WR Prospects have Shrunk

Author: Billy Jones

Introduction

Hey football analytics fam, welcome back to my blog where I write about my football analytics studies! As we march towards the NFL draft, I'm excited to continue diving into NFL athletic testing data. Last week, I explored Los Angeles Chargers' GM Tom Telesco's preference for drafting bigger wide receivers. In this week’s blog I am taking a different perspective and performing some analytics on wide receivers drafted in recent memory (or projected to be drafted for the 2023 class) at a more macro level. This was a fun study, and I am excited to share my results so let's get started!

Ground Rules

Before we jump into the analytics, I would like to remind the readers of the ground rules we will be playing with. The data used for this analysis was obtained from draft and combine data from Pro-Football-Reference for 2011 through 2022, filtered to wide receivers in rounds 1 through 5. However, not all drafted players attend the combine, so to fill in the gaps, I used data from NFLFastR roster data. I wanted the Combine data to be the default as it's closer to when players were drafted. Additionally, I want to note that this study is only looking at wide receivers as classified in the draft but there may have been a few instances where these receivers became tight ends. Someone like Darren Waller was drafted at 6’6” 238lb but was classified as a wide receiver. These players were left in the population, but I wanted to note it for transparency.

For the 2023 prospects, I selected 36 players expected to be drafted in the range for our analysis in the upcoming NFL draft based on projected draft capital from WalterFootball. While your favorite prospect may not be included the pool below seems reasonable based upon the various mock drafts and big boards I have seen. 

Visualizations and Analysis

With that now explained, let’s get into the data. In the first set of visualizations, I will be looking into if there have been any trends in the wide receiver prospect landscape in recent years. 

Analysis: In the past three years, from 2021 to 2023, there has been a noticeable shift in the wide receiver prospect population. The data reveals a trend towards shorter and lighter receivers, as evidenced by the average height and weight per draft year, as well as the individual player height and weight graphics. This shift seems to align with recent rule changes in the NFL that have emphasized defensive pass interference calls, resulting in a more free-flowing game, and increased focus on player safety. These changes may have reduced the need for physically dominant receivers, our Big WR group, and instead favored smaller, quicker players who can be schemed open and excel in a more fluid game.

Now that we have seen that the wide receiver prospect profile has shifted, let’s take a look at the players from the 2023 draft that meet the Big WR criteria. First, we will need to define what a Big WR is, and we are going to use the population distributions of height and weights to help us do this. In my mind I came in with the preconceived notion that a Big WR would be defined as 6’2” and 210 lbs. or greater and by reviewing these visuals below we can use data to either validate or adjust the parameters as needed.

Analysis: The distributions visuals show normal distributions for both height and weight. Additionally, the Big WR parameters seem reasonable from these visuals (6’2” results in 78.62% percentile for height and 210 lbs. results in 71.05% percentile for weight). This combination of filters narrows down the pool to 70 remaining players, which is 23% of the initial 304-player population. If the thresholds were reduced just a little to 6’1” and 200 lbs., this would filter would narrow down to 130 players (42.8% of the population) that met the criteria. For the intention of this blog, I am looking for elite size, not just above average size, and therefore 6’2” and 210 lbs. is what I will be rolling with.

So which players in this year’s draft meet the 6’2” and 210 lbs. profile? There are 7 wide receivers in this draft that meet the criteria, of which only 3 received a 3rd round or better grade from WalterFootball. These 7 wide receivers combine testing data is presented below along with the combine testing data for all players that met the Big WR criteria from 2017-2022 for comparison.

Analysis: There are two physical profiles that standout to me, Jonathan Mingo and Bryce Ford-Wheaton. Both are clear big body receivers, 6’2” 220 lbs. and 6’4” 221 lbs. respectively, while posting above average (shown as shades of blue) athletic testing metrics for Big WRs. Both have their concerns, Mingo with his ordinary college production and Ford-Wheaton with his limited route tree, but I am excited to see where they will land in the draft and if someone takes a shot on their physical traits earlier than projected.

Honorable Mention: Quentin Johnston. QJ would have qualified as a Big WR based upon his pro-day weight of 212 lbs. vs. 208 lbs. at the combine. For some reason QJ thought it was better to skip the athletic testing while coming in lighter at the combine vs heavier at his pro-day. I am sure the pro level athlete knows what he is doing but seems odd to me from the outside. 

Conclusion

This concludes the Big WR blog. The analysis of the wide receiver prospect landscape from the 2011 through 2023 NFL drafts may have revealed a shift towards shorter and lighter receivers in recent years. Is this signal or noise? Only time will tell but I am excited to see if this will hold true in a year from now with the 2024 draft class. I hope you found this analysis clear and insightful and stay tuned for my next blog where I continue the Justin Fields series! 

*This blog post was enabled by ChatGPT. The text was generated by me, and the content is my own, but some sentences and wording were provided by the model. I take full responsibility for all information produced in this blog. More information about OpenAI and their technology can be found at https://openai.com.*