DCOrange

I’m hoping to scout the WRs on All 22 as the draft gets closer but for now, I’m only going off of highlights, scouting reports, and metrics. I can buy Thomas. I think he’s already great at some of the stuff that’s incredibly hard to teach. He’s gotta learn to catch with his hands though. If he can do that, he’ll be a #1; if he doesn’t, he’ll just be a good field stretcher. The other two: there’s a chance, but I’m much more skeptical with them being a #1. Mitchell probably looks the part more than Franklin but it sounds like he’s pretty raw still.

Samuel is exclusively a slot guy. Mooney is around 50/50 in terms of slot vs. wideout. I wouldn’t mind Mooney if his market is cheap but there’s a decent chance he’s a downgrade from Gabe overall. Definitely more speed though.

And 22 WRs in the top 100.

INTs by intended target: 6 - Gabe 4 - Diggs 3 - Kincaid 2 - Harty 2 - Knox 1 - Isabella

Samuel and Boyd are pretty much exclusively slot guys so I don’t think they’d make any sense as a replacement. Mooney is mostly slot and just isn’t as good as Davis anyways IMO. Definitely agree re: the first 5 names, though they’ll probably all be significantly more expensive than Gabe. Pittman also has mostly been a slant merchant in the NFL; very good player and one of my personal favorites but if we’re focused on explosive vertical plays, he’s not the guy. Odell I could go either way on vs. Gabe.

I definitely think he can be replaced, but I do think people underrate him here, at least as far as being a vertical threat goes. There were only 29 WRs this year that were targeted deep at least 20 times this year. It’s basically every big name WR in the league plus Gabe, Justin Watson, and Rashid Shaheed. Gabe’s catch % on those passes was tied for 13th I believe (again, almost exclusively compared to the other star WRs in the NFL), his PFF grade on these passes was tied for 6th, tied for 6th in TDs, 14th in yards per route run, 4th in contested catch rate (granted the sample size on these are very small across the board), and 15th in passer rating on those targets. Anyway you slice it he was among the best deep threats in the league this year despite it being a relative down year. And I think Diggs and more recently Sherfield showed those downfield targets are not easy to bring in. Diggs was also in that group of 29 and was close to dead last in all those categories. Having said that, 2 rookies did crack that list this year to varying success rates. Zay Flowers wasn’t as good as Gabe but was still pretty good. Jordan Addison made the list but was near the bottom in terms of success. I certainly do not foresee us replacing him via free agency unless we find some serious money under the cushions; none of the cheaper FA options really offer upside as vertical threats.

That first play action play where Sherfield has the entire middle of the field open and just breaks the play by himself is so brutal.

I think he can play out wide or in the slot; probably more of a Y-receiver than anything else. He's played the vast majority of his snaps in college out wide but he does shift to the slot sometimes.

I can't remember if I've posted about him yet, but I have to imagine Beane will be giving Xavier Worthy a very hard look for our 1st or 2nd round pick. Maybe the youngest WR in the class or close to it, track star speed, and what seems to be very good ball tracking down the field. He's gotten some comps to Zay Flowers, who was probably my favorite WR in the class last year.

@GunnerBill Have you watched UCF's Javon Baker at all? I haven't scouted him personally but some of the clips I've seen and some of the metrics have me circling his name as a potential underrated fit for us out wide. I'm sure Bills fans would be totally fine replacing Gabe Davis with a big vertical threat from UCF 😁

Hard to tell what was Kingsbury and what was Caleb just going off script, but USC's offense was horrendous to watch this season. They managed to take a QB with extraordinary playmaking chops and great physical tools and make him one of the least fun scouting experiences of my life.

Seems like all the draft media people have Coleman much higher than people like you and I do. He’s probably the guy I’m most skeptical of among the WRs for all the reasons you mentioned. I think literally 50% of his targets this season were contested and he wasn’t particularly good at bringing them in. He has a couple freakishly good catches on film that seem to have won the media over but the full film and numbers do not match that at all.

I didn't think any of UNC's WRs stood out on film this year when I was watching Maye, but I know some other people are very high on him like you are so maybe I'm just missing it. Just mentioning it as a reply to your post because you were researching. For those that are interested, two really handy links for scouting purposes: A free spreadsheet that a bunch of people worked on to provide links to a ton of game film of each prospect (generally just broadcast views, but it's better than nothing): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18a0E2eJPc14LmSOw6vJtvhryNWC-ojOffARtFlCV3xk/edit#gid=0 Or for $2 a month you can get access to All-22 film for a ton of prospects here; this is what I use for my QB scouting https://www.patreon.com/CaddysCutups

I definitely get it. It’s a good and deep WR class but picking as late as we currently are, you’re going to have to take WRs that have holes in their games. Just have to figure out which holes you think you can deal with really. Legette could definitely be good; guys with his size, speed, and physicality are very attractive prospects to gamble on. I definitely worry about how long it took him to make an impact and the press coverage stuff though given our specific needs. You might like Adonai Mitchell as well; he’s not as fast as Legette but he’s tall and generally considered a weirdly flexible route runner for someone his size. Keon Coleman is another contested catch merchant but comes with his own red flags too.

I get it. But the main thing we really need out of that mold is someone that can deal with press coverage so that our smaller guys don’t have to deal with it. That’s what made DK so special and it’s what makes Legette a disappointing prospect IMO. That along with the fact that it took him 5 years to do anything at all in college; which is pretty much always an indicator of a WR that will bust in the NFL.

FWIW, Dane Brugler from The Athletic just released his first two-round mock of the year based on what's hearing around the league and he does not have Legette going in the first two rounds. Seems like a lot of people have been turned off from him recently. Obviously plenty of time for that to change though.

I don't think any of those guys are really similar to one another. In terms of the tall, physical WR mold like Evans, you could maybe look to Keon Coleman or Adonai Mitchell. However, they both rank near the bottom of the draft class in terms of yards per route run and aren't particularly good in terms of contested catch rate. Mitchell moves fairly well for his size but his targets per route run suggest he probably doesn't get open as well as most. Coleman on the other hand gets a pretty good number of targets but they're mostly contested opportunities which is a pretty big red flag against college competition. In terms of the size/speed freaks like DK, you're probably looking at Brian Thomas Jr. and Xavier Legette. But unlike DK Metcalf, who was one of the best prospects to come around in a long time in terms of beating press coverage, that's something that Xavier Legette really struggles with. Thomas has the size (6'4"), speed, and press beating skills to at least kinda earn that sort of competition, but he body catches pretty much everything. Not really sure anyone particularly compares to Jefferson aside from maybe one of the guys that are out of our reach.

Re: Ladd - It feels like at least based on the numbers that he's a very effective WR against zone coverage, finding holes to squat down in and whatnot which is probably the strength of our current WRs. Franklin and Thomas appear to be much more effective against man coverage. They definitely have their warts though. Thomas seems to be amazing at beating press coverage which is one of the main traits I'm looking for, but he seems to have a bit of the Chase Claypool gene where he doesn't like attacking the ball in the air. Far better separator than guys like Claypool though so it shouldn't totally ruin him as a player. Franklin is a bit more raw in terms of releasing against press/route running/ball tracking but he'll go up and get it and is just a great speed threat everywhere. Re: Legette, taking this long to become a remotely productive college player is a pretty serious red flag, particularly with WRs and he doesn't seem particularly good against press coverage still. Feels like a lot of people compare him to DK Metcalf, but DK's ability to beat press coverage was his greatest skill whereas it's a weakness for Legette.

At 28, I'd probably prefer WR. The three I'm currently looking at around there are Troy Franklin, Brian Thomas Jr., and Ladd McConkey. They seem to check more of the boxes that I'm looking for than most, though I am a bit concerned about McConkey's lack of reps against man coverage since it feels like we have a lot of zone beaters right now. So might be more of a focus on Franklin and Thomas in the first round for me.

Unfortunately it's time to shift gears to the NFL Draft, and I think we all agree WR has to be the #1 priority or close to it. I put together this spreadsheet looking at a lot of the premium data from PFF over the last two seasons to see how the WR class shapes up. There's a lot of different metrics in here and I'm happy to explain any that might not be super clear, but the main thing that I'm particularly looking for is a combination of high ADOT, high Target % Open, and high Targets/Pass Play; basically WRs that are running deep routes and also getting open a lot. As you'll notice, this isn't exactly an easy combination to find. Sorting by Target % Open, you have to go almost halfway down the list before you start hitting WRs with high ADOT. The guys that stand out in this regard is probably some combination of: Roman Wilson Adonai Mitchell Ladd McConkey Brian Thomas Jr. Troy Franklin Brenden Rice Amongst that group, Adonai Mitchell's catch % and Yards Per Route Run are both pretty bad (and doesn't check the targets/pass play box either). McConkey checks 2 out of 3 boxes with flying colors and kinda checks the other. Franklin checks 2 out of 3. Wilson, Thomas, and Rice are more iffy. Anywho, figured some of you might like poking around the spreadsheet and maybe getting an idea of who you might want to research a little more. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12pCgsJPa9X-jjNMOZ_exJTAEfxmZOeETzEm8SNkuXec/edit?usp=sharing

With all the injuries we had, some from early in the season, I just never really got high expectations on this year's team. Always felt like a "Damn, the league is so wide open; it's a shame we got the injury bug this bad" season the whole way through to me.

I just don't buy the theory that the season in which basically our entire starting defense was out or wounded is our best opportunity. I think the 13 seconds season was easily our best chance in the Allen era. This season the entire league has been wide open with the possible exception of Baltimore, so yeah, if we were healthy, I would be absolutely devastated that we couldn't get it done again. But as is, it was a minor miracle that we even made it here to begin with. Assuming we aren't a cursed franchise, we should be better next season than we were this year. KC might be better too; we'll see. They may no longer be the biggest threat in the AFC anyways.

Really odd he tried to bring it into the body instead of going up with his hands. These types of catches used to be his bread and butter.

We definitely caught some lucky breaks in this game that should have been enough for us to get the win, but I don't really agree with the idea that this is the weakest Chiefs team we'll ever see or that this is the best chance we'll ever have. Sounds like Kelce is likely retiring after this season; that will obviously be a gigantic hole for KC to fill and they haven't exactly done a good job identifying receivers for Mahomes lately. And just generally speaking, it's difficult to maintain elite defenses year after year; KC's was great this season. They may or may not be great moving forwards. We obviously have some issues to iron out ourselves. It's entirely possible that our roster will decline from here on out, but we'll also be getting back what feels like 10 starters on our defense that we didn't have this postseason.

This is why. There was no promise we would score, as evidenced by the fact that we didn't. Taking the lead with 2-5 minutes left (if we hadn't been so focused on milking the clock in the first place) is better than never taking the lead.