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Dynasty Rookie Crash Course - WRs
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Diving into the Rookie WR class to give you a quick overview of who you should be keeping an eye on in rookie drafts with the NFL Draft coming up
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction: Dynasty Football Focus
00:00:28
David Reed
Thank you.
00:00:57
David Reed
And welcome in everybody. Thank you for coming back. If you listened to the first episode of the Beyond the Redraft podcast, I was just to give you a little taster of what dynasty football is like. But if you're back again, that means you're gearing up. you Hopefully you're in a league and you're ready for your rookie drafts coming up.
Rookie Class Overview: Weak but Wide Receiver Depth
00:01:14
David Reed
The NFL Draft is just under three weeks away, so we're going to start talking about some of those rookies. And today we're going to talk about the rookie wide receivers. Now, this rookie class as a whole has kind of been characterized as relatively weak overall, but...
00:01:29
David Reed
The one position that everyone has been in agreement in is that wide receiver is rather deep. So this is a good draft to build your depth on roster at that position. Now, this class is not perceived to have any real blue chip players, kind like in Jamar Chase and Malik Neighbors. But there is a widely accepted top three that we'll get into that are all potentially very good to very elite.
00:01:50
David Reed
potentially elite that depending on the analyst you follow now, the order of that three will vary depending on who you talk to, but everyone agrees they're pretty much just the top
Top Wide Receiver Prospects: Potential and Concerns
00:02:00
David Reed
three. Each of them do have some yellow flags in their profile profiles, but you can explain them away if you really buy into that player.
00:02:07
David Reed
Also, beyond those three, there are a lot of depth here, but the best thing is no matter what your flavor wide receiver, there's someone who will fit in. So let's start diving in. I'm going to start jumping basically what we think that they're probably going to be drafted in order in the NFL draft. So the first player in the tier one of the top three hit on Carnell Tate coming out of Ohio State.
00:02:32
David Reed
He, I mean, Ohio State has just been pumping out wide receiver talent. Tate is going to go in the first round, making it the fifth straight year in Ohio State. Wide receiver goes in the through the first round. He's 6'2", 192 pounds, and he is a pure X outside receiver. If you like those big guys running down the sidelines, make big plays, he's your guy. He has amazing hands, footwork, rat running. He did have a slower 40 time coming in at 4.53 seconds, but that's fine enough. you Obviously not as good as he wanted, but he that's not that much red red flag there. And he never really won on speed anyway. He actually is a great route runner. Both Matt Harmon and Waldman both agree in their film studies.
00:03:14
David Reed
But he is a tall and pretty slender wide receiver at only 192 pounds, and that can be a bit of a concern. And then the other flag yellow flag about him is he never actually dominated any targets or production in college. He did play with some of the best players coming into the NFL over the past year. So he had Buka, Marvin Harrison Jr., and future 101 dynasty pick Jeremiah Smith, who will be coming in the draft next year. and he he still only had 875 receiving yards, which would be one of the lowest productions for a top wide receiver in recent memory. but He was extremely efficient and he had a high ah yard for catch at 17.2.
00:03:56
David Reed
But overall, it's very likely he's the first white receiver drafted in the NFL draft, and he feels absolutely safe both in the NFL and for Dynasty. And with that, even though he may not turn into an alpha wide receiver one, he's still someone that you should feel very, very comfortable taking in your rookie Dynasty drafts.
Makai Lemon: Strengths and Draft Projections
00:04:16
David Reed
Moving to Makai Lemon coming out of USC at 5'11", 192 pounds. And this guy is a dog. Even though he seems like he's a little bit smaller, he is very tough to bring down and he is very feisty. And he is a lot of people's favorite wide receiver in this group because of the style he plays. And he does remind a lot of people of Amon Ross St. Brown, the way he plays.
00:04:40
David Reed
But coming out of slot, he has amazing hands. He constantly gets separation. He's open. He dominated targets. And he actually, despite his size, was one of the better contested catch players in this draft.
00:04:52
David Reed
But he did play mostly slot this past year. And a lot of that is because of the deployment, but also his size. He he does show the ability to play outside more as like a Z flanker.
00:05:06
David Reed
But you want him to come out of slot. That's where he eats and he dominated targets. And this is the concern here. The NFL has been moving away from three wide receiver sets to two wide receiver sets, or what we call 12 personnel with two tight ends of the field.
00:05:20
David Reed
general that Generally, that means you take the slot wide receiver off the field because they're usually a third wide receiver. So there's a little concern if he's a slot only player, he may not get as much playing time.
00:05:31
David Reed
But he also had some weird interviews and and press conferences. but he's going to be drafted most likely the first half of the first round and if he does that the team has a plan for him so even though that the nfl is making a shift in their deployment they're going to use mckay lemon if they draft him now moving to the last player in this top three is jordan tyson coming out of arizona state at 203 pounds depending on your style analysis
00:06:02
David Reed
or who you follow, you have a very varied view of Jordan Tyson. You either view him as a near blue chip talent or a very risky wide receiver who needs some work.
00:06:13
David Reed
If you are someone who is deep into the modeling and loves the analytics, those experts, they love Tyson. His production profile, his early age breakouts are what you salivate over. He dominated every time he was on the field at an extremely high level.
00:06:30
David Reed
Caveat being on the field though, and we'll get to that. But based on this, he has the highest ceiling of anybody in this draft, potentially as long as he stays healthy. He also can play all three wide receiver positions, making him far less scheme and team dependent.
00:06:46
David Reed
But there are couple yellow flags from the film's experts. Both Harmon and Waldman kind of pointed this out in their different ways, but listening to both of them, they basically said the same thing.
00:06:58
David Reed
He's not that great of a wide receiver yet. He has the talent, the quick twitch, but he doesn't have all the nuance and route running that you expect to see. And because he's quick twitch, it looks like he's making a lot of quick moves to deceive the DBs.
00:07:12
David Reed
But he does them too quickly that the DBs don't even have time to react to them. And it's just a lot of wasted movement. And he takes way too many steps to get to the point in a break of his route that he needs to. This is something that Jerry Judy actually had an issue with. Someone who everyone thought was a great route runner, but actually had a lot of wasted movement.
00:07:32
David Reed
So he has to refine some skills there is what I've been picking up across the analysts there. The other and the more concerning issue, which is really going to impact his draft capital, is the injuries. ease It's hard to label people a injury problem, but it had been a big aspect of his profile.
00:07:52
David Reed
As a freshman, he's toured ACL, PCL, and MCL, and he missed most of his sophomore year as a result of recovering from that. Came back as a junior, dominated, but then had a collarbone injury and was done for the rest the year. Came back senior year, dominated, but then had a hamstring issue that is still actually impacting. He didn't get the participating combine, missed his pro day. It's taking far longer than it should be taking to recover from this. So it's likely going to move from down draft boards because that is ah that is a serious risk now that teams are weighing.
00:08:24
David Reed
But still, he should be a first-round pick, and he has a ton of upside. So if you play for upside, Tyson might be the move for you. Now we're going to move to tier two.
Tier Two Wide Receivers: Prospects Analysis
00:08:36
David Reed
First player in this tier I'm going to talk about is ummarkar Omar Cooper coming out of Indiana at six foot one hundred and ninety nine pounds. This is easily the biggest riser over the past four months or so.
00:08:50
David Reed
I'd say about around November, he was looking more like a third-round draft pick, and now he's often getting mocked in the mid-first round. He gets a lot of Debo comps because he's great with creating but after the catch and making defenders miss at a high-ranking fact. I believe he makes defenders miss at the highest rate of anyone in his draft class.
00:09:13
David Reed
He can play inside and out. He's an unbelievable zone beater, and he's solid contested catch as well. And he's very, very strong. he He went also from being a dynasty sleeper to now he's potentially the wide receiver forward in this class. So it looked to like someone everyone was targeting as getting a good value on. You're going to have to pay up to get this guy. But he looks like ah a very strong asset to get in your rookie drafts.
00:09:39
David Reed
Casey Concepcion. Other than being just a fun name, the wide receiver, of Texas A&M, he actually came in a slightly bigger than most people were expecting. He was 6 foot, 196 pounds, so actually don't have any size concerns where I was worried he was going to look like ah one of the smaller wide receivers in the class.
00:09:58
David Reed
And if you talk to analysts, this is the one player where if they want to put someone else in the top tier with the other big three, this might be the guy. He's...
00:10:09
David Reed
he's got enough size now and he broke out super young and he many are saying he's the best operator in this class he has unbelievable quickness um and he can line up on all three wide receiver spots as he did this past year so there's really not much he can't do except the red flag here is the drops he has 19 drops in college and the frustrating thing is most of these were focus drops he had an 84.8 contested catch rate that means that he made all the hard catches but he dropped a lot of the easy layup ones which hopefully that's something can fix because this is someone who i am very very excited about and who i'm
00:10:50
David Reed
Personally, I think I'm buying in on the more i've been reading on him. But because of how the drafts have been up falling and the draft, the drops could be a concern for some teams. He may fall down to being the six wide receiver in the NFL draft. And if that does happen, i mean, he could land on a good team, but he likely will fall in the rookie draft a little bit, which I'm perfectly fine with if I have a leader first round pick.
00:11:13
David Reed
the last player in this tier that i want to talk about is denzel boston out of washington coming in at 212 pounds now this is the first real big body wide receiver that we're going to talk about in the draft class but he won't be the last if we were and talking about this 10 years ago he might be in discussion as the first overall wide receiver here because we love those big x receivers And that's who he is. He's a prototypical ex-wide receiver. Winning, had a high contested catch rate of 77.8, but a lot of us, if you've been playing Dynasty for a few years, this is the wide receiver profile that has generally scared you or burned you in the past.
00:11:55
David Reed
But I will want to say, even though a lot of us have those burns, does seem like Boston is a little bit more nuanced and refined as a wide receiver than a lot of those previous players who have burned us in the past. He's a pretty good route runner.
00:12:10
David Reed
he He knows how to use his body, but he does get pretty good separation. He's more than just a contested catch bully wide receiver. hu So part of me wants to lean in and maybe draft this guy, but part of me does have the scars, so For me, he's probably my wide receiver six, but i I'm totally fine if you want to push him up.
00:12:29
David Reed
Moving to tier number three. We're going to start with Chris Brazel. Hopefully it pronounced that right. Coming out of Tennessee, another 6'4", but only 198 pounds.
00:12:43
David Reed
So he's very, very slender, but he's incredibly fast. He ran a 4.3740 time. But ah we ah do want to warn you Tennessee runs a very gimmicky offense that has resulted in a lot of NFL prospects coming out of college with a lot of production on their profile, but it has not translated to the NFL because of how their offense runs. and It doesn't really translate to how NFL offenses run their teams, and all all of us come in very cautious with looking at these players.
00:13:15
David Reed
Brazel does seem like he's going to be more of any deep play high variance wide receiver but he does have the speed and build for it so he could be someone who succeeds in this but just know if you're going for brazil it's likely going to be at best a boom bust type of prospect that you're bringing on moving to jeremy bernard got a kind of weird spelling of his first name that looks like germy but i think it's supposed to be jeremy Anyway, he's coming out of Alabama at 206 pounds.
00:13:48
David Reed
And he's kind of your do-it-all, well-rounded wide receiver. not really expected to be like a true difference maker, but he's just good at everything. and is He'd be great for, honestly, any NFL team. He kind of lined up all over the place at Alabama. Got a little bit of rushing usage out of there. He had a solid 40 time at 4.4 E. Again, nothing spectacular, but just very, very solid. He's likely going to be a day two pick, probably round two.
00:14:13
David Reed
And I think likely be a useful asset on your dynasty's team. No one who I project really being a a true wide receiver one, but maybe a solid wide receiver two, three on both an NFL team and your dynasty team.
00:14:26
David Reed
Another player, where people are kind of getting divided on, we're moving to Elijah Surratt again at ah Indiana who came in with Omar Cooper. catching those passes from Fernando Mendoza on the championship team. He's 210 pounds, and he was the king of the back shoulder catch with Mendoza.
00:14:44
David Reed
And he got better every year in college, all four years. And if you watch in Indiana at all this year, when there was a a clutch moment and a catch that needed to be made, it went to Surratt, and he always came through.
00:14:57
David Reed
He had 15 touchdowns this past year. He gained the first down on one out of eight catch every routes he ran. But he's not really a yak guy. he did But he does typically gain like a couple extra yards at the catch because he fights for those extra yards, kind of churns those legs and fights for the DB. But he's not someone who's going break away a long catch and run there.
00:15:17
David Reed
But the big concern with him is he's not really a great separator. He was very good contested catches using his body to the ba out ah box out players. But he doesn't have the best athleticism. athleticism And that's going to potentially be more of an issue when he gets to the NFL. But he is clutch. He's a clutch gamer. He has great hands.
00:15:38
David Reed
But this is the type of player where I was talking about with Boston, who's a big receiver, who's big with contested catches, that burns us. Rod is kind of giving me those vibes that he might be that player where there's a good chance if he doesn't kind of refine his skill set a bit more, it's going to be hard for him to succeed in the NFL.
00:15:58
David Reed
Okay. Zachariah Branch coming out of Georgia at 5'9", 177 pounds. He is the ultimate slot only wide receiver.
00:16:09
David Reed
And I'm just going to start that I'm probably out on him. But there are a lot of people who are willing to take that shot at him. He's very small, as I already state stated, 5'9", 177 pounds. So I'm already skeptical there.
00:16:22
David Reed
and But he I will say he is absurdly fast. And it's not just straight line speed. His acceleration might be the best in his class. And it gives a lot of people the – the reminiscence of Tyreek Hill. He's not Tyreek as a skill set, but the way that his acceleration is, it gives a lot of people the Tyreek vibes, but we're whispering it. We don't really think he's going to be Tyreek, but he did come out of high school as one the top wide receiver prospects. So you have to give him some credit there.
00:16:50
David Reed
But the biggest issue is like he is easily slot only, which we talked about with Lemon, that you're just not gonna be in the field as much. And he seemed like he was kind of a gimmicky,
00:17:01
David Reed
oh Give me a gadgety player, because he had 45.5% of his receptions came from behind the line of scrimmage. I mean, he's a good athlete. They want get the ball in his hands, but he can't really get the ball open on real wide receiver routes.
00:17:17
David Reed
And these type of players, i just ah they don't really succeed at all in the NFL. So if he falls late in rookie draft, grab him. But in most leagues, someone's going to take him before then, and I'm just going to let them.
00:17:29
David Reed
final Final player in tier three that I want to talk about is Chris Bell out He's 6'2", 222 pounds, and he's a beast of a wide receiver. And he honestly may be rated even higher if he didn't tear his ACL in November. So he's been out, hasn't been able to participate, and his draft capital is taking a hit as a result. But if it wasn't for that, who knows? He might be getting first round buzz.
00:17:55
David Reed
He's a huge wide receiver. He punishes DBs and he plays the X and kind of gives you a little bit shades of shade of a j Brown. He's not as talented as A.J. Brown, but that type of imposing player is the that's style of playing. It's kind of what you get from Chris Bell. And he's very fast. He was tracked to running 22 miles per hour in a game earlier this year.
00:18:15
David Reed
He got better every single year at Louisville as well. So again, draft capital might slip because of the injury, but that might provide an opportunity to buy him at a discount in your rookie drafts. And I definitely will be looking at him at the end of the first or at least second round, depending where your picks fall.
00:18:33
David Reed
Now finally, going to dive into quickly some sleepers in this wide
Sleeper Prospects: Hidden NFL Potential?
00:18:38
David Reed
receiver class. First one, Antonio Williams at Clemson, 6'187", he's another slot only player, but and he also played a lot of special teams. He returned a lot of punts, so I actually think he will get a role by playing some special teams, and hopefully over time he can carve out a role for an NFL team, but I wouldn't expect a lot of early career success out of that Antonio Williams.
00:19:03
David Reed
malachi fields notre dame 6 5 to 18. now this is the big body wide receiver that that should give you some concerns he never really broke out in college even though he is very physically imposing um and he's the big body contested catch player but he's the one that i'm almost positive is going to bust the nfl But NFL loves size, and you know that the team's going to probably reach and take a flyer on him because he's 6'5 and can't teach that.
00:19:33
David Reed
I don't expect it to work, but if he does fall in rookie drafts like the third round, sure, I'll upll let'll take flyer on him as well. Skyler Bell out Yukon, 6 foot 192 pounds.
00:19:46
David Reed
Now this guy is very interesting. He's one of the more popular sleepers in the dynasty space because he's coming out of a smaller football program so he didn't really have great competition that he went against but he had a monster production this past year. He had 101 catches, 1,276 yards and touchdown that is you don't see that very often in the college game but again weak competition and some of that usage was pretty gimmicky was at this line of scrimmage or on screens but that's someone who especially from a smaller program they just want to get the ball in his hand so in the second half of the second round i'd probably start taking a look at skylar bell and trying to grab him
00:20:28
David Reed
Moving to Ted Hurst, this is another very, very popular trendy sleeper pick. He's coming out of Georgia State, 206 pounds, marry another small program, a smaller program, so not as good competition. and He didn't really have great production. It was pretty steady. He didn't really break out too much, but he is a big wide receiver who's extremely athletic. He ran off 4.42, 336.5 bird, and eleven foot three inch broad jump. So he's very explosive. Prop slips to day three, but those very athletic, explosive athletes at small schools, team teams like to take a flyer on him, and that's the type of upside you're looking for later in your draft.
00:21:12
David Reed
Bryce Lance, out North Dakota State, 6'3", 204 pounds, and the brother of Dynasty legend Trey Lance. And Bryce Lance is an athletic freak.
00:21:25
David Reed
He's given lot of people some Christian Watson vibes at a North Dakota State, where Christian Watson also came out of. and if you thought Ted Hurst was a good athlete listen some of Lance's uh measurables he had 4.34 40 41.5 vertical and 11.1 broad jump that is near perfect ah relative athletic score which we call ras score He never actually broke out, though, despite all that athleticism.
00:21:53
David Reed
And some of that is he's got to work on his hands a little bit to kind of collapse at the ball when he's catching it. And he definitely needs to work on being a real wide receiver in his route running. But a team is going to reach on-lands in the NFL draft most likely, and that means that he's going to be at least an interesting flyer in your rookie drafts.
00:22:12
David Reed
Now the last guy, not as widely sought after, but someone when I was reading, I'll get into JJ Zachariysen's late round prospect guy. I was reading his prospect guy, and this guy caught my attention a little bit. I kind of want to bring him out because i I think he could be someone in your third, maybe fourth round you're looking at. And his name is Eric McAllister at a TCU 6'4", 194 pounds.
00:22:37
David Reed
First, I want to say TC wide receivers, they just burn us, kind of like Tennessee, but we've had Quinton Johnson, Jalen Rager, Josh jo Josh Beck and Savion Williams all come in at TCU, and none of them have so far really hit the way that you were expected to. But McAllister's going to late-round pick. These other guys were earlier picks, except for maybe Savion Williams. So I'm interested.
Resources for In-Depth Prospect Analysis
00:23:03
David Reed
He's got great size and actually had very strong production profile, both during his time at Boise State and TCU. You don't generally see...
00:23:11
David Reed
this strong reproduction profile this late in the draft so especially with this type of size so again as a lead round dart throw this is someone that i'm starting to circle in later in my rookie drafts there's a bunch of other players that you can be diving into but these are just some of the ones i wanted to call out and get you acclimated with a rookie class now if you want to get deeper i do want to shout out a lot of the resources that i've been using and where you can go for that so Matt Harmon's reception perception.
00:23:40
David Reed
He's been releasing about five profiles a week, the last couple weeks. So he's got 10 rookies wide receiver right up to right now. Do do all four positions actually just released tight ends on April fools. And if you follow Matt Harmon, you understand that the kind of the joke with that even though to what they really do have the tight end profiles now but wide receiver is easily the strongest evaluation in my opinion the one they've been doing the longest and if you want to get real sick of as they call them and do deep dives into their charting really go to the reception perception.com and you can see they have great charts that are beautiful to look at but it kind of looks at wide receivers in isolation of their qb play so it's a he really does a great job breaking down the film on them
00:24:24
David Reed
JJ Zacharyison, who I mentioned but previously, has the late round prospect guide. And I definitely, definitely recommend going. And if you have the ability to find this late round prospect guide, you also get the post NFL draft rankings as well. But it's a PDF download. It's awesome. It has wide receivers, running backs, tight ends. The tight end model is new. And JJ is always tweaking this model. and To me, he's the best analytic modeler out there. And he also just changed the outputs on...
00:24:53
David Reed
on how to kind of show the differences between these prospects a bit a bit more clear. But he also takes all the time to explain the model inputs and and what goes into and' super transparent. And I definitely recommend following him on his late round podcast.
00:25:08
David Reed
Everything he does is great. I'm a big JJ fan. Fantasy footballer has been a huge fan of theirs as well, I think. It's it one of the bigger names in the space, but if you don't have it already, the Ultimate Draft Kit, you can get the UDK Plus. Even though the regular UDK doesn't release until later in the summer, the UDK Plus gives you the Dynasty Pass, which is full of content. You've got rookie rings, prospect profiles.
00:25:32
David Reed
all the research you can need dynasty rankings it's great resource and obviously you got to listen to their main fantasy footballer podcast and the dynasty podcast as well it's like not only is this a super insightful it's just incredibly fun and entertaining the show and finally today the last resource going to shoot shout out is matt wallman's rookie scouting portfolio the rsp it is a very very in-depth look at uh from film study on pretty much every prospect you could ever want. He goes in salient detail, a lot of guys who won't even get drafted. But this portfolio, this resource is actually used by a lot of NFL teams too. So if you really want to get ah a trusted source of someone who knows films and what is successful, hit up Matt Wallman. He also has a podcast as well. Look for that on Spotify as well, but great resources. And these are all the guys I use.
00:26:25
David Reed
and that we need to right now. There's other resources too, but those are more of a shout out. So I want to thank you again
Future Topics Tease: Running Backs, Quarterbacks, and Tight Ends
00:26:31
David Reed
for listening. And coming up in the coming weeks, we'll be hitting on running backs, then quarterbacks and tight ends. So thanks again, guys.