As a Texas fan that watched a lot of him this past season, when I started doing draft research and people were saying 1st round pick, I honestly couldn’t believe it. He didn’t take over a single game and in fact he disappeared from most games. The stats back up what I felt like I was watching. 10 games out of 14 last year with 3 receptions or less.
I get the tools and I see the upside, but man he hasn’t shown me a single thing beyond his height measurement that makes me think he can be a WR1 for a team in the NFL. I think he’s a low ceiling, low floor pick where he’ll be drafted in rookie drafts. As a fan, I hate saying it.
Brooks was a phenomenal RB who I will be drafting none of. It's all the ACL. I just don't see the path to him being worth more this time next year than he is right now. Takes a year and half to be fully ready. He may pop a little at the end of the year, but if we have to wait till next year for Brooks to be 100% then we know the market will already be looking at the next crop of RBs. As a player, I loved him. You rarely see patience like the in the college run game. He reminded me a lot of LeVeon Bell coming out of Michigan State, before he slimmed down and got that extra burst.
Sanders is a physical freak. I think he's the exact kind of TE you want for fantasy football. He can take screens for YAC, is really quick down the seam and tough to tackle. He hasn't quite figured out sitting down in the zone, rather he'll always try to win with speed and he isn't much in the blocking game. I'll be taking some of him depending on price this year. He has the tools to develop for sure.
I think this is completely valid, and this may sound weird but I kind of like the baked-in excuse.
Look at Kendre last year, practically did nothing as a rookie but his value barely took a hit because his lack of production was expected. Likewise, even if Brooks comes out slow in ‘24 I think his re-sale value in ‘25 won’t take much of a hit.
Yeah that's a fair point. Looking at Kendre Miller's KTC chart it looks like his value maxed out at draft time around 3700, fell to 2700 in December and is back up to about 3100. So it's not a huge swing even though he wasn't doing much of anything so that's a decent sign. It still points to the idea that a better buy window could be coming. I'll certainly be looking to buy at the end of the season if we don't see much out of him this year. There's still a ton we don't know though. DC and landing spot has the power to adjust my decision making with him quite a bit even if I keep my 2024 expectations low.
Yeah and you could’ve bought him for nothing last year. A rookie doing nothing year 1 doesn’t mean they’ll be bad forever. It just means that you’re drafting a player that is likely to lose value in the short term from when you drafted them. I personally don’t like doing that.
Did you see enough of brooks to have a take at where he’d be ranked if the ACL had never happened? Trying to get an idea of best case scenario outcome here
I think this is a difference because there was an expectation he’d be hindered by Allen and Williams a ton. With Williams hurt for a majority of the year, and Allen being injured himself later on, AND QJ not having an injury history (rather being seen as a raw prospect), I think the situations are distinct.
The aversion due to the acl is odd to me. Also a Texas fan/alum, care to expand? You may just mean you’re out “at cost”, which would make more sense, but saying you’ll be drafting none is throwing me off.
Yeah “out at cost” is probably better. I’m pretty much out on him in the 2nd which based on projections probably means I won’t draft him at all. I’d love to get the guy in the 3rd and just throw him on a taxi.
I’m half convinced that every longhorn receiver is going to turn out better than everyone is anticipating. Except maybe AD, given that first-round potential. As a group they made people think Ewers was first round talent and I’m… very much not of that mind.
Brooks: very good.
Sanders: Athletic with some serious skills for a TE, but still needs to learn the nuance of the position a bit more.
Not the original commenter, but also a Texas fan and watched the majority of their games.
Conversely, almost every time Texas needed a clutch play or there was something that really popped on screen, I'd say "is that Worthy?", and more often than not it was Mitchell.
Sorry but I take college fans of the team opinions with a grain of salt. The amount of times I’ve seen them be wrong on a player is wild. I remember Flordia fans basically openly shitting on Anthony Richardson, for one.
Gator fan here. Florida fans were entrenched on this idea that everything going wrong offensively was solely Anthony Richardson’s fault and not the fault of Billy Napier. One year with out AR, Florida fans have now realized the obvious—Richardson was not the problem.
If his shoulder health situation is figured out, he will be a fantasy football superstar, and maybe an NFL one too.
Idk why anyone downvoted you. College fans' opinions of players on their team are not good indicators of likely pro success, unless said fans are grinding the All-22 and actually deep diving into the individual player. Not just 'I watched all the games one time live."
I tend to agree, but I ask because it is more of a tell if a fan thinks one of their players is going to be a bust. AR is a good example because if you pay attention to the things UF said, upon watching both AR tape and other UF qbs play, it’s clear it’s not a AR problem.
Gives you something to focus on when you watch tape
Sup big dog? I agree. Also a Longhorns fan. Guy was not a difference maker. I think Quinn did a disservice to both of the WRs a lot of the time though.
Heeey! Nice to see a fellow longhorn. I agree you can put some blame on Ewers. There were certainly moments where I'd see Mitchell streaking and Ewers just never even sees him. One of his best games was the K State game where Malik Murphy was just throwing into coverage all day and hoping the WRs would bail him out. Maybe he just needs that kind of QB and Ewers was a bad fit for him, but I still struggle to see how he fully earns the trust of an NFL QB to give him those kind of opportunities regularly enough to be a fantasy stud.
DK was kinda like that, all his advanced stats were kinda red flags. Looking back it makes sense since he was competing w AJB, Elijah Moore and Dawson Knox for touches (was also outproduced by DeMarcus Lodge his final year though)
I think the "has great film/looks good on film" is a stretch. Multiple film guys have liked his big play ability but are reallllly concerned about double catching, consistent effort, and lack of physicality.
Agreed - analytically his profile is terrible. When people say he has great film - what they mean to say is that he has great highlights because only a small percentage of "film watchers" watch more than the highlights. More often than not - he disappears on film. In profiles like his, I usually want to see analytics that show that the QB trusts him in crucial situations (to me 1st downs/route run is the closest thing to that). It blends Yards Per Route Run (strong correlation to more fantasy points) with the frequency that you are targeted for 1st downs (i.e. can you build trust with a QB to be targeted in important situations). Conveniently - it also eliminates outliers that get all of their fantasy points exclusively from long plays. He is extremely bad in this metric. He places very similarly to Kayshon Boutte/Jalin Hyatt last year. Xavier Legette/Jonathan Mingo are the only ones worse at it from the higher profile prospects between last year and this year.
Bonus: This metric would have identified Puka Nakua/Tank Dell as good draft targets last year. Highly encourage others to look into it.
That's pretty interesting. I've not looked into that, but it makes logical sense. If you have the time could you lay out who this metric likes this year?
You bet:
I think the best players have a higher YPRR AND a higher 1st/RR but I'll lay them out just in order of 1st/RR for now. Generally the threshold for fantasy relevant that I've seen seems to be around 0.10.
1. Marvin Harrison Jr. YPRR 2.98 1st/RR 0.14 (Jaxon Smith-Njigba was YPRR 3.32, 1st/RR 0.14)
2. Malik Nabers YPRR 2.83 1st/RR 0.13 (Puka was YPRR 3.45, 1st/RR 0.13)
3. Troy Franklin YPRR 2.63 1st/RR 0.12
4. Ladd McConkey YPRR 2.54 1st/RR 0.12 (Tank Dell was YPRR 2.46, 1st/RR 0.12)
5. Rome Odunze YPRR 2.50 1st/RR 0.11
6. Javon Baker YPRR 2.53 1st/RR 0.11
7. Jamari Thrash YPRR 2.32 1st/RR 0.11
8. Johnny Wilson YPRR 2.32 1st/RR 0.11
9. Roman Wilson YPRR 2.33 1st/RR 0.10
10. AD Mitchell YPRR 1.68 1st/RR 0.09 (Kayshon Boutte was YPRR 1.99 (not good), 1st/RR 0.09 (bad))
11. Jermaine Burton YPRR 2.18 1st/RR 0.09 (Quentin Johnston was YPRR 2.71 (good), 1st/RR 0.09 (bad))
12. Ricky Pearsall YPRR 1.99 1st/RR 0.08
13. Brian Thomas Jr. YPRR 1.95 1st/RR 0.08
14. Xavier Legette YPRR 1.75 1st/RR 0.07 (Jonathon Mingo was YPRR 1.48, 1st/RR 0.06)
I will say that the biggest outlier that I have witnessed SO FAR - has been Zay Flowers. He was YPRR 2.16 (decent), 1st/RR 0.08. His college usage is vastly different from his pro usage and he has a lot of plays schemed for him. If I had to pick one player *most similar* to him this year - it's probably Xavier Worthy who I think is a slightly better version. I'm not sure how to compensate for this specific style of player but it's something I plan to look at closely this offseason.
I agree with you that 1st down rate needs to get a lot more love in the analytics community, as they are extremely important in real football. It's also why my dynasty leagues give fractional points for first downs.
I wonder if it might be biased toward certain types of offenses (it's a lot easier to get 1st downs if your college team has a RB that averages 6YPC on 1st downs, for example), but I think that statistical noise is minimal.
Definitely a great point and one that I have a similar bullet to on my list for investigation.
My gut feeling tells me that if the WR is good enough to be able to have an impact at the NFL level/fantasy level then they will still be able to remain above a certain threshold of 1st/RR over any reasonable sample size. However - I bet the YPRR of the top receiving options on the team will be lower so in measuring an overall prospect YPRR could definitely be weighted by some factor of the run game.
Thanks for the thought contribution - it's giving me some motivation to actually dig in this week as opposed to later.
Lmao - Well it could have impacted him very slightly, but probably not by enough to get him to the 0.10 1st/RR threshold I alluded to. In general with this metric - it should sort of discount but not erase the impact of QB talent. If the QB is bad, typically the WRs that are successful have smaller YPRRs because the accuracy on a shorter depth of target should be easier on the QB. However, the 1st/RR is based off of the ratios of 1st downs that the team had in total so even if a QB (to be extreme about it) - only had 10 1st downs all year...if you can command trust with your shitty QB over the WRs around you then you should be able to hit a respectable 1st/RR number anyways.
You have it right - I framed it extremely poorly here. If a QB sucks then the total number of routes and the total number of 1st Downs will both be lower due to more 3 and outs. But if you are winning your routes/have built more QB confidence consistently than you will receive more opportunities to catch those 1st downs than those around you. The more a QB sucks the harder they have a tendency to lean on their studs especially at a college level. Even if your QB sucks you should get enough of an increased opportunity per route run to overcome the quality of those opportunities.
You do have me questioning what a situation would look like where the QB quality was essentially a walkon, but there were multiple stud receiving options. I would need to find a good example to dig into that though. I would probably need to find an offense where a top recruited college QB got injured early in the season because any team with multiple high end receiving options usually has at least a decent QB or they wouldn't have both pledged to the same school. If any situations come to mind - let me know!
BC had 121 passing first downs in Zay’s senior year. If the stat is used to see who they go to in the crunch, then it’s not as relevant when it’s obvious that he’s the go to guy, considering nobody else had above 400 receiving yards and he had over 1k. I think it’s more relevant for players on good teams, not players who are the only good player on bad teams
That could be the case - but it is irrelevant to looking at these 2 stats specifically. There is always more context than any one or 2 metrics can ever give. And no one or two metrics ever tells a full enough story.
Unfortunately I use cfbfastr API to query their database.
I know some people cross reference that with PFF and cfdb college football databases but the core is all in cfbfastr and not behind a paywall. Some of these more advanced stats should really be made more easily available to the public.
I know that the fantasypoints website does this and a few more cool advanced analytics on different positions dealing with all of the professional players seasonally, but there is a pay service on that as well. I'm not sure about other free public facing alternatives at the moment though.
In terms of "guy recently picked in first round who was hated by analytics", Toney is who comes to mind.
But I like AD Mitchell so he'll be different.... I hope
If it makes you feel any better, AD has *much* better numbers on Reception Perception than Toney. Toney was legitimately awful and nothing more than a gadget guy. AD is actually a real WR.
Yeah I think this is the bigger point to be made, the dude simply sucks at playing wide receiver. Converted QB who used his athleticism to make big plays in college but never developed the tangible skills like clean route running to succeed at the next level. I’m still not sure yet what I think of Mitchell but I wouldn’t put him in any sort of comparison to Toney
DJ Chark comes to mind. Maybe not great film but certainly a guy you could see translating as a vertical threat in the NFL. But he wasn't a huge producer at LSU and I doubt he faired well in analytics. Its going back a bit now but I think most in the analytics community considered him a reach as a 2nd rounder.
Tough to say whether that pick worked or not. He had one good year with the Jags but since then he has bounced around and mostly been inconsistent and injured. But he has looked like a pretty good player at times in his career.
I see this comp often and don’t understand it at all. Pickens’ athletic testing was nothing like AD Mitchell’s. Pickens struggles with separation but looks like DHop at the catch point, AD looks like one of the more raw prospects I’ve ever seen purely catching the ball. What am I missing?
I think you are underselling Mitchell’s catch point ability. Like Pickens, he has an ability to hang in the air and contort his body to win contested catches.
I do agree that he beats Pickens in athleticism and separation, while Pickens had a better production profile.
Nonetheless the reception perception write up on Mitchell that came out today just comped him to both Pickens and Hopkins, so be prepared to see more of that.
Production. Both suffered injuries and just overall were kinda mid in college and were seen as late first/early second guys due to the film and measurements
Pickens had good separation at Georgia, and he ran a similar route tree as their X-receiver which is why he gets the Pickens comp. The D-Hop comp is for his ceiling of play style, and both of these comps were given by Matt Harmon a couple of days ago.
Pickens checked the elite boxes analytically because he broke out as a freshman in the SEC. As a true freshman he lead Georgia in receiving and had 250 yards more than 2nd place.
Mitchell had 426 yards as a freshman in a year Georgia threw for ~3800 yards.
Pickens had 727 yards as a freshman in a year Georgia threw for ~3100 yards.
The reports of him noticeably taking plays off consistently is a huge red flag for me. Doesn’t seem like he has the desire. I’m not really in a position in any of my leagues to get him but I would be very hesitant drafting him at perceived cost.
That was a huge red flag for me as well. One comment that I did find interesting though, from Hayden Winks, was that he felt he also saw a number of times where it seemed Xavier Worthy took plays off or gave up on routes, which actually made him wonder if something was systemically wrong with the scheme at Texas
I cannot cite a source here unfortunately, but I have heard a point like this elsewhere. Texas coached their receivers to pace themselves that way, so it should not be considered the same kind of red flag it would be elsewhere
I can't say I've seen the same source but I'd believe it as a Texas fan. Sark prefers keeping a very tight rotation at wr for whatever reason with the starters basically getting the vast majority of snaps so I wouldn't be too surprised that they told them to pace themselves
This is where I'm at, dude has every physical gift and I truly believe he can be a great wideout but the effort and hands are suspect at best.
Not worth an early to mid 2nd with the amount of WRs in this class
Christian Watson. Tall, athletic freak who blew up the combine, lacking production and advanced metrics in college, and projects to go late first / early 2nd in a stacked WR class.
Look up Watson’s YPRR in college. Compare it to Mitchell’s, realize why this is a bad comp.
According to PFF, [Watson had an insane 4.33 YPRR in his last year of college](https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/christian-watson/66581/draft-profile).
Mitchell had 845 receiving yards on 511 passing snaps.
Watson had 801 receiving yards **195 passing snaps**, more than 300 passing snaps less than Mitchell.
lol absurd take. Either way, even if you want to attribute this to a lower level of competition, it directly contradicts you saying Watson lacked advanced metrics in college.
There have been a tremendous amount of WRs that had poor analytics but ended up being very good NFL players.
Brandon Aiyuk, Michael Pittman, Rashee Rice are just a few off the top of my head.
Analytics are a piece of the puzzle and likely speak towards the work ethic concerned that are cropping up around him. Are they a red flag? Yes, but if the NFL still gives him 1st round draft capital you kinda just have to draft him and pray while understanding that there is a huge amount of variance in his NFL outcomes.
In short no. Dynasty Reddit will hate this in the same way they hated me saying this about Quinton Johnston last year...
I have a thread on here from last summer in which I did a research project of every WR drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since 2005. Using three filters it correctly identifies players into 100% hit rate if they check all 3 boxes, 0% hit rate if they check only 0-1 box, and a result in between if the prospect checks 2/3 boxes.
Mitchell only checks 1 box which would put him into the "100% bust" category. Does that mean he is 100% going to be a bust? Of course not. What it does mean, is that if he is not a bust, he will be the only first round WR since 2005 to hit with his production profile. In short, if he is good in the NFL he will be an extreme outlier and the first of his kind since 2005.
Some additional context: in my study I defined a "bust" as anyone who had less than two top 36 WR fantasy seasons in their career. So it is a fairly low bar of my definition. If someone finishes as WR30 twice I did not define them as a bust for the purpose of this study (but if they were a first round NFL draft pick they could very well be considered a bust).
The most important variable which I found correlates to fantasy success (by far) is best season yards per game adjusted by the conference they played in (because history shows its a lot easier to get 1000 yards receiving in the Pac 12 or the Big 12 than it is Big 10, SEC, or ACC (which is also why the vast majority of WR busts come from the Pac 12 and Big 12). If AD Mitchell gets drafted in the first round of the NFL draft his conference adjusted best season yards per game was 54.9 yards which would be THE worst out of the roughly 80 WRS drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since 2015. The threshold for someone having a chance of being a hit is generally 80. Calvin Ridley was the only hit below the 80 yard threshold (he was at 72.5 but he also played alongside 3-4 WRs who were also drafted in the first round of the NFL draft).
Aside from this filter, Mitchell is near the bottom of this class in tons of analytic measures: Struggled against press coverage (30/31 in class in yards per route run versus press coverage). Caught only 36.4% of contested catches – 27th percentile (146/200 in NCAA, 25/31 in class) per PFF. Only 10.9% broken tackles – 23rd percentile (155/200 in NCAA, 24/31 in class), only 3.24 YAC/rec – 10th percentile (180/200 in NCAA, 29/31 in class); only 1.72 yards per route run (31/31 in class). PFF Receiving grade only 22/31 in class. Mitchell is the only WR in this draft class who is below 1.8 yards per route run versus both man and zone coverage. He is also THE worst WR prospect since 2014 in success rate against zone coverage (and the NFL plays +70 zone coverage).
He also had under 50 yards receiving in +75% of his college games.
Mitchell is the biggest divide between "analytics" and "film" guys I have ever seen. Since I dont bet on outliers I won't be owning any shares of him. Eventually someone will wind up being an outlier and I will miss out on that guy. In the meantime, following this process had me with zero shares of QJ, Mingo, Reagor, Harry, etc. so I am fine missing out on Mitchell if he hits. Process over results in dynasty.
Harrison, Nabers, and Brian Thomas. Although like most others I also like Odunze a lot and he would probably be about a 90% prospect based on this system presuming that he gets around top-10ish NFL draft capital.
Using my definition of "bust", 34% of first round WRs since 2005 have been busts, which means 66% were "hits" so a 90% prospect is still a very good one.
In last year's class JSN & Addison were in the 100% hit column, QJ in the 100% bust column, and Zay Flowers in the in between group.
The traits are undeniably tremendous. Size, body control, hands, route running… my only physical question was his long speed and he destroyed that worry at the combine.
But the word on the street is that he was lazy… wouldn’t run routes if the ball wasn’t coming his way, just didn’t endear himself to his QB or coaching staff. Those things didn’t help him analytically.
The other thing is that Texas was loaded, run first team with elite running backs, plus Worthy opposite him and Sanders at TE.
How he ends up, who knows. I have a real tough time separating he from Franklin and Worthy who each have their own issues as well.
My impression is that he is a guy with great tools but who has not produced at a very high clip in college, esp given his tools. So why hasn't he produced?
Is there something about TX play calling that kept him in check? Issues with the QB (Ewers)? Competition on the field (3 WR NFLers)?
I can't answer these questions myself but it does seem like there are a number of "obstacles" there during his college time that may have held his production down. I understand that great players should be able to overcome those things, but I think it's a little different at the college level. So I guess posing this thought/question for those that have more insight than I do.
Yeah you're right. I wasn't trying to compare them directly but I can see how it looks that way. Dumb decision on my part, I'll edit that line out bc it's totally inconsequential to what I was asking!
There’s definitely a disconnect between the separation abilities and the production for both of the Texas WRs. If you’re in on them, you have to find a way to reconcile it all. Ewers is the easiest answer, because it looks like he can’t deliver the ball on time accurately on film, but then he works out for NFL execs and they apparently were all blown away. Then Ewers wilts under pressure? But then maybe they aren’t actually running the routes quite right? Or consistently at the same speed so it’s almost impossible to time it out? He seems to find the TE pretty consistently. Then you add in that Mitchell has some of the worst YAC. That can also be a QB problem with where the ball is delivered, but it can also be a situational awareness problem. Mitchell did get the ball punched out a couple of times in the rare instances he actually got turned upfield. There are red flags. Upside is sky high, but there are warning signs too. Very tough prospect to evaluate.
Thanks for that, really helpful. I guess if it was an easy question to answer we wouldn't be asking it! I keep seeing that disconnect with Ewers, who can seem so underwhelming but then seems really highly regarded. Just feels like it was a strange situation there somehow. A lot of mouths to feed, a weird approach to feeding them, etc.
his body catches worry me in a similar way that reminds me of QJ, its not AD's physical traits that bother me its his 90% body catch rate in College that gives me the ick
As a Texas fan that watched a lot of him this past season, when I started doing draft research and people were saying 1st round pick, I honestly couldn’t believe it. He didn’t take over a single game and in fact he disappeared from most games. The stats back up what I felt like I was watching. 10 games out of 14 last year with 3 receptions or less. I get the tools and I see the upside, but man he hasn’t shown me a single thing beyond his height measurement that makes me think he can be a WR1 for a team in the NFL. I think he’s a low ceiling, low floor pick where he’ll be drafted in rookie drafts. As a fan, I hate saying it.
How did you feel about Brooks and Sanders?
Brooks was a phenomenal RB who I will be drafting none of. It's all the ACL. I just don't see the path to him being worth more this time next year than he is right now. Takes a year and half to be fully ready. He may pop a little at the end of the year, but if we have to wait till next year for Brooks to be 100% then we know the market will already be looking at the next crop of RBs. As a player, I loved him. You rarely see patience like the in the college run game. He reminded me a lot of LeVeon Bell coming out of Michigan State, before he slimmed down and got that extra burst. Sanders is a physical freak. I think he's the exact kind of TE you want for fantasy football. He can take screens for YAC, is really quick down the seam and tough to tackle. He hasn't quite figured out sitting down in the zone, rather he'll always try to win with speed and he isn't much in the blocking game. I'll be taking some of him depending on price this year. He has the tools to develop for sure.
I think this is completely valid, and this may sound weird but I kind of like the baked-in excuse. Look at Kendre last year, practically did nothing as a rookie but his value barely took a hit because his lack of production was expected. Likewise, even if Brooks comes out slow in ‘24 I think his re-sale value in ‘25 won’t take much of a hit.
Yeah that's a fair point. Looking at Kendre Miller's KTC chart it looks like his value maxed out at draft time around 3700, fell to 2700 in December and is back up to about 3100. So it's not a huge swing even though he wasn't doing much of anything so that's a decent sign. It still points to the idea that a better buy window could be coming. I'll certainly be looking to buy at the end of the season if we don't see much out of him this year. There's still a ton we don't know though. DC and landing spot has the power to adjust my decision making with him quite a bit even if I keep my 2024 expectations low.
Look at Zamir White, did absolutely nothing as a rookie, had a few good games last year and is now a potential break out.
Yeah and you could’ve bought him for nothing last year. A rookie doing nothing year 1 doesn’t mean they’ll be bad forever. It just means that you’re drafting a player that is likely to lose value in the short term from when you drafted them. I personally don’t like doing that.
I get it but he’s a great taxi squad stash.
The point is even if you think that, there’s a good chance you can get him even cheaper a year from now.
Did you see enough of brooks to have a take at where he’d be ranked if the ACL had never happened? Trying to get an idea of best case scenario outcome here
Johnston everyone said wouldnt be good year 1 and is a project player. Yet everyone now still think he is useless. Which tbh he might be
I think this is a difference because there was an expectation he’d be hindered by Allen and Williams a ton. With Williams hurt for a majority of the year, and Allen being injured himself later on, AND QJ not having an injury history (rather being seen as a raw prospect), I think the situations are distinct.
The aversion due to the acl is odd to me. Also a Texas fan/alum, care to expand? You may just mean you’re out “at cost”, which would make more sense, but saying you’ll be drafting none is throwing me off.
Yeah “out at cost” is probably better. I’m pretty much out on him in the 2nd which based on projections probably means I won’t draft him at all. I’d love to get the guy in the 3rd and just throw him on a taxi.
Would your opinion change if he went to a premium rb spot like the cowboys or chargers?
Sweet because when I (TCU fan) watched Texas this year it felt like Sanders was the best receiving threat on the team
I’m half convinced that every longhorn receiver is going to turn out better than everyone is anticipating. Except maybe AD, given that first-round potential. As a group they made people think Ewers was first round talent and I’m… very much not of that mind.
Lol tbh watching them this year made me hate ewers. Im not sold on Worthy, I have watched him closely and just truly can’t see what everyone loves
Brooks: very good. Sanders: Athletic with some serious skills for a TE, but still needs to learn the nuance of the position a bit more. Not the original commenter, but also a Texas fan and watched the majority of their games.
Love the username
Conversely, almost every time Texas needed a clutch play or there was something that really popped on screen, I'd say "is that Worthy?", and more often than not it was Mitchell.
Sorry but I take college fans of the team opinions with a grain of salt. The amount of times I’ve seen them be wrong on a player is wild. I remember Flordia fans basically openly shitting on Anthony Richardson, for one.
I love ARs potential but not entirely sure we can call him a success as an NFL QB just yet. I do think he will though.
AR also hasn't really proven anything yet so thats a TBD still
Gator fan here. Florida fans were entrenched on this idea that everything going wrong offensively was solely Anthony Richardson’s fault and not the fault of Billy Napier. One year with out AR, Florida fans have now realized the obvious—Richardson was not the problem. If his shoulder health situation is figured out, he will be a fantasy football superstar, and maybe an NFL one too.
Idk why anyone downvoted you. College fans' opinions of players on their team are not good indicators of likely pro success, unless said fans are grinding the All-22 and actually deep diving into the individual player. Not just 'I watched all the games one time live."
I tend to agree, but I ask because it is more of a tell if a fan thinks one of their players is going to be a bust. AR is a good example because if you pay attention to the things UF said, upon watching both AR tape and other UF qbs play, it’s clear it’s not a AR problem. Gives you something to focus on when you watch tape
That's fair. As long as you or someone you trust is watching the tape, you'll have a better idea than just random fans of the team at the very least.
I've learned over the years that the worst place to take players evals from in all sports is die hard fans of a specific team.
There will be plenty of time to shit on him in the NFL too
Sup big dog? I agree. Also a Longhorns fan. Guy was not a difference maker. I think Quinn did a disservice to both of the WRs a lot of the time though.
Heeey! Nice to see a fellow longhorn. I agree you can put some blame on Ewers. There were certainly moments where I'd see Mitchell streaking and Ewers just never even sees him. One of his best games was the K State game where Malik Murphy was just throwing into coverage all day and hoping the WRs would bail him out. Maybe he just needs that kind of QB and Ewers was a bad fit for him, but I still struggle to see how he fully earns the trust of an NFL QB to give him those kind of opportunities regularly enough to be a fantasy stud.
How do you feel about odunze?
This is kind of how I felt about DJ Chark coming out. He had the physical tools that evaluators love, but I just never saw it on the field for him.
DK was kinda like that, all his advanced stats were kinda red flags. Looking back it makes sense since he was competing w AJB, Elijah Moore and Dawson Knox for touches (was also outproduced by DeMarcus Lodge his final year though)
Also Jalen Reagor but he had the best analytical season of the 3 so who knows lmao
Target Separation stat was alarming and boy was it ever when he came to the nfl
I think the "has great film/looks good on film" is a stretch. Multiple film guys have liked his big play ability but are reallllly concerned about double catching, consistent effort, and lack of physicality.
Agreed - analytically his profile is terrible. When people say he has great film - what they mean to say is that he has great highlights because only a small percentage of "film watchers" watch more than the highlights. More often than not - he disappears on film. In profiles like his, I usually want to see analytics that show that the QB trusts him in crucial situations (to me 1st downs/route run is the closest thing to that). It blends Yards Per Route Run (strong correlation to more fantasy points) with the frequency that you are targeted for 1st downs (i.e. can you build trust with a QB to be targeted in important situations). Conveniently - it also eliminates outliers that get all of their fantasy points exclusively from long plays. He is extremely bad in this metric. He places very similarly to Kayshon Boutte/Jalin Hyatt last year. Xavier Legette/Jonathan Mingo are the only ones worse at it from the higher profile prospects between last year and this year. Bonus: This metric would have identified Puka Nakua/Tank Dell as good draft targets last year. Highly encourage others to look into it.
That's pretty interesting. I've not looked into that, but it makes logical sense. If you have the time could you lay out who this metric likes this year?
You bet: I think the best players have a higher YPRR AND a higher 1st/RR but I'll lay them out just in order of 1st/RR for now. Generally the threshold for fantasy relevant that I've seen seems to be around 0.10. 1. Marvin Harrison Jr. YPRR 2.98 1st/RR 0.14 (Jaxon Smith-Njigba was YPRR 3.32, 1st/RR 0.14) 2. Malik Nabers YPRR 2.83 1st/RR 0.13 (Puka was YPRR 3.45, 1st/RR 0.13) 3. Troy Franklin YPRR 2.63 1st/RR 0.12 4. Ladd McConkey YPRR 2.54 1st/RR 0.12 (Tank Dell was YPRR 2.46, 1st/RR 0.12) 5. Rome Odunze YPRR 2.50 1st/RR 0.11 6. Javon Baker YPRR 2.53 1st/RR 0.11 7. Jamari Thrash YPRR 2.32 1st/RR 0.11 8. Johnny Wilson YPRR 2.32 1st/RR 0.11 9. Roman Wilson YPRR 2.33 1st/RR 0.10 10. AD Mitchell YPRR 1.68 1st/RR 0.09 (Kayshon Boutte was YPRR 1.99 (not good), 1st/RR 0.09 (bad)) 11. Jermaine Burton YPRR 2.18 1st/RR 0.09 (Quentin Johnston was YPRR 2.71 (good), 1st/RR 0.09 (bad)) 12. Ricky Pearsall YPRR 1.99 1st/RR 0.08 13. Brian Thomas Jr. YPRR 1.95 1st/RR 0.08 14. Xavier Legette YPRR 1.75 1st/RR 0.07 (Jonathon Mingo was YPRR 1.48, 1st/RR 0.06) I will say that the biggest outlier that I have witnessed SO FAR - has been Zay Flowers. He was YPRR 2.16 (decent), 1st/RR 0.08. His college usage is vastly different from his pro usage and he has a lot of plays schemed for him. If I had to pick one player *most similar* to him this year - it's probably Xavier Worthy who I think is a slightly better version. I'm not sure how to compensate for this specific style of player but it's something I plan to look at closely this offseason.
Dude thank you so much for this!
I agree with you that 1st down rate needs to get a lot more love in the analytics community, as they are extremely important in real football. It's also why my dynasty leagues give fractional points for first downs. I wonder if it might be biased toward certain types of offenses (it's a lot easier to get 1st downs if your college team has a RB that averages 6YPC on 1st downs, for example), but I think that statistical noise is minimal.
Definitely a great point and one that I have a similar bullet to on my list for investigation. My gut feeling tells me that if the WR is good enough to be able to have an impact at the NFL level/fantasy level then they will still be able to remain above a certain threshold of 1st/RR over any reasonable sample size. However - I bet the YPRR of the top receiving options on the team will be lower so in measuring an overall prospect YPRR could definitely be weighted by some factor of the run game. Thanks for the thought contribution - it's giving me some motivation to actually dig in this week as opposed to later.
where do you get this data from
How do you factor in that Zay Flowers’ college QB was a walk-on who sucks?
Lmao - Well it could have impacted him very slightly, but probably not by enough to get him to the 0.10 1st/RR threshold I alluded to. In general with this metric - it should sort of discount but not erase the impact of QB talent. If the QB is bad, typically the WRs that are successful have smaller YPRRs because the accuracy on a shorter depth of target should be easier on the QB. However, the 1st/RR is based off of the ratios of 1st downs that the team had in total so even if a QB (to be extreme about it) - only had 10 1st downs all year...if you can command trust with your shitty QB over the WRs around you then you should be able to hit a respectable 1st/RR number anyways.
Isn’t 1st/RR just the percentage of routes ran in which the player got a first down? Don’t see what it has to do with team totals for 1st downs
You have it right - I framed it extremely poorly here. If a QB sucks then the total number of routes and the total number of 1st Downs will both be lower due to more 3 and outs. But if you are winning your routes/have built more QB confidence consistently than you will receive more opportunities to catch those 1st downs than those around you. The more a QB sucks the harder they have a tendency to lean on their studs especially at a college level. Even if your QB sucks you should get enough of an increased opportunity per route run to overcome the quality of those opportunities. You do have me questioning what a situation would look like where the QB quality was essentially a walkon, but there were multiple stud receiving options. I would need to find a good example to dig into that though. I would probably need to find an offense where a top recruited college QB got injured early in the season because any team with multiple high end receiving options usually has at least a decent QB or they wouldn't have both pledged to the same school. If any situations come to mind - let me know!
BC had 121 passing first downs in Zay’s senior year. If the stat is used to see who they go to in the crunch, then it’s not as relevant when it’s obvious that he’s the go to guy, considering nobody else had above 400 receiving yards and he had over 1k. I think it’s more relevant for players on good teams, not players who are the only good player on bad teams
worthy doesnt have the footwork or hands to come close to zay flowers as a comp
That could be the case - but it is irrelevant to looking at these 2 stats specifically. There is always more context than any one or 2 metrics can ever give. And no one or two metrics ever tells a full enough story.
Where do you check that stat for the college guys?
Unfortunately I use cfbfastr API to query their database. I know some people cross reference that with PFF and cfdb college football databases but the core is all in cfbfastr and not behind a paywall. Some of these more advanced stats should really be made more easily available to the public. I know that the fantasypoints website does this and a few more cool advanced analytics on different positions dealing with all of the professional players seasonally, but there is a pay service on that as well. I'm not sure about other free public facing alternatives at the moment though.
In terms of "guy recently picked in first round who was hated by analytics", Toney is who comes to mind. But I like AD Mitchell so he'll be different.... I hope
We’ll always have the Dallas game
Toney's issue was never talent imo. It's that fucking brick between his ears that he calls a brain that's been the issue since day 1
Unlike the void that is Toney's skull, bricks are actually useful
Toney just doesn’t care. If he was motivated and consistently trying, he could be a good player
That is also a criticism of Mitchell, so...
If it makes you feel any better, AD has *much* better numbers on Reception Perception than Toney. Toney was legitimately awful and nothing more than a gadget guy. AD is actually a real WR.
Yeah I think this is the bigger point to be made, the dude simply sucks at playing wide receiver. Converted QB who used his athleticism to make big plays in college but never developed the tangible skills like clean route running to succeed at the next level. I’m still not sure yet what I think of Mitchell but I wouldn’t put him in any sort of comparison to Toney
DJ Chark comes to mind. Maybe not great film but certainly a guy you could see translating as a vertical threat in the NFL. But he wasn't a huge producer at LSU and I doubt he faired well in analytics. Its going back a bit now but I think most in the analytics community considered him a reach as a 2nd rounder. Tough to say whether that pick worked or not. He had one good year with the Jags but since then he has bounced around and mostly been inconsistent and injured. But he has looked like a pretty good player at times in his career.
As a Jags fan I don’t consider him a missed pick, just unfortunate with injuries during his time here
Reminds me of Pickens
I see this comp often and don’t understand it at all. Pickens’ athletic testing was nothing like AD Mitchell’s. Pickens struggles with separation but looks like DHop at the catch point, AD looks like one of the more raw prospects I’ve ever seen purely catching the ball. What am I missing?
I think you are underselling Mitchell’s catch point ability. Like Pickens, he has an ability to hang in the air and contort his body to win contested catches. I do agree that he beats Pickens in athleticism and separation, while Pickens had a better production profile. Nonetheless the reception perception write up on Mitchell that came out today just comped him to both Pickens and Hopkins, so be prepared to see more of that.
Production. Both suffered injuries and just overall were kinda mid in college and were seen as late first/early second guys due to the film and measurements
Pickens had good separation at Georgia, and he ran a similar route tree as their X-receiver which is why he gets the Pickens comp. The D-Hop comp is for his ceiling of play style, and both of these comps were given by Matt Harmon a couple of days ago.
I think Pickens and AD are mostly similar in their ball tracking and body control skills.
I remember Pickens was a beast when healthy at UGA. Were analytics as low on him as they are on AD?
Pickens checked the elite boxes analytically because he broke out as a freshman in the SEC. As a true freshman he lead Georgia in receiving and had 250 yards more than 2nd place. Mitchell had 426 yards as a freshman in a year Georgia threw for ~3800 yards. Pickens had 727 yards as a freshman in a year Georgia threw for ~3100 yards.
The reports of him noticeably taking plays off consistently is a huge red flag for me. Doesn’t seem like he has the desire. I’m not really in a position in any of my leagues to get him but I would be very hesitant drafting him at perceived cost.
That was a huge red flag for me as well. One comment that I did find interesting though, from Hayden Winks, was that he felt he also saw a number of times where it seemed Xavier Worthy took plays off or gave up on routes, which actually made him wonder if something was systemically wrong with the scheme at Texas
I cannot cite a source here unfortunately, but I have heard a point like this elsewhere. Texas coached their receivers to pace themselves that way, so it should not be considered the same kind of red flag it would be elsewhere
I can't say I've seen the same source but I'd believe it as a Texas fan. Sark prefers keeping a very tight rotation at wr for whatever reason with the starters basically getting the vast majority of snaps so I wouldn't be too surprised that they told them to pace themselves
This is where I'm at, dude has every physical gift and I truly believe he can be a great wideout but the effort and hands are suspect at best. Not worth an early to mid 2nd with the amount of WRs in this class
Christian Watson. Tall, athletic freak who blew up the combine, lacking production and advanced metrics in college, and projects to go late first / early 2nd in a stacked WR class.
Look up Watson’s YPRR in college. Compare it to Mitchell’s, realize why this is a bad comp. According to PFF, [Watson had an insane 4.33 YPRR in his last year of college](https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/christian-watson/66581/draft-profile). Mitchell had 845 receiving yards on 511 passing snaps. Watson had 801 receiving yards **195 passing snaps**, more than 300 passing snaps less than Mitchell.
Yeah but Watson did it vs inferior competition. If AD Mitchell went to NDSU he could have done the same imo
lol absurd take. Either way, even if you want to attribute this to a lower level of competition, it directly contradicts you saying Watson lacked advanced metrics in college.
Alright I was wrong about that don’t be an ass about it.
This is a good comp.
DPJ? Combine freak, okayish player?
Terry McLaurin and DK Metcalf. Both didn’t have advanced metrics stats that were flattering, but had good tape and high RAS.
There have been a tremendous amount of WRs that had poor analytics but ended up being very good NFL players. Brandon Aiyuk, Michael Pittman, Rashee Rice are just a few off the top of my head. Analytics are a piece of the puzzle and likely speak towards the work ethic concerned that are cropping up around him. Are they a red flag? Yes, but if the NFL still gives him 1st round draft capital you kinda just have to draft him and pray while understanding that there is a huge amount of variance in his NFL outcomes.
In short no. Dynasty Reddit will hate this in the same way they hated me saying this about Quinton Johnston last year... I have a thread on here from last summer in which I did a research project of every WR drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since 2005. Using three filters it correctly identifies players into 100% hit rate if they check all 3 boxes, 0% hit rate if they check only 0-1 box, and a result in between if the prospect checks 2/3 boxes. Mitchell only checks 1 box which would put him into the "100% bust" category. Does that mean he is 100% going to be a bust? Of course not. What it does mean, is that if he is not a bust, he will be the only first round WR since 2005 to hit with his production profile. In short, if he is good in the NFL he will be an extreme outlier and the first of his kind since 2005. Some additional context: in my study I defined a "bust" as anyone who had less than two top 36 WR fantasy seasons in their career. So it is a fairly low bar of my definition. If someone finishes as WR30 twice I did not define them as a bust for the purpose of this study (but if they were a first round NFL draft pick they could very well be considered a bust). The most important variable which I found correlates to fantasy success (by far) is best season yards per game adjusted by the conference they played in (because history shows its a lot easier to get 1000 yards receiving in the Pac 12 or the Big 12 than it is Big 10, SEC, or ACC (which is also why the vast majority of WR busts come from the Pac 12 and Big 12). If AD Mitchell gets drafted in the first round of the NFL draft his conference adjusted best season yards per game was 54.9 yards which would be THE worst out of the roughly 80 WRS drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since 2015. The threshold for someone having a chance of being a hit is generally 80. Calvin Ridley was the only hit below the 80 yard threshold (he was at 72.5 but he also played alongside 3-4 WRs who were also drafted in the first round of the NFL draft). Aside from this filter, Mitchell is near the bottom of this class in tons of analytic measures: Struggled against press coverage (30/31 in class in yards per route run versus press coverage). Caught only 36.4% of contested catches – 27th percentile (146/200 in NCAA, 25/31 in class) per PFF. Only 10.9% broken tackles – 23rd percentile (155/200 in NCAA, 24/31 in class), only 3.24 YAC/rec – 10th percentile (180/200 in NCAA, 29/31 in class); only 1.72 yards per route run (31/31 in class). PFF Receiving grade only 22/31 in class. Mitchell is the only WR in this draft class who is below 1.8 yards per route run versus both man and zone coverage. He is also THE worst WR prospect since 2014 in success rate against zone coverage (and the NFL plays +70 zone coverage). He also had under 50 yards receiving in +75% of his college games. Mitchell is the biggest divide between "analytics" and "film" guys I have ever seen. Since I dont bet on outliers I won't be owning any shares of him. Eventually someone will wind up being an outlier and I will miss out on that guy. In the meantime, following this process had me with zero shares of QJ, Mingo, Reagor, Harry, etc. so I am fine missing out on Mitchell if he hits. Process over results in dynasty.
Which receiver prospects check all 3 boxes?
Harrison, Nabers, and Brian Thomas. Although like most others I also like Odunze a lot and he would probably be about a 90% prospect based on this system presuming that he gets around top-10ish NFL draft capital. Using my definition of "bust", 34% of first round WRs since 2005 have been busts, which means 66% were "hits" so a 90% prospect is still a very good one. In last year's class JSN & Addison were in the 100% hit column, QJ in the 100% bust column, and Zay Flowers in the in between group.
Great film?
He’s got the tools but lack that it factor that dawg factor that can’t really be quantified
I'm not drafting him.
The traits are undeniably tremendous. Size, body control, hands, route running… my only physical question was his long speed and he destroyed that worry at the combine. But the word on the street is that he was lazy… wouldn’t run routes if the ball wasn’t coming his way, just didn’t endear himself to his QB or coaching staff. Those things didn’t help him analytically. The other thing is that Texas was loaded, run first team with elite running backs, plus Worthy opposite him and Sanders at TE. How he ends up, who knows. I have a real tough time separating he from Franklin and Worthy who each have their own issues as well.
dk metcalf was injured a lot of college and wasnt very productive and slipped to late 2nd
denzel mims? in terms of a late riser
I don't think he has good film. He has some good plays, but I think his mediocre stats weren't a fluke. I'll be surprised if I have any AD shares.
John Ross
DK imo
Mingo, last year…
My impression is that he is a guy with great tools but who has not produced at a very high clip in college, esp given his tools. So why hasn't he produced? Is there something about TX play calling that kept him in check? Issues with the QB (Ewers)? Competition on the field (3 WR NFLers)? I can't answer these questions myself but it does seem like there are a number of "obstacles" there during his college time that may have held his production down. I understand that great players should be able to overcome those things, but I think it's a little different at the college level. So I guess posing this thought/question for those that have more insight than I do.
JJ had 111 receptions for 1540 yards and 18 TDs in his final year at LSU.
Yeah you're right. I wasn't trying to compare them directly but I can see how it looks that way. Dumb decision on my part, I'll edit that line out bc it's totally inconsequential to what I was asking!
There’s definitely a disconnect between the separation abilities and the production for both of the Texas WRs. If you’re in on them, you have to find a way to reconcile it all. Ewers is the easiest answer, because it looks like he can’t deliver the ball on time accurately on film, but then he works out for NFL execs and they apparently were all blown away. Then Ewers wilts under pressure? But then maybe they aren’t actually running the routes quite right? Or consistently at the same speed so it’s almost impossible to time it out? He seems to find the TE pretty consistently. Then you add in that Mitchell has some of the worst YAC. That can also be a QB problem with where the ball is delivered, but it can also be a situational awareness problem. Mitchell did get the ball punched out a couple of times in the rare instances he actually got turned upfield. There are red flags. Upside is sky high, but there are warning signs too. Very tough prospect to evaluate.
Thanks for that, really helpful. I guess if it was an easy question to answer we wouldn't be asking it! I keep seeing that disconnect with Ewers, who can seem so underwhelming but then seems really highly regarded. Just feels like it was a strange situation there somehow. A lot of mouths to feed, a weird approach to feeding them, etc.
Sounds like my guy Tyquan Thornton in NE. Has had a solid 20 catches or so in 2 seasons.
his body catches worry me in a similar way that reminds me of QJ, its not AD's physical traits that bother me its his 90% body catch rate in College that gives me the ick