ZWK's 2019 Prospect Analysis (1 Viewer)

Ilov80s said:

I agree with that but I think Ridley owners have an inflated idea of what he’s going to be. Just like Shep holders did after his 700/8 rookie year.

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Some people may have thought highly of Sterling Shepherds 6.5 yards per target as a rookie. That is on the low end of the spectrum for a WR though.

Shepherd has a career ypt of 7.7 which is better but still below average.

Calvin Ridley had 8.9 yards per target in his rookie season. This is significantly better than Shepherds career ypt and his very low ypt as a rookie.

My ratings come from formulas in a spreadsheet, so they do take each piece of information into account consistently for each player.

By the numbers that I have at this stage, Humphrey has better production, better size, better athleticism, and younger age than Harmon. All 4 factors in the same direction add up, though it's mostly about the production & size.

Age: Humphrey born 4/19/98, Harmon born either 5/30/97 or 12/16/97
Athleticism: Draftscout has Humphrey estimated at a 4.50 forty and Harmon at 4.54
Size: Draftscout has Humphrey estimated 1.6" taller
Production: Humphrey had more TDs & TD market share; other things roughly cancel out (Harmon had more yards but Humphrey had a larger market share, Harmon had a slightly higher yards per target, but Humphrey had a higher YPT relative to teammates, etc.)

ZWK said:

My ratings come from formulas in a spreadsheet, so they do take each piece of information into account consistently for each player.

By the numbers that I have at this stage, Humphrey has better production, better size, better athleticism, and younger age than Harmon. All 4 factors in the same direction add up, though it's mostly about the production & size.

Age: Humphrey born 4/19/98, Harmon born either 5/30/97 or 12/16/97
Athleticism: Draftscout has Humphrey estimated at a 4.50 forty and Harmon at 4.54
Size: Draftscout has Humphrey estimated 1.6" taller
Production: Humphrey had more TDs & TD market share; other things roughly cancel out (Harmon had more yards but Humphrey had a larger market share, Harmon had a slightly higher yards per target, but Humphrey had a higher YPT relative to teammates, etc.)

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I have to give you credit for staking out and sticking to positions that are far different than everyone else on both players, even though I respectfully think you are wrong about both.

FWIW, Harmon's DOB is the December date for sure

Ilov80s said:

LOL. I think he’s Sterling Shepherd 2.0 which is fine but I don’t think his upside is equal to his draft value/perceived dynasty value. I just seen him as more an NFL WR2 and fantasy WE2/3.

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Ilov80s said:

Good point. I didn’t mean similar in playing style so much as similar in career arc.

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This seems pretty fair to me.

JohnnyU said:

Ridley is a lot quicker than Shepherd and better YAC.  He also averaged over 15 yards per reception to Shepherd's 13.2.

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Quicker based on what? 
https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/sterling-shepard/
https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/calvin-ridley/

As for YPR, that could be a product of playing with Ryan vs. Eli. 

FF Ninja said:

This seems pretty fair to me.

Quicker based on what? 
https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/sterling-shepard/
https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/calvin-ridley/

As for YPR, that could be a product of playing with Ryan vs. Eli. 

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Ridley averaged 12.8 ypc, not over 15

Ilov80s said:

Ridley averaged 12.8 ypc, not over 15

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Good call. I just took it at face value and didn't even look it up. Thanks.

FF Ninja said:

Good call. I just took it at face value and didn't even look it up. Thanks.

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I did too untill I wanted to look closer at the 2 of them following your comments and noticed it wasn't accurate. 

Ilov80s said:

Ridley averaged 12.8 ypc, not over 15

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That is correct.  My mistake.  https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/R/RidlCa00.htm

JohnnyU said:

That is correct.  My mistake.  https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/R/RidlCa00.htm

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It’s ok, happens to us all

Is it a negligible difference between 6’3 and 6’5?  Or a deteriorating value that you place on that type of difference?  Cause if you’re 6’2”+ there really isn’t any advantage after that I’d think.  Or even a worse value for someone 6’6” unless they’re a godly athlete.  

I don’t know I just had a thought

This is reading a lot into a small sample size, but my impression is that if anything WR height matters more at the high end of the range: going from 6'3" to 6'5" helps more than going from 6'0" to 6'2". Since 2006, only 4% of the WRs at the combine (25 players) have measured 6'4.5" or taller, and this 4% has included Calvin Johnson, Mike Evans, Marques Colston, and Brandon Marshall.

Although maybe this means that Lil'Jordan isn't big enough to deserve so much of an extra boost.

ZWK said:

This is reading a lot into a small sample size, but my impression is that if anything WR height matters more at the high end of the range: going from 6'3" to 6'5" helps more than going from 6'0" to 6'2". Since 2006, only 4% of the WRs at the combine (25 players) have measured 6'4.5" or taller, and this 4% has included Calvin Johnson, Mike Evans, Marques Colston, and Brandon Marshall.

Although maybe this means that Lil'Jordan isn't big enough to deserve so much of an extra boost.

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So 4 hits out of 25. Is that different than the hit rate for lower heights? I have no idea, but that is the question that comes immediately to mind.

Just Win Baby said:

So 4 hits out of 25. Is that different than the hit rate for lower heights? I have no idea, but that is the question that comes immediately to mind.

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On average you'd expect 2 hits out of 25, if by "hit" we mean everyone at or above the level of Marvin Jones or Stevie Johnson. So this is 4 hits instead of 2, all well above the bar.

It does seem notable that all 3 of the FBS hits (Calvin, Evans, and Marshall) were well above the production threshold, and were rated as great prospects by my formulas even without any extra special boost for size.

More than those 4 guys, I was influenced by seeing guys like Kelvin Benjamin, Funchess, and DGB get drafted early, and Benjamin having early success in the NFL. I figured that the NFL might know something that I didn't. And given how TEs without great college production can succeed at the NFL, it seemed plausible that something similar might apply to big WRs. But maybe my size adjustment is overfitting. I do feel less confident in Humphrey than in guys who actually had that production.

That list of 4 does seem like a good sign for Hakeem Butler, whose production is also well above the threshold and who has a good chance of measuring in above 6'4.5".

Let's talk DK Metcalf and Emanuel Hall.

Two premier deep threats, who were around 14 YPT this year and made a bunch of big plays (they each had six 40+ yard receptions this year, tied for 11th most in college football, despite missing a bunch of games). Of course, that "missing a bunch of games" thing is not good news, on the whole, and means that their impressive production came on a relatively small sample size of games. And there are questions about how complete their games are (e.g., from PFF about Metcalf).

I see three notable differences between the two WRs: better production from Hall, 30 pounds for Metcalf, and Drew Lock vs. Jordan Ta'amu.

Starting with the production: In 2018, Hall & Metcalf were both premier deep threats with amazing efficiency numbers, but on a smallish sample size as they both missed games, and they haven't established themselves as guys who can run a complete route tree and win all over the field. Hall's 2018 numbers were 37/828/6 on 58 targets in 9 games, which is 14.2 YPT (2nd highest in the country) and 92 yards per game (similar to Marquise Brown & N'Keal Harry). Metcalf's 2018 numbers were 26/569/5 on 41 targets in 7 games (really more like 6.5), which is 13.9 YPT (4th highest in the country) and 81 (or 88) yards per game. Giving them credit for their pro-rated stats, my formula gives Hall the 3rd best production in 2018 and Metcalf the 8th best. Impressive numbers for both, though on a small sample size (especially for Metcalf).

Hall's 2018 followed a 2017 season where he had similarly amazing efficiency numbers, though on smaller (per-game) volume. His season totals - 33/817/8 on 59 targets, 13.8 YPT - were similar to his 2018, but spread across 13 games it was much less impressive. Still, it's a sign that his 2018 wasn't a fluke, and across the 2 years his 14.1 YPT was over a full yard ahead of anyone else. Metcalf was not as good in 2017 - his 646 yards and 8.7 YPT put him close behind teammate DaMarkus Lodge on both stats, and well behind the team's clear WR1 AJ Brown - although his 2017-18 combined efficiency numbers are still pretty good.

The exciting thing about Metcalf, and a reason to think he could develop into a more balanced star WR, is his prototypical size. He's estimated at 6'2.8" 230 lb., compared with Hall at 6'2.3" 195 lb. That's dangerously skinny for Hall, well below the 26.0 BMI threshold where I start to worry about receivers.

Hall did get to catch patches from Drew Lock, a likely first round QB with a nice deep ball, which likely inflated his numbers (in a way that my rating formula doesn't fully account for). And Metcalf had to share looks with likely first round WR AJ Brown, which likely suppressed his volume (in a way that my rating formula doesn't fully account for).

My WR rating formula has Hall & Metcalf both in the top tier of 8 WRs; the exact order is not that important since they're likely to shuffle around as we get more info but for now Hall is at #2 and Metcalf is at #4. The formula is very skeptical (correctly, I think) about receivers who look the part but don't have the production to match, which sounds like bad news for Metcalf, but it is impressed by his efficiency stats. And the formula is also extremely generous (too much, I think) about crediting players for per-game production when they miss games, which works in Metcalf's favor. I think it's right to have Metcalf in the top tier but not at #1; right now AJ Brown over Metcalf feels like an easy call for me, and I'd probably also put Metcalf behind some other guys like Harry & Butler. Hall's combine will be pretty important in my eyes - if he is below a 26.0 BMI that'll be a bad sign, especially if he fails to break 4.40 in the forty. But if he's not too skinny then I'll be inclined to rate him ahead of where NFL teams take him (though probably not as high as my formula rates him).

Hakeem Butler looks like a pretty exceptional WR.

As I wrote about earlier, it's rare for a WR to be both a high volume and high efficiency player, but Butler (and Isabella) pulled it off this year. Butler's 12.2 YPT was 10th in the country, and his 42% market share of his team's receiving yards was 5th in the country, and his 101 receiving yards per game (or 1318 total receiving yards) were 9th in the country. Defenses knew that Butler was the guy to stop, and he was still able to keep putting up big plays on them. Put these together with his other stats, and my formula has Butler as the most productive receiver this year, narrowly beating out Isabella and Hall.

Butler is also huge, estimated at 6'4.8" 225 lbs. I posted a few days ago about how big WRs have been overrepresented among superstars. A slightly different way to carve things up is to look at WRs who both were big and had reasonably good college production. If we use 6'4" and 210 lbs. as the cutoff for big (excluding the skinny guys like Justin Hunter as well as the not-very-tall) and use a career production score of 4.0 as the cutoff for good college production (which is roughly the cutoff that my WR rating formula has, insofar as it has something like a "cutoff", on a scale where 0 is average and Butler has a 10.5), then Butler is (likely to become) the 8th WR since 2006 who qualifies. Ranked by college production, they are:

Danario Alexander    Missouri    2010    (6'4.6", 215 lbs.)
Mike Evans    Texas A&M    2014    (6'4.8", 231 lbs.)
Hakeem Butler    Iowa State    2019    (est. 6'4.8", 225 lbs.)
Stephen Hill    Ga Tech    2012    (6'4.0", 215 lbs.)
James Hardy    Indiana    2008    (6'5.4", 217 lbs.)
Maurice Stovall    Notre Dame    2006    (6'5", 217 lbs.)
Calvin Johnson    Georgia Tech    2007    (6'5", 239 lbs.)
Brandon Marshall    Central Florida    2006    (6'4.5", 229 lbs.)

That's 3/7 studs, which is a pretty good hit rate, and within this group Butler is 3rd in production, tied for 4th in height, and 4th in weight - average or better. Some of these guys did have other strong signs about whether they'd be NFL stars which aren't captured here - Calvin Johnson's amazing athleticism, Stephen Hill's horrible hands, Danario Alexander's knee problems; that still leaves a couple stars (Evans & Marshall) and a couple busts (Hardy & Stovall). Pretty good company for Butler.

I think the biggest negative sign for Butler is the combination of his age and one-year-wonderness. His May 1996 birthday makes him one of the older WRs in this class, about a year older than average, and it's presumably easier to put up big numbers when you're a man among boys (bigger and older than most other players). At ages 20 and 21 he didn't do all that much on the field, with just 41/697/7 in 13 games in 2017 - if he's so talented, why couldn't he do more than that?

Another negative is that he wasn't much of a red zone threat, despite his size. This year he had just 2 red zone TDs; granted the Iowa State offense didn't make it to the red zone all that often, but 2 red zone receiving TDs is not in the top 100 and his 2/9 market share of team red zone receiving TDs is also below average. Though I didn't watch the tape - maybe he was getting double teamed a lot?

But on the whole Butler's profile is extremely impressive, and if I had to rank WRs without seeing other experts' evaluations then I'd probably have him at #2 behind AJ Brown.

It's time for another round of the bad news, good news game, this time featuring Marquise Brown.

Bad news: he currently ranks 10th in my overall WR prospect rankings, which is still in the "has a decent shot" range but well below the borderline NFL 1st rounder that he's being discussed as. 35 out of 45 1st rounder WRs since 2006 rated higher than he does, and the 10 who rate below him don't have a very good track record.

Good news: The main warning sign for rd 1-2 WRs is poor college production, and Brown's production is very good (middle-of-the-pack compared to 1st round WRs). WRs who had good college production, and are knocked down in my overall rating formula based on size/athleticism concerns, and still get drafted early have a pretty good track record (e.g., DeSean Jackson & Jarvis Landry). And that's the situation with Marquise Brown, who made 3 of the 4 receiving leaderboards that I posted earlier, ranking 5th in yards per team attempt and topping 12 YPT. And he has the second-highest 2017-18 2-year YPT (min 100 targets).

Bad news: Brown's production is less impressive than it looks, IMO, given that it came in Oklahoma's high-flying offense led by likely 1st round QB Kyler Murray (and previously Mayfield). It's impressive to have consecutive 12+ YPT seasons in 2017-18, but teammate CeeDee Lamb did too and Dede Westbrook had 14.7 YPT in 2016. Westbrook's 2016 numbers were much better than Brown's 2018 across the board, which is apparent even just comparing Westbrook's 80/1524/17 vs. Brown's 75/1318/10.

More bad news: BMI is one other stat that seems to be predictive even after accounting for draft position, and Marquise Brown's is likely to be low (currently estimated at sub 25.0). Though on the plus side, the main exceptions to this trend are superfast guys like DJax, and Brown may very well be superfast (sub 4.40). He is one of the guys whose combine numbers could make a big difference in my evaluations.

My current inclination is to mostly trust the NFL talent evaluators on Brown, although that might change in either direction after the combine.

The 3 other WRs who I currently have ranked in the same tier as Brown - Antoine Wesley, Anthony Johnson, and Andy Isabella - mostly have a similar mix of strong production and questionable size/athleticism. Wesley is another guy who could get a boost if he weighs in heavier than expected - he is tall & skinny with very good production. WRs who don't have an NFL body and fall in the draft have a pretty poor NFL track record. Isabella has the best production of the bunch (and is #2 in this draft class in production, while joining Butler as a member of the exclusive high volume high efficiency club). But he measured in at the senior bowl at 5'8.9" with 29.8" arms, which is pretty tiny - near the bottom of the range of WR length, which points to "slot receiver" (though some slot receivers have fantasy value, especially in New England). Anthony Johnson has decent size but also has his age working against him (he turned 24 in January).

ZWK said:

Hakeem Butler looks like a pretty exceptional WR.

As I wrote about earlier, it's rare for a WR to be both a high volume and high efficiency player, but Butler (and Isabella) pulled it off this year. Butler's 12.2 YPT was 10th in the country, and his 42% market share of his team's receiving yards was 5th in the country, and his 101 receiving yards per game (or 1318 total receiving yards) were 9th in the country. Defenses knew that Butler was the guy to stop, and he was still able to keep putting up big plays on them. Put these together with his other stats, and my formula has Butler as the most productive receiver this year, narrowly beating out Isabella and Hall.

Butler is also huge, estimated at 6'4.8" 225 lbs. I posted a few days ago about how big WRs have been overrepresented among superstars. A slightly different way to carve things up is to look at WRs who both were big and had reasonably good college production. If we use 6'4" and 210 lbs. as the cutoff for big (excluding the skinny guys like Justin Hunter as well as the not-very-tall) and use a career production score of 4.0 as the cutoff for good college production (which is roughly the cutoff that my WR rating formula has, insofar as it has something like a "cutoff", on a scale where 0 is average and Butler has a 10.5), then Butler is (likely to become) the 8th WR since 2006 who qualifies. Ranked by college production, they are:

Danario Alexander    Missouri    2010    (6'4.6", 215 lbs.)
Mike Evans    Texas A&M    2014    (6'4.8", 231 lbs.)
Hakeem Butler    Iowa State    2019    (est. 6'4.8", 225 lbs.)
Stephen Hill    Ga Tech    2012    (6'4.0", 215 lbs.)
James Hardy    Indiana    2008    (6'5.4", 217 lbs.)
Maurice Stovall    Notre Dame    2006    (6'5", 217 lbs.)
Calvin Johnson    Georgia Tech    2007    (6'5", 239 lbs.)
Brandon Marshall    Central Florida    2006    (6'4.5", 229 lbs.)

That's 3/7 studs, which is a pretty good hit rate, and within this group Butler is 3rd in production, tied for 4th in height, and 4th in weight - average or better. Some of these guys did have other strong signs about whether they'd be NFL stars which aren't captured here - Calvin Johnson's amazing athleticism, Stephen Hill's horrible hands, Danario Alexander's knee problems; that still leaves a couple stars (Evans & Marshall) and a couple busts (Hardy & Stovall). Pretty good company for Butler.

I think the biggest negative sign for Butler is the combination of his age and one-year-wonderness. His May 1996 birthday makes him one of the older WRs in this class, about a year older than average, and it's presumably easier to put up big numbers when you're a man among boys (bigger and older than most other players). At ages 20 and 21 he didn't do all that much on the field, with just 41/697/7 in 13 games in 2017 - if he's so talented, why couldn't he do more than that?

Another negative is that he wasn't much of a red zone threat, despite his size. This year he had just 2 red zone TDs; granted the Iowa State offense didn't make it to the red zone all that often, but 2 red zone receiving TDs is not in the top 100 and his 2/9 market share of team red zone receiving teams is also below average. Though I didn't watch the tape - maybe he was getting double teamed a lot?

But on the whole Butler's profile is extremely impressive, and if I had to rank WRs without seeing other experts' evaluations then I'd probably have him at #2 behind AJ Brown.

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On lack of productivity for Butler, his last 2 qbs were a freshman in 2018, and a linebacker moonlighting as a qb in 2017 if I recall correctly

ZWK said:

Danario Alexander    Missouri    2010    (6'4.6", 215 lbs.)
Mike Evans    Texas A&M    2014    (6'4.8", 231 lbs.)
Hakeem Butler    Iowa State    2019    (est. 6'4.8", 225 lbs.)
Stephen Hill    Ga Tech    2012    (6'4.0", 215 lbs.)
James Hardy    Indiana    2008    (6'5.4", 217 lbs.)
Maurice Stovall    Notre Dame    2006    (6'5", 217 lbs.)
Calvin Johnson    Georgia Tech    2007    (6'5", 239 lbs.)
Brandon Marshall    Central Florida    2006    (6'4.5", 229 lbs.)

That's 3/7 studs, which is a pretty good hit rate

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That’s also 4/7 utter busts who ended up being wasted picks who weren’t worth being rostered. Those guys couldn’t even manage mediocre complimentary production (and in full disclosure I drafted one of them and had all four of those guys rostered at one time or another).  That literal boom/bust aspect is probably well worth exploring, and it looks like if they don’t show studliness early on in their careers that they ought to be cut and left on the WW waste pile in favor of other guys who might actually develop into worthy FF secondary starters or quality depth.

Bronco Billy said:

That’s also 4/7 utter busts who ended up being wasted picks who weren’t worth being rostered. Those guys couldn’t even manage mediocre complimentary production (and in full disclosure I drafted one of them and had all four of those guys rostered at one time or another).  That literal boom/bust aspect is probably well worth exploring, and it looks like if they don’t show studliness early on in their careers that they ought to be cut and left on the WW waste pile in favor of other guys who might actually develop into worthy FF secondary starters or quality depth.

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One thing to keep in mind is that the bust rate of draft picks is generally pretty high. Any way you cut it, there is a decent chance that a player who you draft won't be a stud; risk is just part of the game. Even WRs taken in the top 10 of the NFL draft - the ones who have come out on top of the careful, extensive analysis done by all the NFL teams - only pan out as studs less than 40% of the time. The quick, crude rule that I used to pick those 7 WRs - big productive college WRs - fares about as well. 3/7 studs actually seems unrealistically good; probably part of the story is chance and a small sample size, and going forward big productive college WRs will turn into NFL studs less than 3/7 of the time (and the ratio of studs to solid fantasy options won't be so lopsided).

Because of the small sample size, I also wouldn't read too much into the more fine-grained patterns about things like how often they become solid non-stud fantasy players, or how long they take to emerge. And even with just these 7 guys the pattern is not entirely straightforward, e.g. Danario Alexander had a solid 3rd season with the Chargers before another ACL tear ended his career.

WVU WRs Gary Jennings Jr. and David Sills V:

My formula is surprisingly high on Jennings, putting him at WR8 and closer to the 3 guys ahead of him (including Arcega-Whiteside & Harry) than to the guys behind him.

Sills has been widely considered the Mountaineers' top WR, 1A to Jennings 1B. Both of them went to the senior bowl, where Sills measured in at 6'3" 210 lbs. with 32" arms and Jennings at 6'1" 213 lbs. with 33" arms. I think that length (height + arm length) and BMI (703 x weight / height ^2) are the most important WR size stats, and Jennings is above average at both while Sills is near the caution zone for BMI (at 26.2) and only has an extra inch of length. Jennings is also a year younger than Sills, with Jennings at the average age for a prospect entering the draft (though my intuition is that my formula is wrong to punish Sills for being a year older, since he spent all of his HS career and some of his college career trying to be a QB rather than honing his skills as a WR).

Production is the bigger difference, according to my formula. Sills and Jennings had similar stats this year, with Sills putting up 65/986/15 in 12 games and Jennings putting up 54/917/14 in 11 games. The yardage totals for both of them aren't that impressive given context - they were catching passes from Will Grier who is likely to get taken in the first half of the draft this year, and West Virginia was 4th in the country in passing yards per game. The TD numbers are pretty strong, even after adjusting for the Grier/WVU factor. And Jennings's YPT was way better than Sills - 12.6 vs. 8.5. YPT is why Jennings is ahead of Sills in my formula, and in combination with his TDs and otherwise okay numbers his great YPT (just ahead of guys like Marquise Brown & Hakeem Butler) is also enough to put him up there in my overall WR rankings.

But in many ways Jennings's production is less impressive than it looks. He had Sills drawing defensive attention, Grier throwing him the ball, and he played almost exclusively out of the slot where there was often a lot of room to maneuver. From this 2018 highlight video (which includes most of his receptions), it looks like a lot of his big plays came on relatively simple seam or drag routes where the defense was out of position, though some of those seam routes involved good route running to beat the safety and he also had some nice plays against tighter coverage and some tougher catches.

Also, Jennings's 2017 production was worse than his 2018 production, and than Sills's 2017 production - Jennings 2017 had 97/1096/1 in 13 games with 8.2 YPT while Sills 2017 had 60/980/18 with 9.7 YPT. That means that Jennings's 2-year production is less impressive than Sills's, and Jennings fails to make the 2-year 10 YPT club. YPT and TDs, Jennings's most impressive 2018 stats, were both below average in 2017. My formula focuses mainly on a WR's best season, on the theory that many WRs improve over time and that treating each year as a separate chance to have big production helps counter the ups-and-downs of situation. But, given that Jennings's role, situation, and yardage didn't change much from 2017 to 2018, it seems plausible that Jennings's 2017-18 averages are a better reflection of his skills than his 2018 production alone. Which would move him down the rankings; I'm not sure just how far.

Bottom line IMO is that Jennings is probably not as good a prospect as my formula ranks him but is still worth keeping an eye on, and Sills is unlikely to pan out but spending so much time at QB rather than WR means he has a little bit of extra upside relative to what he has shown.

ZWK said:

Here is who my formulas currently have as the top 21 WR prospects:

A.J. Brown    Miss
Emanuel Hall    Missouri *
Hakeem Butler    Iowa State
D.K. Metcalf    Miss *
JJ Arcega-Whiteside    Stanford
N'Keal Harry    Ariz St
Lil'Jordan Humphrey    Texas
Gary Jennings Jr.    WVU
    
Antoine Wesley    Texas Tech
Tyler Johnson    Minnesota (returning to school)
Marquise Brown    Oklahoma
Anthony Johnson    Buffalo
Andy Isabella    U Mass

Stanley Morgan Jr.    Nebraska
Deebo Samuel    S Carolina
Greg Dortch    Wk Forest
Preston Williams    CSU
Damion Willis    Troy
Cody Thompson    Toledo
Scott Miller    BGSU
John Ursua    Hawai'i

Players with a * (Hall & Metcalf) may be overrated because they're getting probably too much credit for pro-rated stats from <10 games this season.

I expect there to be a lot of reshuffling within tiers between now and the draft, along with a handful of guys jumping up or down a tier, as we get workout data, accurate size measurements, and stats like drop rate. But probably not many new names jumping into the picture.

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I have now made posts about most of the 12 WRs in my top 2 tiers; I've added links to them above.

The 2 guys who I haven't covered yet are JJ Arcega-Whiteside and N'Keal Harry. It feels like I don't have a lot to say about them. They both look like good prospects, with very good production and good size. Arcega-Whiteside had solid production in 2017 too, Harry wasn't quite as good in 2017 but is a year younger than the typical WR prospect. Arcega-Whiteside had more TDs and higher YPT (he's in the 2-year 10+ YPT club), Harry had more market share and put up numbers despite playing on a worse passing offense. There are signs that Harry is an explosive athlete. Strong but not super dominant profiles for both of them, and they come out nearly tied in my overall prospect ratings.

Although my formula gives numbers which suggest a top tier of 8 WRs, in my opinion there is a clear top 5: AJ Brown, Hakeem Butler, N'Keal Harry, JJ Arcega-Whiteside, and DK Metcalf (in some order). Then a second tier with Emanuel Hall, Marquise Brown, Lil'Jordan Humphrey, and some others. Which other guys make that 2nd tier depends on whether I'm deferring more to my formula (which likes guys like Jennings & Wesley) or to other draft experts (who like guys like Harmon & Samuel).

I'm not primarily a tape guy, but I was just watching some videos of N'Keal Harry (Arizona, Oregon, highlights) and JJ Arcega-Whiteside (Washington State, Oregon, highlights) and it looks to me like Harry doesn't get open very often. Harry's receptions mostly come on WR screens and contested catches, and a lot of his incompletions are defensed passes where he didn't get much space. Occasionally he has an out-and-up that fools the DB, but other than that he's usually not generating much space. Arcega-Whiteside is great at contested catches (very physical, good at boxing out), but he also has way more plays where he gets a step on the DB and gives his QB a place to throw it that isn't a jump ball or back shoulder play.

We'll see if this year's Reception Perception backs up my impressions; for now I'd knock Harry down to 5th in my subjective rankings.

ZWK said:

I'm not primarily a tape guy, but I was just watching some videos of N'Keal Harry (Arizona, Oregon, highlights) and JJ Arcega-Whiteside (Washington State, Oregon, highlights) and it looks to me like Harry doesn't get open very often. Harry's receptions mostly come on WR screens and contested catches, and a lot of his incompletions are defensed passes where he didn't get much space. Occasionally he has an out-and-up that fools the DB, but other than that he's usually not generating much space. Arcega-Whiteside is great at contested catches (very physical, good at boxing out), but he also has way more plays where he gets a step on the DB and gives his QB a place to throw it that isn't a jump ball or back shoulder play.

We'll see if this year's Reception Perception backs up my impressions; for now I'd knock Harry down to 5th in my subjective rankings.

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I'm kind of the opposite as you.  More of a tape guy than stats guy, but I want both to match.  I use the tape to find guys I like, and afterwards I check the stats to see if things make sense.  But you are not wrong about either from my point of view.  Harry's puzzeling to me for that same reason.  When he makes those contested catches it takes every inch of him to fight the DB that is breathing down his neck, Arcega-Whiteside has more room and it looks more routine, just not sure if I see the ceiling there for him.  I mentioned it in the N'Keal Harry thread that his Oregon game is pretty atrocious overall but he did still make plays.  

I'm always curious to see your rankings since I started doing my own and I'll admit I've taken names off your list before to see what kind of impression I get and a lot of the times they don't match.  Example of someone I like a lot and you're pretty low on being Kelvin Harmon.  But that other perspective has helped me a lot so I thank you for that.  

ZWK said:

I'm not primarily a tape guy, but I was just watching some videos of N'Keal Harry (Arizona, Oregon, highlights) and JJ Arcega-Whiteside (Washington State, Oregon, highlights) and it looks to me like Harry doesn't get open very often. Harry's receptions mostly come on WR screens and contested catches, and a lot of his incompletions are defensed passes where he didn't get much space. Occasionally he has an out-and-up that fools the DB, but other than that he's usually not generating much space. Arcega-Whiteside is great at contested catches (very physical, good at boxing out), but he also has way more plays where he gets a step on the DB and gives his QB a place to throw it that isn't a jump ball or back shoulder play.

We'll see if this year's Reception Perception backs up my impressions; for now I'd knock Harry down to 5th in my subjective rankings.

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I read almost word for word report on Harry’s inability to get open and most of his receptions were on contested balls, which he does very well.

One of the main stats that I look at is receiving yards per team attempt. It's a lot like a market share stat, and generally pretty close to PFF favorite Yards Per Route Run for the WRs who matter (since they play most of the passing snaps).

Parris Campbell is down in my rankings in part because of his low yards per team attempt of just 1.89, which is below average among college WR1s and near the bottom of the barrel among successful NFL WRs.

But PFF has him with 3.47 Yards Per Route Run, most in the Big Ten and ahead of Tyler Johnson who was a very impressive 3rd in the country in yards per team attempt. So he was a big part of the offense when he was in the game, probably top 10 in YPRR among WRs with a good number of snaps (though I don't have that list). But this must mean that he played only a little over 50% of Ohio State's snaps (which is confirmed by snap counts I found for a few individual OSU games).

This makes me much more interested in Campbell than I was before, when his apparent lack of production was basically a dealbreaker. Although it still seems like a negative that he was off the field so often, and strong per-snap production is less impressive for a part time player. So he seems like a candidate for tier 2 in my subjective rankings, but probably not for the top tier of WRs.

ZWK said:

One of the main stats that I look at is receiving yards per team attempt. It's a lot like a market share stat, and generally pretty close to PFF favorite Yards Per Route Run for the WRs who matter (since they play most of the passing snaps).

Parris Campbell is down in my rankings in part because of his low yards per team attempt of just 1.89, which is below average among college WR1s and near the bottom of the barrel among successful NFL WRs.

But PFF has him with 3.47 Yards Per Route Run, most in the Big Ten and ahead of Tyler Johnson who was a very impressive 3rd in the country in yards per team attempt. So he was a big part of the offense when he was in the game, probably top 10 in YPRR among WRs with a good number of snaps (though I don't have that list). But this must mean that he played only a little over 50% of Ohio State's snaps (which is confirmed by snap counts I found for a few individual OSU games).

This makes me much more interested in Campbell than I was before, when his apparent lack of production was basically a dealbreaker. Although it still seems like a negative that he was off the field so often, and strong per-snap production is less impressive for a part time player. So he seems like a candidate for tier 2 in my subjective rankings, but probably not for the top tier of WRs.

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Is there a flaw in the YPT stat where it’s going to tend to marginalize as the # of attempts go up? Day’s offense did call for a number of short/screen passes IIRC. Was thinking about implementing this # after seeing you use it since I there is no reliable target count for NCAA.

Bojang0301 said:

Is there a flaw in the YPT stat where it’s going to tend to marginalize as the # of attempts go up? Day’s offense did call for a number of short/screen passes IIRC. Was thinking about implementing this # after seeing you use it since I there is no reliable target count for NCAA.

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I'm not quite sure what you're asking.

That post of mine was about yards per team attempt and yards per route run, rather than yards per target.

I expect to see some regression to the mean in YPT, where a receiver who has amazing YPT on his first 50 targets of the season will probably have somewhat lower YPT on his next 50 targets.

YPT has some disadvantages. It overrates one-dimensional deep threats compared to guys who also get used short. A 7-yard gain on a WR screen is a nice play for the offense but it brings down a player's YPT. If no one is open and the QB gives one of his receivers a shot at a contested catch which falls incomplete, that's a bad play by every one of the receivers on the field but YPT only counts it against the guy who was targeted.

There is target data available from Bill Connelly, here for 2018 and in other places going back to the 2005 season. I think it's pretty good data.

Bronco Billy said:

That’s also 4/7 utter busts who ended up being wasted picks who weren’t worth being rostered. Those guys couldn’t even manage mediocre complimentary production (and in full disclosure I drafted one of them and had all four of those guys rostered at one time or another).  That literal boom/bust aspect is probably well worth exploring, and it looks like if they don’t show studliness early on in their careers that they ought to be cut and left on the WW waste pile in favor of other guys who might actually develop into worthy FF secondary starters or quality depth.

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If it means anything, I never was impressed with Stovall at all, Hardy at all and Hill faded for me before the draft. Attitude turned me off with the 1st 2. Seemed like they didn't have the drive. I did draft Calvin, Brandon and picked up Alexander. Had no shot at Evans. I'm telling you all now, that Butler is the real deal. If he goes to like Indy, I could easily take him over Metcalf.

@ZWK I have a couple players I was wondering how they line up in your system: Trevon Brown, WR ECU; Olamide Zacceaus, WR Virginia; Wesley Fields, RB Georgia Southern and Patrick Laird, RB Cal

If you’ve talked about any of them before I apologize. 

Bojang0301 said:

@ZWK I have a couple players I was wondering how they line up in your system: Trevon Brown, WR ECU; Olamide Zacceaus, WR Virginia; Wesley Fields, RB Georgia Southern and Patrick Laird, RB Cal

If you’ve talked about any of them before I apologize. 

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Pretty down on all 4 of them; Trevon Brown is the least bad. You can see their statistical breakdowns in my WR & RB spreadsheets.

ZWK said:

I'm not quite sure what you're asking.

That post of mine was about yards per team attempt and yards per route run, rather than yards per target.

I expect to see some regression to the mean in YPT, where a receiver who has amazing YPT on his first 50 targets of the season will probably have somewhat lower YPT on his next 50 targets.

YPT has some disadvantages. It overrates one-dimensional deep threats compared to guys who also get used short. A 7-yard gain on a WR screen is a nice play for the offense but it brings down a player's YPT. If no one is open and the QB gives one of his receivers a shot at a contested catch which falls incomplete, that's a bad play by every one of the receivers on the field but YPT only counts it against the guy who was targeted.

There is target data available from Bill Connelly, here for 2018 and in other places going back to the 2005 season. I think it's pretty good data.

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If you go just by YPT you get some guys like Sammie Coates really high on the list who need to be sussed out.

I do think it is a pretty good metric though. Out of curiosity how predictive is YPT compared to the other metrics that you use?

Biabreakable said:

If you go just by YPT you get some guys like Sammie Coates really high on the list who need to be sussed out.

I do think it is a pretty good metric though. Out of curiosity how predictive is YPT compared to the other metrics that you use?

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When I looked at things a few years ago, YPT was the 3rd most predictive of the 15 college stats that I looked at. 2nd most predictive was yards per team attempt, and first was number of rushing & returning big plays (which I suspect was something of a fluke).

ZWK said:

It's time for another round of the bad news, good news game, this time featuring Marquise Brown.

Bad news: he currently ranks 10th in my overall WR prospect rankings, which is still in the "has a decent shot" range but well below the borderline NFL 1st rounder that he's being discussed as. 35 out of 45 1st rounder WRs since 2006 rated higher than he does, and the 10 who rate below him don't have a very good track record.

Good news: The main warning sign for rd 1-2 WRs is poor college production, and Brown's production is very good (middle-of-the-pack compared to 1st round WRs). WRs who had good college production, and are knocked down in my overall rating formula based on size/athleticism concerns, and still get drafted early have a pretty good track record (e.g., DeSean Jackson & Jarvis Landry). And that's the situation with Marquise Brown, who made 3 of the 4 receiving leaderboards that I posted earlier, ranking 5th in yards per team attempt and topping 12 YPT. And he has the second-highest 2017-18 2-year YPT (min 100 targets).

Bad news: Brown's production is less impressive than it looks, IMO, given that it came in Oklahoma's high-flying offense led by likely 1st round QB Kyler Murray (and previously Mayfield). It's impressive to have consecutive 12+ YPT seasons in 2017-18, but teammate CeeDee Lamb did too and Dede Westbrook had 14.7 YPT in 2016. Westbrook's 2016 numbers were much better than Brown's 2018 across the board, which is apparent even just comparing Westbrook's 80/1524/17 vs. Brown's 75/1318/10.

More bad news: BMI is one other stat that seems to be predictive even after accounting for draft position, and Marquise Brown's is likely to be low (currently estimated at sub 25.0). Though on the plus side, the main exceptions to this trend are superfast guys like DJax, and Brown may very well be superfast (sub 4.40). He is one of the guys whose combine numbers could make a big difference in my evaluations. 

My current inclination is to mostly trust the NFL talent evaluators on Brown, although that might change in either direction after the combine.

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And he's missing the combine and won't have a pro day. At least he'll weigh in, although even that is somewhat less informative because there's nothing stopping him from adding some fat to increase his weight - unlike other players he won't have to try to be in peak physical condition in order to do the drills.

For his speed, I haven't seen any reports of his mph clocked on the field by NextGenStats, and I don't think that @Xue has been doing his frame-by-frame version of speed tracking lately (I actually haven't seen him around at all in a while). He did run an 11.05 100m in high school, but that isn't that fast - guys with a faster PR include Guice, Zeke, Chubb, McCaffrey, and Cook - and by my reckoning it doesn't show that he's any faster than 4.50. There are claims that he ran a 4.33 forty in his workout when he was looking to transfer from JuCo to the FBS, but those sorts of claims are unreliable. So the main thing that I have to go on is that he looks fast on the field, and sites like draftscout generally have him estimated at sub-4.4 speed. Those are a good sign, but far from perfect (as we'll see in a couple weeks when a bunch of guys get times that are different from their estimates).

Since I won't get this info on Brown, I reckon I'll lean even harder on trusting the NFL talent evaluators, and he'll have an even harder time breaking into my top tier.

ZWK said:

And he's missing the combine and won't have a pro day. At least he'll weigh in, although even that is somewhat less informative because there's nothing stopping him from adding some fat to increase his weight - unlike other players he won't have to try to be in peak physical condition in order to do the drills.

For his speed, I haven't seen any reports of his mph clocked on the field by NextGenStats, and I don't think that @Xue has been doing his frame-by-frame version of speed tracking lately (I actually haven't seen him around at all in a while). He did run an 11.05 100m in high school, but that isn't that fast - guys with a faster PR include Guice, Zeke, Chubb, McCaffrey, and Cook - and by my reckoning it doesn't show that he's any faster than 4.50. There are claims that he ran a 4.33 forty in his workout when he was looking to transfer from JuCo to the FBS, but those sorts of claims are unreliable. So the main thing that I have to go on is that he looks fast on the field, and sites like draftscout generally have him estimated at sub-4.4 speed. Those are a good sign, but far from perfect (as we'll see in a couple weeks when a bunch of guys get times that are different from their estimates).

Since I won't get this info on Brown, I reckon I'll lean even harder on trusting the NFL talent evaluators, and he'll have an even harder time breaking into my top tier.

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Pretty sure his handle is lifesyourcup on Twitter.  He hates Marquise Brown.

Bojang0301 said:

Pretty sure his handle is lifesyourcup on Twitter.  He hates Marquise Brown.

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Thanks!

He has said good things about the speed of Deebo Samuel (who reportedly hit 22mph on a kick return), Andy Isabella (who ran a 10.51 100m), and Emanuel Hall (who he thinks might be the fastest WR in the draft). Also Will Grier's arm strength (with a 66.1 mph initial ball speed). Good signs for those players.

After scrolling through the PFF College twitter and their top 101 college players list to get 2018 RB stats, here's what I've been able to find.

YAC per attempt
6.17    Darrell Henderson
4.59    Elijah Mitchell
4.33    Travis Etienne
4.26    Jonathan Taylor
4.14    Marcel Murray
4.12    Darrin Hall
4.12    Trey Ragas
4.09    Aca’Cedric Ware
4.05    Travis Homer
3.93    Devin Singletary
3.92    Qadree Ollison
3.80    Travon McMillan
3.75    Cade Carney
3.54    Zack Moss
3.53    Bryce Love
3.43    Eno Benjamin
3.29    Benny LeMay
3.23    Benny Snell, Jr.
3.22    Karan Higdon
[2.96   last year's average prospect]
2.78    Spencer Brown

Missed Tackles Per Attempt
38.9%    David Montgomery
36.8%    Devin Singletary
34.8%    Trey Sermon
31.1%    Kennedy Brooks
29.7%    DeAndre Torrey
26.2%    Darrell Henderson
25.5%    Travis Etienne
24.6%    Kerrith Whyte Jr.
21.2%    Jonathan Taylor
20.9%    Justice Hill
20.7%    Benny LeMay
20.5%    Michael Warren II
[17.0%   last year's average prospect]
16.6%    Shamari Brooks
16.0%    Benny Snell, Jr.
13.5%    Karan Higdon
13.3%    Alex Barnes
12.1%    Spencer Brown

If anyone is not listed then I haven't found their stats, although since they've mostly been posting leaderboards it is something of a bad sign to not be listed. They're supposed to come out with an RB guide which has these stats for every RB.

I have updated my RB spreadsheet to include these stats. A lot can change once we get size & athleticism numbers for everyone (plus the rest of the PFF stats), but right now this year's RB draft class is not looking so good on the whole. 10 of the top 15 RBs in my formula are staying in school, including 4 of the top 5.

That 1 guy in the top 5 is looking pretty impressive though, with a 28% first down rate on his first down carries (average is about 15%), 27 carries of 20+ yards (when an average RB would've had about 11), 5 20+ yard receptions, above average short yardage stats, and a ridiculous 6.17 yards after contact per carry. And in 2017 he had the top PFF elusiveness rating of all 2019-draft eligible RBs. Darrell Henderson currently has the 3rd best prospect rating by my formula since I've been doing this, behind only Barkley and Lacy.

Using my standard labels, the formula currently puts these guys in the top tiers:

Guys I like a lot: Darrell Henderson
Guys I like: none
Guys who have a decent chance: Devin Singletary, Damien Harris, Trayveon Williams, Qadree Ollison
Guys I can't rule out: lots of guys

(The rest of the list is mostly the same as what I posted a month ago; you can see the current rankings in the spreadsheet.)

ZWK I'm curious what the 3 year average for these last 2 metric is?

Any different than last years average?

Sort of curious if this draft might appear a bit weaker by comparison?

Biabreakable said:

ZWK I'm curious what the 3 year average for these last 2 metric is?

Any different than last years average?

Sort of curious if this draft might appear a bit weaker by comparison?

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I'm not sure. Last year PFF published a big guide with the stats for 73 RBs who had declared for the draft - I'm giving the averages of those 73 RBs.

In terms of overall rating this RB class does look weaker than usual (though that could change once we combine data & the rest of the PFF data), but I'm not sure if it's any weaker in terms of YAC/att and MT%.

ZWK said:

I'm not sure. Last year PFF published a big guide with the stats for 73 RBs who had declared for the draft - I'm giving the averages of those 73 RBs.

In terms of overall rating this RB class does look weaker than usual (though that could change once we combine data & the rest of the PFF data), but I'm not sure if it's any weaker in terms of YAC/att and MT%.

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You’re not the only one saying that. JJ Zacharison is down on this class and suggested the only back highly valued in his model is Alex Barnes. Honestly though there is reasoning behind a lot of the production being weak. Harris, Jacobs, Holyfield, Weber, Henderson, Singletary and Anderson (would have) shared a backfield and most would argue to superior players. I’m not sure their lack of production makes them bad as I think they will have the prerequisite athleticism BUT I would say that the risk/reward ratio is a lot higher than years past.

Here are the top 20 pass rusher prospects by my formula, which is based on sacks and tackles for loss along with estimated size & speed from draftscout. These will change a fair amount once I get accurate size & athleticism numbers from the combine. Projected draft round (also from draftscout) is in parentheses.

Josh Allen    Kentucky   (1)

Brian Burns    FSU   (1-2)
Jachai Polite    Florida   (1-2)
Jaylon Ferguson    La Tech   (1-2)
Clelin Ferrell    Clemson   (1)
Nick Bosa    Ohio State   (1)
Montez Sweat    Miss St   (1)
Sutton Smith    N Illinois   (3)
Porter Gustin    USC   (FA)
Charles Omenihu    Texas   (4)
Quinnen Williams    Alabama   (1)
Anthony Nelson    Iowa   (2)
Ben Banogu    TCU   (5-6)
Austin Bryant    Clemson   (2-3)
Nate Harvey    ECU   (7-FA)
Joe Jackson    Miami (Fl)   (3)
E.J. Ejiya    N Texas   (7)
Chase Winovich    Michigan   (3)
Oshane Ximines    ODU   (2)
Jordan Brailford    Okla St   (4)

That one tier break at the top is a giant chasm. Josh Allen is up there with the best pass rushers of the past few years, and no one is in this year's class comes close to him. Then there's a gradual dropoff from #2 to #20. Allen looks ridiculously fast and good on tape too. I'm on board with him as the first non-QB pick; still not sure if any QB deserves to go first.

My formula adjusts for small sample size on the guys who missed a lot of games, but lack of data also just makes those guys harder to rate statistically. Nick Bosa put up good numbers in 3 games this year, and Porter Gustin put up good numbers in 6 games, and they come out of this formula looking pretty similar even though people who've seen them on tape might easily spot large differences.

Notice Quinnen Williams there in the middle - always a nice sign for a DT to break into this sort of list. He makes it based on TFL & size rather than sacks & speed.

Zack Allen is the most notable name who did not make the cut. His numbers are similar to Quinnen's but not quite as good; his TFLs & size didn't quite make up for his lack of sacks & speed. Though according to PFF he did have a lot of hurries; he deserves credit for disrupting the QB but maybe it was his lack of speed that kept him from getting all the way there more often.

After the combine I'll take a look at how these guys look compared to the past few draft classes.

PFF data on pressures per pass rush snap (including the top 5, as well as guys who are likely to be drafted early):

Ronheen Bingham: 23.6%
Josh Allen: 23.4%
Malik Reed: 21.0%
Jaylon Ferguson: 20.8%
Bosa (2017) – 20.7%
Christian Miller: 19.2%
Sweat – 18.0%
Ferrell – 17.3%
Q Williams – 16.7%
Burns – 16.5%   
Polite – 16.4%
Wilkins – 14.0%
Gary – 13.9%
Simmons – 10.6%
Oliver – 10.2%

I’m a huge tOSU guy and love the Bosa’s but I’m really starting to come around to the fact that Josh Allen may be the best edge in this class. Reminds me of Mack vs Clowney. Clowney had the hype and had made his name the season prior to his exit year and Mack sort of quietly dominated in every way shape and form. I think Allen is more of a known commodity than Mack was coming out but the point still stands that it’s a hyped name attached to a player compared to a guy who just did everything in a dominant fashion.

Riley Ridley is someone who I'm unsurprisingly down on, and he seems to be getting enough buzz so that it no longer seems too obvious to say explicitly. With 559 yards in 14 games it's pretty obvious that my production-based formula wouldn't like him. In addition to that unimpressive 41 YPG, he has a below average 18% market share of receiving yards, 26% market share of receiving TDs, 4 25+ yard receptions, and 8.9 yards per target. He is also older than average (turning 23 in July), yet was unable to reach 300 yards or 9.3 YPT in any prior season.

Here are all of the 15+ target seasons by Georgia players over the past 2 years, sorted by YPT:

ypt      player             year
12.3    Isaac Nauta    2018    (35 targets)
12.1    Terry Godwin    2017    (55 targets)
11.3    Terry Godwin    2018    (34 targets)
11.3    Mecole Hardman    2017    (37 targets)
10.0    Javon Wims    2017    (72 targets)
10.0    Jeremiah Holloman    2018    (42 targets)
9.6    Mecole Hardman    2018    (55 targets)
8.9    Riley Ridley    2018    (64 targets)
8.7    Riley Ridley    2017    (25 targets)
8.6    Tyler Simmons    2018    (16 targets)
7.1    D'Andre Swift    2018    (42 targets)
6.7    D'Andre Swift    2017    (23 targets)
6.7    Charlie Woerner    2017    (15 targets)
6.3    Isaac Nauta    2017    (18 targets)

QB charting from Ian Wharton, including accuracy to different distances and when under pressure. Haskins clearly looks the best, then either Lock (if you care more about dealing with pressure) or Murray (if you care more about accuracy), then Grier, then Rypien. Daniel Jones looks bad.

ZWK said:

QB charting from Ian Wharton, including accuracy to different distances and when under pressure. Haskins clearly looks the best, then either Lock (if you care more about dealing with pressure) or Murray (if you care more about accuracy), then Grier, then Rypien. Daniel Jones looks bad.

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Curious why he left Finley out.  I believe he’s one if the better QB prospects this year.

.

Bronco Billy said:

Curious why he left Finley out.  I believe he’s one if the better QB prospects this year.

.

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He said he's going to get to Finley; he just wanted to post what he had so far.

ZWK said:

He said he's going to get to Finley; he just wanted to post what he had so far.

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I understand that.  It’s just odd to me that he’d chart some of these other guys who seem less capable than Finley and then publish before he got to Finley.

To summarize things heading into the combine, the guys that I'm most fully on board with at this stage are:

RB: Darrell Henderson
WR: AJ Brown, Hakeem Butler, DK Metcalf, JJ Arcega-Whiteside
QB: Kyler Murray, Dwayne Haskins, Drew Lock
TE: T.J. Hockenson, Noah Fant, Irv Smith
EDGE: Josh Allen

Some other guys that are not too far behind, or would be up there with these guys if NFL experts liked them more:

RB: Devin Singletary, Damien Harris, Trayveon Williams
WR: N'Keal Harry, Emanuel Hall, Lil'Jordan Humphrey, Marquise Brown, Andy Isabella
QB: Will Grier
TE: Jace Sternberger, Caleb Wilson, Kaden Smith
EDGE: Jaylon Ferguson, Nick Bosa

I went deeper than this in some of my other posts, including the ones linked above for each position.

Here's a spreadsheet with the combine RBs sorted by my size rating. No one relevant is tiny, Singletary is on the small side at 203 lbs.