be good after the catch in the NFL. So it's a flag for Cooper, but I do like him. Now lastly, we have adjusted fantasy points per game in a player's top season. The stud average was over 25. And there are two guys, Chris Brasel and Denzel Boston, who are under the 20 mark. I'll be it barely. Now this metric doesn't get a ton of love in the model, but I figured I'd just say with the model things about both these guys who have volatile profiles. Boston's probably more interesting to talk about because he's projected to go in round 1. But his breakout score was 43.8. And I have this in the prospect guide to give you guys some context about what that means for a first rounder. Which is where he's currently projected to go. I wrote, "Within the Zat model database among wide receivers who played at least three NFL seasons, 12 were drafted in round 1 with a breakout score between 30 and 60, and Boston sits in the lower half of that band." That list includes, Taven Austin, Brasad Paramann, Kevin White, Philip Doriset, Josh Doxon, Laquan Tredwell, John Ross, Mike Williams, Calvin Ridley, Henry Ruggs, Caderius Tony, and Zay Flowers. So it's not great. I think Boston has a great deal of upside, but he also has a great deal of downside. On one end of the comp's spectrum, you have Cortland Sutton. On the other, you have Kevin White. And then with Brasel, the dude has a lot of length, and he can do work down the field. Though his production profile is solid, it's not like excellent. Just like Boston, we're seeing a wide range of comps. Christian Watson's the top one, but then Terrace Marshall and Denzel Mims, they also show up. Brasel's pretty interesting, though I do always worry about production out of Tennessee, which is where he went to school. So those are the big callouts. I know I went through a lot of names, and I still have more that I didn't talk about. You're probably wondering which wide receivers met all three stud sample thresholds for these metrics. And I can tell you that only one wide receiver in this class hit all three of them. More on him in a second. First, a handful of names who didn't get there who we didn't talk about yet. And just one or two things about each of these players. And Kai Lemon. He's not that one player. He's not the guy who hit all three averages. The more I researched lemon, the more I liked him. Some are going to call him a slot receiver. They're going to comp him to Aminara St. Brown, which might partially be due to the fact that they both played at USC. I think ARSB though is not a bad comp, because Lemon should be able to do what Aminara St. Brown has done, which is played inside out in the NFL. Lemon ran more than 75% of his routes from the slot in college, but get this. Lemon posted the best career perimeter yards per out run rate in this year's class. That's according to PFF data. That's among all combine invites. Now that was on just 161 routes out wide, but I think that should give us a little bit more confidence about his transition to the NFL. The Zat model likes lemon. Now many would say there's a big three in this class with lemon, carnaltate, and Jordan Tyson. One of those three is the winner here. And I'll talk about the other guy who's not towards the end. Instead, let's shift our focus to Elijah Serrat. What an incredibly interesting profile in JourneyFran. He started out at St. Francis as a zero star recruit. He transferred to James Madison, and then he moved to Indiana with Coach Signetti. And across his three non-Saint Francis seasons, he had adjusted receiving ARSB team past temperates between 2.58 and 2.75. Again, that's adjusted for strength of schedule. He's one of three wide outs in this class with multiple seasons above 2.5. And he's the only one with three seasons over that mark. He had a solid production profile across the board. The only questionable thing about his profile might be separation. He had a high contested target rate, which update to wide receivers over the last five years. High contested target rates has just brought a lot of high variance results. It can range from the Terrace Marshall and Keon Coleman and Denzel Mims types to T Higgins and Niko Collins. I'll probably be more in than out on Serrat. That's at least where I'm at right now. Chris Bell is another bigger-bodied perimeter guy who didn't quite have numbers worthy enough calling out negatively on today's show. But they're not fantastic across the board either. His final season is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for him because he had a 2.59 yards per team past attempt rate. When adjusted for strength of schedule that translated to 2.72. But I'm telling you guys, these day two perimeter wide receivers with bigger frames, average to above average production profiles, they just give a lot of volatile outcomes. But Bell had an OK breakout score of 48. He's big. He should be able to play on the outside for a team in the NFL. He did tear his ACL though late in 2025. That makes his draft capital projection a lot more questionable. I don't totally mind him as a prospect, but I do like Serrat more. And then one random wide receiver to call out here. Eric McAllister. He went to TCU and yes, TCU wide receivers have absolutely burned the crap out of us in fantasy football over the last five years or so. The nice part with McAllister is that we don't have to pay that much to acquire him more than likely. And his breakout score is 75. That's the second best breakout score in this year's class. Of all the TCU wide receivers who have come out since 2020, we're talking Jalen Rager, Darius Davis, Quentin Johnson, Savian Williams, Jack Besh, McAllister has the second best breakout score only behind QJ. And it's barely behind QJ. One thing to keep in mind though is that within the model, and just in general, breakout score is far more predictive for early round picks than late round picks. I mean, even when you get to like round five, round six, draft capital itself isn't very predictive. So McAllister's age adjusted production is really good. But we're gonna want to see draft capital follow. And I don't think that's gonna happen. Just keep an eye on him throughout this process. He's got a Tory Horton comp and I think the median outcome forum could be like a Cedric Wilson type. That's not a bad, bad median outcome for a day three wide receiver. Okay, so after all of that, after me going through a ton of wide receivers, there are two obvious ones that I haven't talked about. Carnell Tate and Jordan Tyson. One of those two did meet all of the averages within the stud sample. And it's not Carnell Tate. Tate's a really good prospect though. He's a little bit thin that scares me a little bit. And if you're comparing him to the other Ohio state wide receivers to come out over the last five years or so, his breakout score is lowest at 65.3. But 65.3 is still an 86% tile number. He played strongly on the perimeter. That should help him stay on the field as a pro. And look, if he gets top 16 draft capital, we know the odds are really, really strong. He didn't force a ton of mistakels per catch, but I think Tate is a really well-rounded wide receiver in this class. Jordan Tyson, he's him. According to the Zat model. Tyson has a breakout score of 95. That's a 99th percentile breakout score. And it's because of his 2024 season, which was bonkers. His pro-rated receiving arts-protein pass attempt was 3.36. That was adjusted even higher when adjusted for strength of opponent. And then when adjusted, his fantasy points per game was almost 26. I'll just share this tidbit from the prospect guide to give you an idea of how the model is viewing Tyson. He says, if Tyson lands as a top 20 selection as currently projected, he'd join an exclusive group of 9 Zat model wide receivers with a breakout score above 90 and top 20 draft capital. Mike Evans, Sammy Watkins, Amari Cooper, Corey Davis, CD Lam, Jamar Chase, Chris Alave, Jackson Smith and Jigba, and Malik neighbors. So yes, we've seen some misses within that group. But that's a whole lot of studs. And CD Lam right now is Tyson's top statistical comp. I'm very likely going to have Jordan Tyson as the wide receiver won in this class. But that's not shade to some of the other guys. I think Carl and I'll take Makai Lemon are really good. And I understand that people don't want to put Tyson up there because he has injury concerns. Even Casey Concepcion, in my opinion, he kind of forms a tear below them. I think he's really good. And then I just think the sheer number of decent wide receivers in this class, maybe not analytically excellent, but decent. Just the sheer number of them means that we're going to see hits from other guys in this group. It's a pretty good wide receiver class overall. I think Dynasty managers should be relatively excited for it. That's it for today's show. Though thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it. Pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Remember to tune into the YouTube channel, youtube.com/atlateroundff on Wednesday at New Eastern. David Kitchen to myself, we're going to talk about year two wide receivers and some comps for those players. Otherwise, everyone, I'm back in your ears later this week for that show once it hits your podcast feed, but also another episode of Late Round Perspectives. I'll talk to you then. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I am Greg Rosenthoff. I know that Greg. Free agency, combine, pro days, trades, every move matters. From my draft boards and mock drafts to my vaunted top 101 free agents and how rosters come together. Quarterback movement, surprise signings. Open your free iHeart radio app, search for these free agents and listen now. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.