Rookie Analysis
Welcome back from yesterday’s article and the 2023 rookie RB ranking countdown. We still have plenty of numerical data from the regular season we can look at using KPIs based from DFF’s very own Chris Miles.
As the 2022 Fantasy Season comes to a close we get to shift to off-season Twitter topics that leave us arguing with strangers about a likely UDFA QB until our feet go numb on the toilet. Yes, folks, it’s time for rookie talk before we even have draft capital!
We at DFF hope all your 2022 dynasty football league dreams came true. But the grind never stops. We have a saying at DFF #AlwaysBeBuilding. It’s time to beckon in the new year by strategizing your approach to the 2023 rookie draft.
What if I told you that the QB1 of my rookie QB model for the 2022 class was now one mistake away from becoming a starter? What if I also told you that this QB would have been QB4 of the 2021 class, ahead of Zach Wilson, despite being drafted in the 5th round of the NFL draft and not the first? These statements should cause excitement for the Washington Commanders rookie QB, Sam Howell.
Pickett showed true confidence throwing the ball downfield, something we hadn’t seen out of Mitchell Trubisky. Pickett’s willingness to let it fly is a great sign of his fantasy value. The Steelers have a great group of offensive weapons, headlined by second-year RB Najee Harris. Inserting Pickett into the lineup will only open up more opportunities for Harris. This move increases the stock for every pass-catcher in the offense as well. Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, and Pat Freiermuth should at least be getting more big-play chances. The biggest winner, however, is rookie WR George Pickens. The 6’3” field-stretching receiver saw the ball come his way much more frequently in the short time he had playing with Pickett under center. We saw what Pickett was able to do at Pitt last season, supporting a Biletnikoff award-winning WR in Jordan Addison. “Pickett to Pickens” is going to be a call we could be hearing for years to come.
Historically, rookie wide receivers have taken the beginning of the season to integrate themselves into the passing game plan and develop chemistry with the quarterback. However, two of the five aforementioned rookies, London and Wilson, fast-tracked the proverbial rookie wide receiver waiting period with eye-popping performances through two weeks. Let’s look at them as prospects and dive into their peripherals to see if this start is sustainable.
“Dumpster Diving” is a series at Dynasty Football Factory that will help you find late-round hidden gems or cheap players to acquire. These players are far from perfect but they could potentially land you a high return on your investment. If something breaks right these players can have a measurable impact on your team(s) and you will be the manager with them stashed on your bench. If not, you cut bait and move on. You want assets on your team that will appreciate and that is the goal here. All of these players will be below the top 150 players as valued on keeptradecut.com
For this article, we dive into Sam Howell.
A California All-State selection in both football and basketball in high school, Drake London was recruited to USC to play BOTH sports. While he played as a freshman on the basketball team, he really stood out on the football field. In his true freshman season, he posted 39 receptions, 567 yards, and five TDs in 13 games with nine as a starter. He put up similar statistics in the covid-shortened 2020 PAC-12 season before completely dominating this past season. In 2021 he registered 88 catches for 1,084 yards and seven TDs in just eight games before suffering a season-ending ankle injury.
We have arrived at the top five wide receivers in our annual WR1 analytical model countdown. As you dive into the rankings don’t fret if your favorite is ranked a little lower than expected. The second through fifth-ranked wide receivers are extremely close, separated by only three points.
For those new to the WR1 rating, this is a proprietary formula I developed to provide a data-driven forecast of future dynasty value for incoming rookie wide receivers. The WR1 model scores rookies on nine predictive metrics and then combines those individual metric scores into a total WR1 rating score. The goal is to provide a single easy-to-use score for those who don’t want to spend all the time dissecting different metrics.
Over the next few weeks, I will be revealing my annual WR1 prospect model ratings to help prepare DFF readers for their dynasty rookie drafts. This article covers the prospects ranked 15-11 in the model. For those new to the WR1 rating, this is a proprietary formula I developed to provide a data-driven forecast of future dynasty value for incoming rookie wide receivers. The WR1 model scores rookies on nine predictive metrics and then combines those individual metric scores into a total WR1 rating score. The goal is to provide a single easy-to-use score for those who don’t want to spend all the time dissecting different metrics. You may find an in-depth explanation of the model’s process and a glossary of what the metrics mean here. Before we get into the 2022 prospects, here are the top 20 all-time prospects in the model so you can see how effective it is at forecasting future fantasy value.
We have a mantra at Dynasty Football Factory that has propelled a focus on consistent construction and evaluation of our dynasty rosters: #AlwaysBeBuilding. My rankings are built with the same forward direction. I aspire to be as transparent as possible in my process to provide you with a better understanding of how to value players. These rankings will be continuously updated to reflect an ever-improving player evaluation process. Allow me to walk you through some of the essential anchors I base these rankings around.
This series of articles will cover the process I use to prospect and filter through each year’s rookie class, with each piece outlining a new player. I like using data to initialize my prospect profiles because it’s easy to examine many players quickly. Another reason is that there are no biases, it is strictly transposing stats from SRCFB and PlayerProfiler to my database. This lets me get a clear view of the player’s overall profile without any outside opinions or flashy highlights swaying my opinions. Once I collect the players and their stats I put them into groupings and then ultimately rank them. The next player of this series is a guy that still feels too low in the market but has a ton to like about him.
Last summer I wrote about my historic FFPC dynasty rookie hit rates, and how those later picks in the third and fourth rounds typically hold at least a couple of gems. If you can find the space on the limited roster in this format, those later picks are worth scrapping for. I spend them just as easily. I never let a third-round pick get in the way of making a bigger deal that I like. Often I will add a third to my offer just to further entice my potential partner.
For those new to the WR1 rating, this is a proprietary formula I developed to provide a data-driven forecast of future dynasty value for incoming rookie wide receivers. The WR1 model scores rookies on nine predictive metrics and then combines those individual metric scores into a single WR1 rating. The goal is to provide a single easy-to-use score for those who don’t want to spend all the time dissecting different metrics. If data-driven rankings are not for you, I suggest my colleague @DocFFFN’s wide receiver review from a film perspective.
This series of articles will cover the process I use to prospect and filter through each year’s rookie class, with each piece outlining a new player. I like using data to initialize my prospect profiles because it’s easy to examine many players quickly. Another reason is that there are no biases, it is strictly transposing stats from SRCFB and PlayerProfiler to my database. This lets me get a clear view of the player’s overall profile without any outside opinions or flashy highlights swaying my opinions. Once I collect the players and their stats I put them into groupings and then ultimately rank them. The next player of this series is a guy that has recently shot up boards and is now in pretty much everyone’s top-10, but that is still too low.
This series of articles will cover the process I use to prospect and filter through each year’s rookie class, with each piece outlining a new player. I like using data to initialize my prospect profiles because it’s easy to examine many players quickly. Another reason is that there are no biases, it is strictly transposing stats from SRCFB and PlayerProfiler to my database. This lets me get a clear view of the player’s overall profile without any outside opinions or flashy highlights swaying my opinions. Once I collect the players and their stats I put them into groupings and then ultimately rank them. The next player of this series is a guy that has NFL workhorse size and a great production profile but is somehow not in everyone’s top-12 rookie running backs yet.
Each year the NFL Combine hosts about 40 of the top college running backs from around the country who have declared for this year’s NFL draft. They then have these players perform drills, various tests, as well as weigh them and measure their heights. The test and measurements I will be looking at are the 40-yard dash and a back’s height, weight, and BMI.
The NFL Combine officially kicked off this week, beginning with medical testing, team interviews, and of course, in-person measurements. NCAA schools are notorious for exaggerating size (aren’t we all). The combine gives us our first look at true-to-life measurements, including height, weight, wingspan, hand size, and BMI.
Every off-season the Combine comes and Twitter is ablaze with all of the size narratives. “If he’s short I’m not drafting him.” “If his BMI is too low I’m not drafting him.” “I don’t care what their size is, if they produce I like them.” “Size doesn’t matter!” “Size DOES matter!” What we do not see during this time is much real evidence with actual context. We are just given narratives or one-off examples of outliers. “Cooper Kupp ran a 4.65 and he just had the best WR season ever, 40 times don’t matter.” “DeVonta Smith has a BMI of 22.5 but he won the Heisman, I’m drafting him.” Today, my goal is not to fight for one side or the other. It is to look at the real numbers, with an unbiased eye and determine if these NFL combine metrics matter for fantasy football.
Your author has broken down his pre-combine rookie rankings into positional rankings with tier designations to help you better view the dynasty rookie draft landscape. It is important to remember these rankings are created with fantasy football purposes in mind. We will dive eight players deep with the QB and TE positions and ten players deep with the RB and WR positions. Up next, the TE position is detailed for the upcoming 2022 NFL Draft.
Your author has broken down his pre-combine rookie rankings into positional rankings with tier designations to help you better view the dynasty rookie draft landscape. It is important to remember these rankings are created with fantasy football purposes in mind. We will dive eight players deep with the QB and TE positions and ten players deep with the RB and WR positions. Up next, the WR position is detailed for the upcoming 2022 NFL Draft.
As an exciting offseason event known as the NFL Scouting Combine is about to unfold, it is fun to take a look at this year’s NFL prospects as they stand. With this data looming, as well as draft capital and NFL landing spots, it is important to note that these players are not locked in where they currently stand.
Your author has broken down his pre-combine rookie rankings into positional rankings with tier designations to help you better view the dynasty rookie draft landscape. It is important to remember these rankings are created with fantasy football purposes in mind. We will dive eight players deep with the QB and TE positions and ten players deep with the RB and WR positions. Up first, the QB position is detailed for the upcoming 2022 NFL Draft.
Treylon Burks is the Arkansas Razorbacks’ standout wide receiver and one of the top prospects in the 2022 class. He accumulated over 2,300 receiving yards on 146 career receptions at Arkansas and finished his final year with 66 receptions for 1,104 yards and 11 touchdowns as a Junior during the 2021 season.