Henry Ruggs, left, CeeDee Lamb, center, and Jerry Jeudy, right, are the top wide receiver prospects in this year’s draft.
Photo: Dale Zanine/Reuters; Ronald Martinez/Getty Images; Butch Dill/ReutersThe 2017 NFL draft was a curious one, and not only because the Chicago Bears spent months doing exhaustive research only to conclude they should take Mitchell Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes. For the first time in more than a decade, three wide receivers went in the top 10 picks. There were more wide receivers taken with the most valuable picks in the draft than any other position.
It was a sign that NFL teams were finally waking up to the increasing importance of the guys who catch quarterbacks’ passes. There was just one problem. All three turned out to be woefully unproductive.
As the 2020 draft prepares to kickoff Thursday, it’s a lesson that gnaws at NFL coaches and executives. The incoming class of players features arguably the deepest crop of wide receivers in recent memory. But NFL teams have never been worse at figuring out which ones are actually good. They have to weigh the potentially phenomenal importance of these players with the blunt reality that taking one early has a strong chance at being an epic blunder.
Wide receiver is the one position that executives are seemingly fantastic at whiffing on, which is troublesome because the modern game of football has never placed a higher value on them. Smart teams are increasingly spreading the field, throwing the ball more and coming to grips with the idea that the sport today is fought through the air and not on the ground.
This year’s draft reflects those trends. Once quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa come off the board early, there will be a run on the unusually rich group of players who have displayed a knack for getting open, catching a football and dancing in the end zone. Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb and Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs, both of Alabama, are all likely to be selected in the first 15 picks.
“You’ve probably heard every GM and coach talk about this wide receiver class,” Jets general manager Joe Douglas said at the combine.
Alabama receiver Jerry Jeudy, left, celebrates with teammate Henry Ruggs.
Photo: Michael Woods/Associated PressThe best indication of how much teams value elite players is by studying who they decide to give gobs of cash to. And they’re giving more and more of that cash to wide receivers. This year, the cost of giving a receiver the franchise tag—which is roughly the average of the top five salaries across the league at a given position—is $17.9 million, making it the second richest after quarterbacks.
What’s even more telling is how quickly this has changed. Ten years ago, there were five positions that had a pricier franchise tag than wide receivers. Their spending patterns shifted because the game shifted. In 2011, 48% of snaps came with at least three receivers on the field. Last season, that number was 63%, according to Stats LLC.
The strength of the incoming wide receivers produces a volatile concoction. It has never been more crucial for teams to sift through the game film and discern the best ones. But they’ve also displayed a repeated inability to do just that.
In the 2017 draft, three wide receivers flew off the board before the Chiefs put an end to the madness and traded up to take Mahomes with the 10th pick. The Titans drafted Corey Davis, the Chargers grabbed Mike Williams and the Bengals took John Ross. As rookies, these three top-10 picks combined to catch 45 of the 90 passes thrown to them for 470 yards and zero touchdowns. They combined to produce at the level of one very below-average wide receiver.
It’s not that there weren’t good wide receivers available that year. It’s just they didn’t come off the board until far later. In the second round, the Steelers took JuJu Smith-Schuster, who’s now the youngest player in NFL history with at least 2,500 receiving yards. One round after that, the Rams nabbed Cooper Kupp, who quickly became a linchpin of Sean McVay’s passing attack. The Buccaneers found Chris Godwin, who was third in the NFL in receiving yards, 15 picks after Kupp.
Oddly enough, this isn’t odd at all. NFL teams have routinely found excellent wide receivers at points in the draft when such transcendent players shouldn’t be available. The New Orleans Saints’ Michael Thomas, who just broke the single-season record for receptions, was a second rounder. Stefon Diggs was a fifth-round pick and so vastly outperformed that selection that the Bills just traded a first rounder to the Vikings to get him.
The question that leaves: What produces this maddening reality in which the people who are paid millions of dollars to study these receivers cannot seem to fathom which of them to pick first? “There are several reasons,” Las Vegas Raiders general manager Mike Mayock says.
Mayock says there are so many misses at wide receiver because the transition from college to the pros can be especially challenging at that position. They have to adjust to playing against more press coverage, which is a football term that means getting mauled at the line of scrimmage by an angry NFL cornerback. They also have to learn a far more expansive playbook that not only requires them to run a wider variety of routes, but do so from different positions on the field like in the slot.
Oklahoma wide receiver Ceedee Lamb runs the 40-yard dash at the combine.
Photo: Michael Conroy/Associated PressThe knowledge gap even shows up on film. Mayock says he frequently watches tape and sees college receivers looking to their coaches before the snap to find out what route they’re supposed to run. Mayock knows exactly what would happen if one of the Raiders receivers did that. “Jon Gruden’s head would explode,” he says.
But the Raiders could be one team that splurges on a receiver early anyway. They need one, they have two first rounders and they’re aware of the talent available. In a typical draft, between 12 and 13 receivers go in the first three rounds. Mayock says there may be as many as 25 worthy of that this year.
That gives teams plenty of opportunities to draft hugely important players. It also gives them plenty of opportunities to mess up.
Share Your Thoughts
Why do you think wide receivers are one of the hardest positions to evaluate?
Write to Jonathan Clegg at jonathan.clegg@wsj.com and Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com
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