What to do with Rookie Busts Wide Receivers

Our failure to predict which players will be successful is both well documented and also difficult to cope with. Much work has been done to show how all NFL teams draft with roughly similar skill levels. This means that we can't rely on certain teams to be young talent funnels. There has also been a significant amount of research that shows how random the draft can be, even if draft position does offer some insight. Because of this, we can say that a player selected in the sixth round is less likely to find NFL success than a player taken in the first round. However, the high degree of volatility tells us that the difference in pick number within an individual round isn't going to offer us a meaningful amount of insight. We can use different measures that the NFL appears to be undervaluing to increase our predictive abilities (think breakout age for a receiver or year of draft declaration for running backs) but we're going to be wrong far more often than is comfortable. After making predictions and learning something about the outcomes of those predictions, the next step is to understand how far we adjust our priors. How much does a first-round receiver going for just 245 yards as a rookie matter for his future outlook? Does that present a buying opportunity? Let's find out.

Busts by Draft Day

Round 1

Starting with first-round picks, the data on the busts is already concerning. Since the year 2000, there have been 39 first-round receivers who failed to reach 500 yards in their rookie season. This is excluding rookies from the 2020 season who have yet to give us any further data on their careers. Only nine of those receivers ever went on to record a single season with at least 1,000 yards. Just six managed more than two 1,000 yard seasons. A pair of century-mark campaigns is nice but if you're selecting a player in dynasty or redraft because of his draft pedigree, more than a handful of usable seasons seems like a reasonable request.

An unsurprising trend that follows both the Day 1 and Day 2 draft picks is that the more receiving yards a player racked up in their rookie campaign, the better off they were at getting back on track after a sluggish first year. Neither 100 yards nor 497 yards make for a useful fantasy season but the latter player is far more likely to become a fantasy asset in the future. A total of 27 1,000-yard seasons were produced by these underachieving receivers. All but five of those seasons come from players who at least topped 250 yards as rookies. A bad rookie season is difficult to overcome but a truly atrocious rookie season is often a death sentence. Even ceiling careers came from this cohort, most notably with Reggie Wayne and Roddy White debuting at 345 and 446 yards respectively.

A few players are still fighting to recoup their NFL future but it's hard to hold out much hope that they will single-handedly change our perception of busts. Maybe John Ross finds the right team and turns things around. Nelson Agholor even showed signs of life in Las Vegas last year after languishing in Philly for a few seasons. However, the prospects of any of the current busts becoming former busts look slim. We'll stick with a rebound rate of 23.1%.
 

Rounds 2 and 3

The numbers only get worse when we move into Day 2 of the draft. The players who fail in their first season among this group only rebound with at least one season over the century mark at a rate of 12.1%. That's nearly half the rate of the first-round selections. Receivers with higher draft capital tend to get more second chances and they're also more likely to possess more intrinsic talent and athleticism than those taken later in the draft. After seeing the abysmally low rate of bouncebacks among Day 2 receivers, it's a moot point to try and learn anything about Day 3 "busts." The expectation for these players isn't that of fantasy success. A real-life success story for a sixth-round receiver is occasionally making an impact on offense and being a core special teamer for half a decade. That's not what we're looking for from a fantasy perspective so it's safe to assume that if your late-round player doesn't show signs of life as a rookie, feel free to cut bait as soon as possible. Pushing as close to the 500-yard threshold was just as important, if not more crucial, for Day 2 receivers as well. Overall, these players, as their draft capital suggests, look like discount versions of their Day 1 counterparts.
 

False Positives and Waiting Games

The last wrinkles in finding bouncebacks are that they don't always find their stride in year two. Plus, if they do, we don't know how much staying power that has. If all former busts turned things around by the second year. It would likely be a profitable venture to buy the dip on underperforming rookies if all of those who did post 1,000-yard seasons did so immediately after failing. However, it's somewhat rare for that to be the case. Adding in an extra unknown element of time around these players greatly decreases our odds of making correct bets. Of the nine first-round rebounds, only one came in their second year. Day 2 players rebounded as sophomores in 5/14 instances which is a far greater rate than the first-rounders. This is interesting but may also be the product of a small sample and two of those players get small beats in the next paragraph.

False positives, a player appearing to progress in their second year, only to return to the ranks of fantasy irrelevancy in subsequent years, were rare but further complicate chasing these receivers. Half of the first-round picks who hit 700 yards in Year 2 did not go on to record 1,000 yards once. Two Day 2 receivers hit the century mark as sophomores and that became the summit of their careers. If you're looking to buy these players on the cheap, you're also likely to perceive any signs of life as surefire indicators of future success. The over-correction that ensues only multiplies the odds of failure in our pursuit to find a good deal. Overall, it simply doesn't appear profitable to chase receivers after a rookie flop unless there is a substantial discount. Knowing how stingy fantasy players are with their previous prospects, a fair discount on a stumbling rookie is a pipe dream.

 

Our failure to predict which players will be successful is both well documented and also difficult to cope with. Much work has been done to show how all NFL teams draft with roughly similar skill levels. This means that we can't rely on certain teams to be young talent funnels. There has also been a significant amount of research that shows how random the draft can be, even if draft position does offer some insight. Because of this, we can say that a player selected in the sixth round is less likely to find NFL success than a player taken in the first round. However, the high degree of volatility tells us that the difference in pick number within an individual round isn't going to offer us a meaningful amount of insight. We can use different measures that the NFL appears to be undervaluing to increase our predictive abilities (think breakout age for a receiver or year of draft declaration for running backs) but we're going to be wrong far more often than is comfortable. After making predictions and learning something about the outcomes of those predictions, the next step is to understand how far we adjust our priors. How much does a first-round receiver going for just 245 yards as a rookie matter for his future outlook? Does that present a buying opportunity? Let's find out.
 

Busts by Draft Day

Round 1

Starting with first-round picks, the data on the busts is already concerning. Since the year 2000, there have been 39 first-round receivers who failed to reach 500 yards in their rookie season. This is excluding rookies from the 2020 season who have yet to give us any further data on their careers. Only nine of those receivers ever went on to record a single season with at least 1,000 yards. Just six managed more than two 1,000 yard seasons. A pair of century-mark campaigns is nice but if you're selecting a player in dynasty or redraft because of his draft pedigree, more than a handful of usable seasons seems like a reasonable request.

An unsurprising trend that follows both the Day 1 and Day 2 draft picks is that the more receiving yards a player racked up in their rookie campaign, the better off they were at getting back on track after a sluggish first year. Neither 100 yards nor 497 yards make for a useful fantasy season but the latter player is far more likely to become a fantasy asset in the future. A total of 27 1,000-yard seasons were produced by these underachieving receivers. All but five of those seasons come from players who at least topped 250 yards as rookies. A bad rookie season is difficult to overcome but a truly atrocious rookie season is often a death sentence. Even ceiling careers came from this cohort, most notably with Reggie Wayne and Roddy White debuting at 345 and 446 yards respectively.

A few players are still fighting to recoup their NFL future but it's hard to hold out much hope that they will single-handedly change our perception of busts. Maybe John Ross finds the right team and turns things around. Nelson Agholor even showed signs of life in Las Vegas last year after languishing in Philly for a few seasons. However, the prospects of any of the current busts becoming former busts look slim. We'll stick with a rebound rate of 23.1%.
 

Rounds 2 and 3

The numbers only get worse when we move into Day 2 of the draft. The players who fail in their first season among this group only rebound with at least one season over the century mark at a rate of 12.1%. That's nearly half the rate of the first-round selections. Receivers with higher draft capital tend to get more second chances and they're also more likely to possess more intrinsic talent and athleticism than those taken later in the draft. After seeing the abysmally low rate of bouncebacks among Day 2 receivers, it's a moot point to try and learn anything about Day 3 "busts." The expectation for these players isn't that of fantasy success. A real-life success story for a sixth-round receiver is occasionally making an impact on offense and being a core special teamer for half a decade. That's not what we're looking for from a fantasy perspective so it's safe to assume that if your late-round player doesn't show signs of life as a rookie, feel free to cut bait as soon as possible. Pushing as close to the 500-yard threshold was just as important, if not more crucial, for Day 2 receivers as well. Overall, these players, as their draft capital suggests, look like discount versions of their Day 1 counterparts.
 

False Positives and Waiting Games

The last wrinkles in finding bouncebacks are that they don't always find their stride in year two. Plus, if they do, we don't know how much staying power that has. If all former busts turned things around by the second year. It would likely be a profitable venture to buy the dip on underperforming rookies if all of those who did post 1,000-yard seasons did so immediately after failing. However, it's somewhat rare for that to be the case. Adding in an extra unknown element of time around these players greatly decreases our odds of making correct bets. Of the nine first-round rebounds, only one came in their second year. Day 2 players rebounded as sophomores in 5/14 instances which is a far greater rate than the first-rounders. This is interesting but may also be the product of a small sample and two of those players get small beats in the next paragraph.

False positives, a player appearing to progress in their second year, only to return to the ranks of fantasy irrelevancy in subsequent years, were rare but further complicate chasing these receivers. Half of the first-round picks who hit 700 yards in Year 2 did not go on to record 1,000 yards once. Two Day 2 receivers hit the century mark as sophomores and that became the summit of their careers. If you're looking to buy these players on the cheap, you're also likely to perceive any signs of life as surefire indicators of future success. The over-correction that ensues only multiplies the odds of failure in our pursuit to find a good deal. Overall, it simply doesn't appear profitable to chase receivers after a rookie flop unless there is a substantial discount. Knowing how stingy fantasy players are with their previous prospects, a fair discount on a stumbling rookie is a pipe dream.